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Atlan vs Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Atlan
Ranking in Data Governance
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Metadata Management (4th)
Microsoft Purview Data Life...
Ranking in Data Governance
26th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (8th), Document Management Software (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (29th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Atlan is 1.9%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management is 1.3%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Atlan1.9%
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management1.3%
Other96.8%
Data Governance
 

Featured Reviews

Peter Neumann - PeerSpot reviewer
IT consultant at Pathfinder
Has struggled to meet business needs but supports technical data exploration and transparency
Atlan can be improved by concentrating more on business data since it is developed from developers for developers, and it needs to be more business relevant. For instance, when re-importing data model diagrams, Atlan provides some diagram automation that is not connected to the business glossary, which I consider a significant fault. Atlan needs to improve by focusing more on the business side of data, not only on technical aspects.If you want to focus on technical considerations, it would be beneficial to have an interface with a real business data modeling tool such as Erwin or other business data tools, since data modeling is not the same as Draw.io. Additionally, Atlan can improve its workflows, which are hard to understand. Working with templates, Excel import, export, and running automations is not self-explanatory, and you always need help from Atlan support team. If business people want to use it and run their own reports, it must be easier to customize for their business needs.
ST
Ict Systems Manager at Lltnpa
Automated retention has transformed compliance workflows and now simplifies audit responses
The deep native integration with Microsoft 365 is what ultimately made me decide on Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management over Enterprise Vault and OpenText Content Manager. Auto-apply retention labels using machine learning is the specific integration with Microsoft 365 that made it the deciding factor for me over Enterprise Vault or OpenText. Manually labeling content at our data volumes is not realistic. The automated classification based on sensitive information types and trainable classifiers is what makes the program actually scale. That feature gets used constantly. We went from inconsistent ad-hoc retention practices to a consistent, automated, documented program across the whole organization with Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management. That shift from a compliance audit perspective is enormous.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Atlas is quite intuitive."
"The best feature of Atlan is its integration with communication platforms like Microsoft Teams and Slack, so business users don't have to go into a data catalog to see metadata about data assets."
"By switching to Atlan, we have increased our productivity and saved a lot of business time through automation."
"They also offer automated lineage embedded in the connectors, allowing us to track where the data is coming from and where it's going. We find it very efficient in cataloging data sources. Additionally, the user-friendly interface is a big plus, making it easy for users to familiarize themselves with the solution. These two features, in my opinion, stand out the most."
"Overall, I rate Atlan as a ten out of ten."
"The technical support services are good."
"By switching to Atlan, we have increased our productivity and saved a lot of business time."
"Atlan is helpful for identifying datasets and discovering PI data, such as the classification levels of datasets (gold, silver, bronze)."
"The UI is the most valuable feature."
"The system is stable; I haven't encountered any worldwide stability issues unlike other office products."
"We went from inconsistent ad-hoc retention practices to a consistent, automated, documented program across the whole organization with Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management."
"The impact of Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management on my unified data catalog has improved a lot; the improvements I see are in the lineage, the discovery, and the labeling."
"HPE Apollo Systems has positively impacted our organization by improving business operations by eighty percent, saving time, improving efficiency, and facilitating the management of large data sets."
 

Cons

"There are some improvements. There is a feature called Playbooks, which basically allows me to automate certain activities that would otherwise be manual. It's a very interesting feature, but there is room to improve it because, depending on the task you automate, the playbooks seem to have a hard time handling the task. So, it could be improved there. Even though it's a great feature, it can evolve further."
"One of the main areas for improvement is its governance capabilities."
"One of the main areas for improvement is its governance capabilities. Atlan supports only basic out-of-the-box workflows, and it becomes challenging to customize features like how data owners should approve access to data assets."
"Certain UI changes could make Atlan more user-friendly."
"The product could be improved by offering scheduled email reports for managed assets."
"One area that could be improved is the capability to find duplicates of datasets."
"The challenge is in the lineage, where it requires improvement. Atlas needs to capture areas where organizations use less known applications."
"Customer support for Atlan is not so proactive."
"The initial setup took longer than we expected. Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management is not a turn-it-on-and-go product."
"I think labeling could use a lot more AI assistance. AI implementation into labeling would be beneficial."
"There is no specific improvement I would suggest for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management, but I think if they can work on policy design and usability, adding more granular control for the organization regarding controlling the movement of data outside would definitely improve the solution."
"Microsoft's Purview Data Lifecycle Management preview features can be unreliable, hindering their usefulness."
"The time it takes to scan is one issue; when we raise high-volume issues and tickets related to scanning failures, it relates to permission errors, which are technical challenges."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay per-user license. It's a different classification model than with other solutions, where they usually charge you for resources. So, that was a better model for us. And because of this difference in models or classification, it was cheaper for us to go with Atlan."
"The service operates on a pay-as-you-go basis, charging an extra one cent per field of metadata scanned in our data."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Atlan?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that the licensing cost is a bit flexible but not affordable for smaller organizations. It might be way out of their budget, but it is very ...
What needs improvement with Atlan?
Atlan can be improved by enhancing their support process by reducing the resolution time. They have really bad and incomplete documentation, so they should work on the documentation as well, especi...
What is your primary use case for Atlan?
My main use case for Atlan is to define a flexible set of metadata, including measuring the quality of said data. Atlan is also a partner of ours, so we use it to integrate with our own tool. It al...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
We opted for Purview Data Lifecycle Management due to its significant cost advantage over competitors. At a 95 percent price reduction, it was a clear winner. The service operates on a pay-as-you-g...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
There is no specific improvement I would suggest for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management, but I think if they can work on policy design and usability, adding more granular control for the o...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
My main use case for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management is identifying the core capabilities across Microsoft 365 workloads such as Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, and Viva Engage. ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Information Governance, Microsoft Purview Records Management
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Atlan vs. Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
899,258 professionals have used our research since 2012.