Collibra Governance Reviews

We use it for metadata management, data lineage, and automated governance processes. I am working on the SaaS deployment, but I have also worked on the on-premise deployment. I am currently using its latest version.

We get to see the end-to-end data life cycle or the data flow in our organization. In my previous project, I implemented the Collibra Governance solution. We got the metadata right from the landing layer, and then throughout the intermediate layer, that is, the staging layer, the application layer, and the data warehouse layer. We then connected all the metadata together. So, in one single go, you can see how your data is landing, how it is getting transformed while it is moving throughout, and who is consuming this data through the reports, and in which report it is getting used. You can see the entire snapshot in one single click, which is a great feature for an organization.

The end-to-end solution itself is great. The most valuable is the workload feature that Collibra offers. There is a vast amount of flexibility in terms of how much we can customize. It gives us a lot of options to implement for a lot of purposes.

One problem is the data lineage, especially extracting the ETL transformation from different ETL tools and identifying how the data is getting changed from one layer to different layers and how the transformation is applied. It doesn't support all the ETL tools for extracting the transformation logic. It supports some of the tools, but there are still some tools that need to be supported. 

There is also a small pain point in terms of integration. There is a little bit of change in their strategy from Collibra's end. Earlier, they used to offer two solutions. One was out of the box, and one was a custom-built solution for which they used to provide a dual connector. Now the focus from the Collibra side is more on using the out of the box connector. They are discouraging doing the custom integration. That leaves us with two problems. The first problem is that the out-of-the-box connecter is not yet enabled for a lot of systems, and the second problem is that the out-of-the-box connecter has certain limitations. If we want to tweak those as per our needs, it is not possible. However, the custom-built is still supported, and you can still build a custom integration by using the API, but it is not very encouraged by Collibra.

Its dashboard also needs to be improved. There are options to use the HTML code to customize your dashboard, but it has a lot of limitations.

I have been using it for two and a half years.

It is a stable product. In the past, whenever a new version was introduced, there were a few issues, and a few things didn't work, but Collibra has improved the quality now. In the last couple of upgrades, I have not seen such an issue.

It supports the entire enterprise's data governance, which means that you can have a vast amount of metadata and bring metadata from any system. That could mean millions of tables and columns. I haven't seen its performance deteriorate too much. It is just that when you are trying to integrate with a new system and you are also trying to profile the data, it can give some challenges with a huge data set.

It is used very heavily in my latest project. The customer has a lot of expectations. They are trying to replace the existing system and want to completely move to Collibra Governance. So, it is being used pretty extensively, and they will add more and more to it.

I would rate their technical support as medium. I have had several interactions with Collibra. The response is usually within eight hours. You may or may not get a good answer in the first go. You may have to do a follow-up, again explain the question, and then they get back.

I have some experience with Informatica EDC and Axon, which together provide a data governance solution. The main difference is that Informatica has separated the business and technical aspects of data governance. EDC or Enterprise Data Catalog handles the data catalogs, integration, and harvesting the metadata, and Axon focuses on the business aspect of data governance, such as data lineage, data quality, and workflows. Collibra has everything in one solution. As far as integrations are concerned, Informatica has the edge over Collibra. It provides more connectors and more flexibility for building custom solutions.

If you are using the SaaS version, it is very straightforward. Otherwise, it could have complications. You won't realize those complications in the beginning because the product really starts running. However, when you start bringing the metadata from different sources, you will realize that there are some configuration changes that you need to make. Maybe the connectivity is not happening, and some firewalls need to be opened. Collibra is no longer providing the on-premise option for new customers. They are asking everyone to go for the cloud version.

In terms of deployment duration, if you are using a SaaS version, it hardly takes a day to get your product up and running. Implementing the use cases is an ongoing process. It typically takes six months to a year for implementing the high priority use cases.

It does not generally require a lot of people for deployment, but it also depends on the use cases. Generally, two to four people are enough. In terms of the team, we have a Collibra workflow developer, metamodel developer, Collibra architect, and integration developer. They all handle different aspects of the work.

In terms of maintenance, it does require maintenance, and you have to keep updating it. Most of the stuff is done automatically for you, but you still need to verify your custom code to check if anything is broken.

I have worked with two or three implementations. Even though my current client has a lot of expectations from Collibra, they have not realized the full ROI. They are still exploring it and have not yet reached that stage where they can make a decision. One of my earlier customers was pretty happy and satisfied with this solution, and they did realize the ROI.

I think it is on a yearly basis, but I'm not involved with the pricing session, so I have no idea. There are several licenses for different models. You get one license per product, but a lot of features are controlled separately through different licenses. So, as and when you want to use a feature, you have to procure the license for that feature.

I would definitely recommend this solution, but I would say that before starting the implementation, just understand what the product is, what it can do, and what it cannot do. Don't focus too much on the technical aspects of the product. Data governance should be used from the business point of view.

Data governance was a new concept for me. By using this product, I got to know a lot of different aspects of data governance, and how should you go about implementing it. One main lesson that I have learned from using this solution is that don't just focus on bringing the metadata from the whole system and dumping it into the tool. It will become unreadable for other users. You will end up with too much data that no one is using. It is better to start small.

I would rate Collibra Governance an eight out of ten. There are two main bottlenecks for my use cases that can cause trouble for me. It needs better data lineage functionality for extracting the transformations. It also needs better integration. I would like to see more connectors and more flexibility in terms of integrating it with different systems. 

In my company, we use Collibra Governance for data catalog.

Pricing policy of the product is an area with certain shortcomings that needs improvement. I would like to see better pricing in future releases of the product. Collibra Governance needs to develop some new technology, like Atlan, that has been incorporating AI in the automation area of its products.

I have been using Collibra Governance for five years. I have ensured that one of my company's customers uses the solution's latest version. My company has a partnership with Collibra.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Around 30 people in my organization use the solution.

The solution's technical support is helpful and responsive. I rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

Positive

I have probably worked with most of the products in the market related to data governance and data catalog, including products like Informatica Axon. I still do work with Informatica Axon at times.

The product's deployment phase was straightforward.

The solution is deployed on an AWS Cloud, which is a private cloud.

The deployment process is carried out by Collibra Governance's technical team.

There is definitely a return on investment from using the product, especially if you associate it with a data catalog tool. The return on investments is in terms of optimizing the process of development, data quality improvement, and having a single repository source of information for the metadata of the entire organization.

I don't know the licensing costs of the product since it is a SaaS solution.

I rate the pricing a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is expensive, and ten is cheap.

The maintenance is something that is carried out automatically by Collibra Governance.

I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.

We use this solution for workflows and for specific use cases. For our retail and insurance clients, we meet governance requirements by using all the features that Collibra provides. We do most of the work using workflows and connectors. We build connectors where the data will be extracted from a third party tool and  input in Collibra.

We have 40 to 50 team members using this solution. We have three admins who manage this solution. 

Workflow is very helpful and assessment are good features. I really like the structure of this solution and how it is compartmentalized.

There are certain processes that involve a lot of manual work, specifically when searching for attribute assignments. It would be better if we could do this via APIs. 

In a future release, we would like to have rules. We would like to have Regex Expression that scans data and to monitor quality. 

I have been using this solution for four and a half years. 

This is a stable solution. 

This is a scalable solution. 

We do get most of our support questions answered precisely, but not all of them. We have needed to do some online learning. 

We have previously used Informatica and Alation. 

Collibra has a better workflow while Informatica does not offer automation. We rely on the automation that Collibra offers.

In terms of governance, I prefer Informatica because it offers different tools and data. 

The initial setup is straightforward. 

I would advise others to have a meta model before they get into Collibra so that they can use the features that Collibra provides. They should have a proper architecture design ready before starting implementation. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

We use Collibra for IT data governance, specifically for GDPR compliance. Our company is in the banking and financial institution sector and we are customers of Collibra. 

In general, this is a valuable solution for us. Collibra provides a good view of where my data is, the type of data we have across the landscape, how it's getting utilized, the quality in terms of correct calibration, and whether the integrity is uniform across the landscape. Everything is in sync and Collibra is a central repository that provides a good snapshot of understanding along with holding the integrity, confidentiality, and security of our data. 

Data discovery would be the major area that requires improvement across the landscape and I'd also like to see data redundancies. Those are the two areas where improvements could be made. A lot of countries have laws that don't allow most of the data to flow into the cloud. That issue needs to be addressed when it comes to personal data protection laws. Collibra needs to take into consideration the local laws and the concerns of those countries.

 I've been using this solution for well over two years. 

The main technical support is from Collibra which has local partners. It's not a critical application that requires 24/7 support so they're available five days a week during work hours. 

In terms of the tool, the initial set up is not a problem, but there can be many legacy factors in any organization that can affect deployment.  Implementation needs to be understood so that the tool can be aligned to the IT setup of the organization. In that sense, implementation is always a challenge. 

We deployed in-house in consultation with Collibra, and implementation took about eight months. We have about 80 users throughout our organization including CTOs, CIO,s and the board which have become more sensitive to data protection over the years. 

There are other companies with solutions in this field; IBM, Informatica and they provide a lot of competition. I believe Collibra has a good standard and is an early bird in this area, I believe they'll keep that lead as they move forward in line with this constantly evolving field. 

It's important to have a clear understanding of your IT landscape and its features and whether they really match up with the roadmap of governance in terms of compliance. Those issues need to be assessed before choosing a solution. 

This is a cost-effective product and to my mind has all the ingredients to satisfy compliance requirements as well as ease of implementation. I recommend this solution and rate it eight out of 10. 

Collibra Governance can be deployed on-premise and in the cloud. The solutions can be used for lineage data quality, business glossary, and data cataloging.

The most valuable features of Collibra Governance are that it is user-friendly and easy to use.

The price of Collibra Governance could improve.

I have been using Collibra Governance for more than two years.

We have approximately 30 business users. 

The technical support was good from Collibra Governance.

The intial setup for Collibra Governance is mostly straightforward except for the workflows. The workflows are not that straightforward. There is a learning curve.

The full implementation took approximately four months.

We have approximately four people for the deployment and maintenance of Collibra Governance.

There are different levels of licenses. For example, some users can only do read-only licenses, and others have the stewardship license where they can give access to users.

The license for Collibra Governance is expensive.

I would recommend this solution to others. However, I am trying out a new data governance tool very soon. Collibra has bought a new data quality solution, but it is not integrated yet. We are all waiting for the integration of the data quality solution. OwlDQ is the name of the solution they have bought.

All right, sir.

I rate Collibra Governance an eight out of ten.

I am part of implementing the workflow through it, setting up the glossaries, and importing the assets to Collibra Governance. 

I would say customization is the most valuable. The workflow is very good and has been embedded. It also has a great user interface.

I would like to see a feature using the runtime dashboard. As of now, we can create the dashboard using the snapshot of the report. But I would recommend having a dashboard that runs the data on the back end.

I have been using Collibra Governance for the past eight months.

I am finding that there is stability in Collibra Governance.

It is scalable and we have the ability to add more users.  Currently, we have one hundred and fifty users.

I was not involved during the setup.

I would say definitely worth the expense. Data governance takes time to see the output and results.

I would rate Collibra Governance an eight out of ten.

Our clients are typically using it for metadata management. From a broader perspective, Collibra establishes an excellent foundation on which to build an enterprise data governance program. 

The most valuable aspect of the solution is its collaboration platform, which includes the workflows, the data lineage, and some of the communities. The ability to collaborate and approve business terms for the business glossary data dictionary is excellent.

The breadth of available connectors for metadata ingestion need to grow quickly to support customers as they expand their data governance programs to include a diverse list of source systems from which they want to derive business value. The connectors are needed  to bring metadata into Collibra and enable lineage, workflows, definitions, etc.  That said, this is not just a Collibra problem - this is an everybody problem. The central challenge is the availability of APIs to ingest text structural metadata, which is a common problem across any data governance platform or even any integration platform, honestly.

To be fair, I would say that Collibra's purpose and primary value is as a collaboration platform, which is the core value of business-centric data governance, and not as an integration platform.  For this purpose, they are clearly the leading solution.

We've been using the solution for six or seven years. We've used it longer than almost anybody.

The stability is very good. It's not buggy and it doesn't have glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

It's really scalable, it's really solid. If an organization needs to expand their solution, they should be able to do so easily.

We've reached out to technical support rather frequently. That said, it depends on the topic. I would say that their tech support is excellent, but it is not necessarily an overly large team because they are still a growing company.

They have some really good, smart people, however, they don't have a team of experts for each target subject area.  They don't have a team of 20 people for each application component that can just go, "Oh, yeah. We set an appointment tomorrow!" You might have to wait a few days for the right person.  Having said that, their focus on making detailed self-driven education and training available online enables clients easily to investigate application areas.

The way we view data governance is this: it has to be led by the business. It has to be business-facing. Although there's a number of applications that might have a data catalog, for instance, like Alation, Informatica or Talend, we're vendor-neutral. If we find something better, we'll switch. We're open about that.

With Collibra, their strength is that they were the only data governance platform built specifically to address data governance as it was being formed as a discipline. Virtually every other solution in the marketplace is built as some sort of data management application aimed at IT, and has either morphed from an ETL or something else into that. Alation morphed from a code scanning application into data governance solution (data catalog) for instance. 

Collibra also took a business-centric approach. Their application is the only one that you could throw a business person in front of, and they would understand it intuitively, they'd say, "Oh, okay. So this is where I approve items. This is where I request them. This is where I see things. This is a dashboard that I can look at our progress." You're not going to get a sales VP going into Collibra, but if a sales VP went into Collibra, they would understand it. That's another reason why this has been the data governance solution we have recommended to clients, and still do.

The setup is not complex. It is straightforward. Collibra's very good at doing setups very quickly, so we typically leave this to them. They sell a cloud installation. Essentially, they formerly were both on-prem and cloud, however, now they're focused only on a cloud delivery model based on customer demand.  Thankfully, it is extremely straightforward, as this is the box we need to check prior to helping clients move forward on their data governance program.

The costs vary. I don't have details on the exact pricing of the solution as we do not resell it even though we recommend it.  This enables us to maintain our neutrality as a client advisor.

Their licensing model focuses primarily on the advanced technical users to help to establish the data governance foundation and manage and maintain it as more and more business groups are brought on board.  What I like about their licensing model is that they try to remove barriers to adoption by making it very inexpensive to add "data citizens" across the organization, i.e.  normal, "lite" users who are using, but not developing, connectors, workflows, communities, etc.

In that sense, the marketplace perhaps is not aware of the beneficial TCO of Collibra's license structure, because it causes them to focus on the initial cost of the heavy advanced users, while not realizing that they will be able to bring the overall corporate community onboard at a relatively minimal cost. Therefore, their pricing can appear high per user, however, in fact, for a community or population of data governance users, it's, not actually that high, it's just front-end loaded to establish the technical foundation and basis for the data governance program.

We are experts on implementing business-centric data governance programs, as that is the only model for success.  As such, we are implementation partners with Collibra, and in fact are one of, if not the, longest-standing Collibra partners globally.

The advice I'd give to other potential users would be the same I'd give to people implementing any sort of governance. I would first advise clients to have your data governance business cases ready in advance, or at least start by identifying potential business outcomes that can be delivered through clear and documented access to data. From there, they can target the relevant source systems needed to delivere on these business cases.

From a technical perspective, there are different approaches to ingest structural metadata, i.e.  tools and connectors that are available to assist with this.  While Collibra is hands-down the best data governance collaboration platform, clients should review the different options to ingest metadata based on the targeted source systems.  Of course, Collibra's catalog is the first option that should be considered, but available connectors need to be reviewed.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I'd give it a nine. based on its excellence as a data governance business collaboration platform.  From the perspective of metadata ingestion,  I'd probably give it a seven - I like their current roadmap and designated approach, but connectors are a work in progress, as they are for everyone.

We use the solution mostly for a client. There are a port catalog and dashboard cataloging features that they use. That said, the principal use case, even though there are a number of use cases, is using it as a business glossary for terms throughout the institution.

We're saving a ton of time. There are complex terms like year to date, et cetera, and defining what university means or what college means, and the validations between certain aspects of the organization allow us to have a single source of truth for agreements on that information pulling from whatever status system. It's basically eliminating any data systems that might have been used previously and eliminating any last-minute scramble or days of back and forth questioning from stakeholders to other analysts, trying to figure out what the single source of truth is. This product creates a central repository for terms in their metadata and provides a platform for further changes and approvals for that.

It's incredibly easy to use. As far as the user-friendly aspect is concerned, it's good. The search function within Collibra for desktop is pretty cool with many hotkeys, and especially for having to build a business glossary, if somebody's confused about a term, they can use the hotkey to pull it up on Collibra for desktop, wherever they are.

With the application installed, you don't necessarily have to go to Collibra to utilize it. 

I do like the workflow customization feature as we're able to customize workflows that give ownership to the stewardship organization rather than have to rely on out-of-the-box workflows. You make it an IT function. The IT department can set it up and then put it in the hand of the stewardship organization through customization and a feedback loop, with the stewards able to make it do what they need.

The tried and true features and functions are solid. These features develop in a very good direction as new releases come through.

The stability is good.

The scalability is there if a company would like to expand. 

There are still some new features being released and unveiled such as the certification workflows or questionnaires for dashboard certification, and stuff like that, that will improve a lot as releases go on. There are just minor things here and there that can change. 

Every time you change or publish a new questionnaire for certification, you have to basically go into the code and update the new version of the questionnaire. Just little things here and there like that will, as features improve, be improved as well. 

Much like other tools, some things can be a little bit immature sometimes.

I'm a little bit limited in some of the features that we have available. It can be a little bit clunky or require extra Windows that aren't necessarily needed. It can get a little bit over-complicated here. It would be nice to have some of the workflow functionalities a bit more usable. There could be more advanced customizations and more added features.

I've used the solution for about six months at this point. 

In general, the stability has been good. there have been no hiccups or issues of any kind. It seems to be reliable. 

The solution seems to be very scalable, from what I have witnessed so far. if a company needs to expand it, it can do so. 

It's my understanding that we have around 200 users on the solution right now. We have several admin users and 200 business users. I'm not sure of the exact size. It may even be more than that at this point. 

It's a solution we're actively using. I'd say we are using it a moderate amount. 

I haven't personally been in touch with technical support. I know my team has, however, I have not heard any feedback. I can't speak to how helpful or responsive they are. 

I wasn't a part of the initial setup process. I can't speak to how simple or complex the process was in terms of implementation.

As I was not a part of the implementation process, I'm not sure if an integrator or consultant was used to assist in the setup process. 

We're partners. 

We're using the most recent version of the solution at this time. What I've been doing is product management on developing features and workflows for the customers or for the stakeholders.

The insight I would have for others considering the solution would be that it's a blank canvas. What makes it effective is understanding the use cases very well with the customer and designing the product to appropriately fill that need. The better you can understand the use case, the better that you can design it in a user-friendly fashion and get feedback from the stakeholders and get by in and organizational and ownership of the data that are you using, the more success you're going to have.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. I'm satisfied with what we've done so far. And I'm looking forward to working with the solution in the future.