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Data Governance Manager at a insurance company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Dec 16, 2020
User-friendly and easy to navigate but needs a better way to import blocks of data
Pros and Cons
  • "The customization and the dashboards are pretty good."
  • "This solution basically reduced the search time, as users no longer had to go to IT to open a ticket or to go to an external supplier to recreate some already captured information."
  • "It would be better if there was a way to import all data and metadata in an automatic way in one block form."
  • "Collibra, as far as I know, does not have a connector like Oracle, or a mainframe. It's important to have a connector so that you have access to up-to-date information."

What is our primary use case?

The main use case for our organization was to collect and collate information for our business users, such as definitions, business rules, etc. 

The customers' names were stored in a data warehouse on Oracle, and with this product, you could insert information related to the customer. You could use Excel, for example, to add in data. You'd have all the information you collected from other places on one tool that users could navigate across to see all of the information.

How has it helped my organization?

One of the projects that we had with a client, was to collect and add all the information related to the HR functions. We collected technical information and data quality checks and so on. We inserted this information into Collibra. Once we did that, the user could enter in and read the collected information. That way, they didn't have to go to IT to pull queries for them. They were empowered to do it themselves. This solution basically reduced the search time. They no longer had to go to IT to open a ticket, or to go to an external supplier to recreate some already captured information.

What is most valuable?

The solution is very user-friendly, especially in comparison to other tools. 

Even a business user, which no technical competencies can manage this product rather easily. 

There are great workflows and other features that really simplify various aspects of the product.

The log information is easy to navigate.

The customization and the dashboards are pretty good.

What needs improvement?

Collibra, as far as I know, does not have a connector like Oracle, or a mainframe. It's important to have a connector so that you have access to up-to-date information. Sometimes the data can be out-of-date as the updates are not automatic. Users could be looking at obsolete information.

You need to be precise about the names of the field and you have to develop them yourself.

It's my understanding that they are working on a solution where you can import all the information that you need from a data validation too, or from a CRM. It's something they really need to get better at.

It would be better if there was a way to import all data and metadata in an automatic way in one block form.

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For how long have I used the solution?

I used the solution for one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability was very good. We never struggled with any downtime at all.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I'm not sure if the solution is scalable. I never really tested it. We only really handled a few areas of the data log analysis. For three functional areas it seemed to be pretty good, however, I couldn't say for sure if that would be the case if there was six or ten functional areas.

How are customer service and support?

I've been in touch with technical support in the past and I found them to be quite helpful and knowledgeable. I've been satisfied with the assistance I've received.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I previously used Informatica as a data governance solution.

Informatica is better from a technical point of view. For example, in Informatica, you can buy these connectors which are very complete. You can import a lot of information from tables, names, matrices, and so on, from, for example, Data Visualization Tool, from Qlik, Tableau, from everything. You do not have to write code either in order to develop an API or to upgrade connectors by yourself. In Collibra, there are connectors, however, you have to upgrade them, if you, for example, need more information, more metadata, and so on. It's just not as easy. Informatica is more mature from a technical point of view. You get a complete data lineage and can see the data life cycle of all of your metadata.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was not so complex. It was pretty straightforward. Collibra has, for example, workflows and other features that help you to import information. It's all very simple to understand and to use. You sort-of knew what to do from the outset and setting everything up was pretty easy as you just followed along.

The deployment doesn't take long. It's a matter of days or maybe weeks. It certainly doesn't take months.

I started the initial phase with the development of all the information. We got the metadata that we needed from the business user. Then we added the information to the data model. The data model related to Collibra was done by the Collibra administrator. We added this information to the data model. After that, we deployed everything by exporting metadata that we inserted into an Excel format, and then we deployed this information to the production environment by loading the Excel details into the new environment. 

I was never the administrator of the solution, and therefore, I don't know too much about ongoing maintenance and what might be involved with that. I do not believe there to be a lot of technical maintenance needed.

What about the implementation team?

I handled the deployment myself. I didn't need the assistance of an integrator or consultant.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

If you compare the solution to Informatica, it is much cheaper.

The licensing for this product is on a yearly basis and you have to pay for the type of users that access the platform. For example, if you want to have a user in read access mode, you don't have to pay for them. 

However, if you want a write access user, for example, to insert information, to upload data, and so on, you have to pay for that license. Therefore there are two main charges. You have the license cost of the tool and the cost of the users that have write access. Beyond that, it's my understanding that there are no other costs.

What other advice do I have?

We're just customers. We're end-users of the product.

If a company wants to implement a solution more focused on the business aspects, this solution works well. However, if a company needs to, for example, have a solution that covers a 360 overview of a data governance implementation or a project where you have to collect business information, and also need to connect that business information to technical information, to create a data lineage and so on, there are other solutions that cover this part better. That said, Collibra is really user-friendly. It's really easy to use. For a non-technical business user, it's easy to access, to navigate information, and so on. Typically business users don't want to have an interface or don't want to use technical tools, so a company should be mindful of that.

Overall, I would rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1469259 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology Analyst at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Dec 14, 2020
A developer-friendly solution that lets you easily ingest the metadata and is good for documenting DPIAs
Pros and Cons
  • "The catalog feature is definitely valuable because it makes ingesting the metadata of any application quite simple. You don't have to do things manually. You can just schedule an import, and it will just refresh the metadata of whatever application you want. That's what I like. I usually work on the technical side, and other than that, I usually create integrations. I integrate Collibra with different environments or applications. I'm a developer, so I cannot vouch for the business, but for me, it is quite developer-friendly with the Java API interface and the REST API interface that they have provided. It is good for creating dashboards based on the needs of each and every role. It can be user-specific or group-specific. We usually create dashboards and give them to our business users, and they are quite happy with that."
  • "The catalog feature is definitely valuable because it makes ingesting the metadata of any application quite simple."
  • "It should have more integrations with things like CyberArk because its main purpose is GDPR implementation. We have to have more scope for things that implement more privacy. CyberArk makes sure your credentials are vaulted and your things are secure when you're creating your integrations or connecting to an application. I do believe that they are working on this feature."
  • "It should have more integrations with things like CyberArk because its main purpose is GDPR implementation."

What is our primary use case?

I am using it essentially for the GDPR implementation over here in Europe. This is my second project on Collibra. Before that, I have worked on the CCPA part for a US-based project.

I have worked on an on-prem solution and a solution on the cloud. I was the one who had created all the components on AWS because our client was not ready to move onto Collibra's cloud solution, but I believe they will be moving to SaaS soon.

We are on version 5.7.5. Version 5.7 is the latest, but because we're not on SaaS, it's quite tedious to upgrade each and every environment. We have four environments or five if you include what the developers work on, so it is a bit tedious to upgrade. 

How has it helped my organization?

In Europe, it is quite good for documenting your DPIAs, and you have to do that if you have to be compliant with GDPR. That's one of the main use cases that I see over here.

What is most valuable?

The catalog feature is definitely valuable because it makes ingesting the metadata of any application quite simple. You don't have to do things manually. You can just schedule an import, and it will just refresh the metadata of whatever application you want. That's what I like. I usually work on the technical side, and other than that, I usually create integrations. I integrate Collibra with different environments or applications.

I'm a developer, so I cannot vouch for the business, but for me, it is quite developer-friendly with the Java API interface and the REST API interface that they have provided.

It is good for creating dashboards based on the needs of each and every role. It can be user-specific or group-specific. We usually create dashboards and give them to our business users, and they are quite happy with that.

What needs improvement?

It should have more integrations with things like CyberArk because its main purpose is GDPR implementation. We have to have more scope for things that implement more privacy. CyberArk makes sure your credentials are vaulted and your things are secure when you're creating your integrations or connecting to an application. I do believe that they are working on this feature.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with Collibra for almost two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It usually is stable. It doesn't really require maintenance, and it doesn't go down. The only maintenance that is required is the upgrade, which is not that frequent. However, after our latest upgrades, when we ran some of the workflows, the form doesn't respond. Even if you open developer options on your browser and if you try clicking next or back, it doesn't work, but if you close it and then you open the form again, it works. I don't know why that's happening with this version, but because we are planning to move to SaaS, I'm not really bothered about it so much for now.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is pretty new for this client, and we are in the initial phase. All the applications are not even on board yet. We are slowly trying to move towards the ideal scenario where we have things from your catalog to even integrations with Denodo and Feebo. These are the standard things for virtualization and everything.

We definitely know the capabilities of the tools. I have been working on it technically for almost a couple of years now, and we also have business users and consultants who have implemented a proper governance structure for the entire organization including everything from your roles and responsibilities to the line of businesses and how they should be. We have people who are experts at that, so it's slowly evolving. Our users are data stewards, business stewards, subject matter experts, IT owners, data owners, and stakeholders.

How are customer service and technical support?

Most of the time, as soon as I raise a ticket, they revert back, and I get the correct thing. However, sometimes, for things like the workflow issue that I just mentioned, they aren't that good, but usually, they're good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have worked on SAS DataFlux, Ab Initio Express, and Ab Initio Metadata. All of them are data governance tools. Some of them are data quality engines. Collibra is not one. 

Collibra Governance is totally different from Dataflux. DataFlux usually is just for your data quality. That's the data quality engine that will run your data quality rules and store the data in a place, just like Trillium or exPress IT. After that, you have to integrate it with something like Ab Initio or Collibra to govern the data quality results that are coming from it.

I have also used the Collibra Privacy & Risk. It is the GDPR Accelerator. In fact, we cannot call it an accelerator after 5.7.

How was the initial setup?

If you have someone who knows what they're doing, then it is pretty straightforward, but you have to get the business on board as well, and then you have to show them how to use the tool. That's usually a challenge for any new data governance tool that you get into place. 

If you're on-prem, then the setup is pretty straightforward, but if you're deploying on the cloud, it becomes a bit tricky because usually what happens in banks is that each line of business has its own AWS account. You use your servers to scan their metadata, but then you have to establish some connectivity between different accounts and all those things. That part is usually a bit complex, but if you're on-prem or if you're on SaaS, then it's going to be pretty straightforward.

I have actually created a Jenkins pipeline that works with the latest installable file that Collibra gives. It just does everything by itself. It is pretty straightforward for me now, but reaching that point took a while and a decent amount of effort. We have a DNS resolver using Route 53, which will then go to a load balancer, and the load balancer essentially is then connected to your receive tool that has the tool hosted on that. We take care of security groups and make sure that no unauthorized access takes place. We have implemented Azure AD authentication. Our client uses Azure AD for all their authorization, so we implemented that using the SAML functionality that's available in Collibra.

What about the implementation team?

If there is any change in the asset models, then we have a team that does that. As of now, if we need someone who will deploy the actual tool or upgrade it, then I'm the one who currently takes care of that.

What was our ROI?

Most of our clients have seen ROI from using Collibra. Some of them are still getting up to speed. Usually, financial institutions have legacy systems where people will just use Excel for their DPIAs. It is somewhat of a drastic change for a lot of them, so it sometimes takes time to see the ROI.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I am not so much aware of price details. Initially, there was an add-on NuSoft license to use the DVC connector that NuSoft gives to create integrations, but Collibra is now phasing out of it slowly. Collibra is cutting ties with them is what we have been led to believe, and we have started developing on Spring Boot, which is open source.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution to others, and I would ask them to directly go for SaaS instead of going for on-prem because you get a lot more features. I believe the license is the same or similar, but I'm not really aware of the price points.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from using Collibra is that being compliant is important, and we are helping our clients do that. You must have read about H&M and Citibank. They got charged a lot.

I would rate Collibra Governance an eight out of ten. Because I'm not involved with SaaS, I am keeping two points away for that. After using SaaS for a year, I can say more, but for now, it is eight.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Collibra Platform
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Learn what your peers think about Collibra Platform. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2026.
893,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Business Analyst at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Dec 13, 2020
A scalable solution where the metadata feature reduces the amount of code in the system
Pros and Cons
  • "I find the metadata feature valuable because it replaces the coding."
  • "Collibra Governance reduces the time-consuming aspects of the process; you'll need only one-fifth of the team as it'll depend on two to three people, and that's really important to businesses."
  • "If someone changes the metadata, we can't see who changed it."
  • "If someone changes the metadata, we can't see who changed it."

How has it helped my organization?

Collibra Governance reduces the time-consuming aspects of the process. You'll need only one-fifth of the team as it'll depend on two to three people, and that's really important to businesses.

What is most valuable?

I find the metadata feature valuable because it replaces the coding. The metadata creation happens via Collibra, and it reduces the code. 

What needs improvement?

We have an issue with metadata history. If someone changes the metadata, we can't see who changed it. But they are trying to upgrade the system with this feedback and are still working on it. We are still waiting for a proper log to maintain the solution.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Collibra Governance for the last four years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I haven't found any limitations or obstacles with scalability. It completely depends on who is managing the solution. We have placed Java resources, and we didn't face any limitations with that. 

How are customer service and technical support?

On a scale from one to ten, I would give their technical support a seven. 

This is because they still haven't completely provided the solutions we asked for. They're a new product and are lacking in some areas. They can provide 80 to 90%, they have fixed some things in the public sector, but there are some gaps. 

How was the initial setup?

If you're going to start a completely new project, the deployment takes at least six months. But if you're looking to establish particular effective information governance or something like that, it could take maybe 10 to 20 days.

What was our ROI?

We have had a return on our investment because we don't use the same manpower that we used to for the code.

What other advice do I have?

Before using Collibra Governance for metadata development, you need a business analyst with extensive domain expertise. Collibra Governance is just a metadata creator. You need business knowledge to understand how you're going to create the metadata and how it will link with your business applications.

Collibra Governance isn't the only part where you're going to develop everything. Collibra plays a major role, but you still have to add other components. For example, you need Java resources, Oracle and you need to integrate all this stuff into the Collibra before making the project list.

It demands a high level of visibility. The technology component idea, database knowledge, and more should be made available to a select group of people. If that's not there and everyone is new, and you're using Collibra Governance for the first time, you're going to have many problems.

The teams should have proper knowledge of background modeling, and they should have proper knowledge of the existing business. If they're creating a completely new team and the new team doesn't have any business knowledge, expect project failure.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Collibra Governance an eight.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Consultant II at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Dec 10, 2020
User friendly and easy to set up with good documentation
Pros and Cons
  • "It's not a complicated product."
  • "The client is pretty happy with the Collibra work so far."
  • "While connecting with the data source, it's not very easy. If there's a firewall, it is difficult to connect with the database. It's not easy when you are configuring on the database."
  • "While connecting with the data source, it's not very easy. If there's a firewall, it is difficult to connect with the database."

What is our primary use case?

We have a client that was planning to do a digital transformation. They came up with the use cases and they have a couple of departments. They are mainly based on legal systems including corporate trust, etc., that they want the data to govern. Their requirement was basically if any new person is hired, they would have everything in Collibra, including all of the business glossary or the tables or the reports. Basically, everything for their onboarding process was available there. It was also necessary to give that to anyone that wanted to know about their department.

How has it helped my organization?

We only just started with this project and have only started learning Collibra.

On the client-side right now, any onboarding or any seminars or any training they are conducting, they can just pull the data from Collibra and show it to anyone. Every single data source, we can connect with the Collibra and we can pull out any data. We can create our traceability diagrams or trace any connections, like end-to-end connections, and link the data to the report. Some will be encrypted data, however, we will know which is related to each business term.

We can create our own policies, and we can link with the data quality rules. Collibra can even provide some validation rules. If there is a business term that exists without a description, the validation result will show as false. It is pretty customizable and pretty user-friendly so far.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of this solution is mainly on the report side. They have a couple of reports in finance and we can connect with Tableau or Power BI, or even SSDT. We have connected with Power BI and Tableau right now. Once we connect with the source, we can pull all the data, and we can create a hierarchy based on that, and then we can link each attribute in the report with the table name and the column name. After that, we can link it with the business terms as well. It's like an end-to-end flow. We can create even traceability diagrams, views inside the system.

The reporting is very good. The solution offers a good business glossary. The diagrams are also pretty easy to understand for everyone. We had to link with the IT department, which had some difficult workflows, and they want to automate everything. The solution can do that for them. It's still a work in progress, however.

The solution is quite customizable. If I took a business term account, I could link it with the table account, and then I could link it with the account ID, and then there'd be some account receivables report. Each attribute in this report account ID, I can link to and create a linked diagram. This can be shown to the business users. The business users need to see the glossary and the attributes and if we can link anything we can create relationships with the data. There are some out-of-the-box attributes, which are present in Collibra, however, in addition to that, we can also create our own any.

If you compare the solution to something like Axon, it's pretty user-friendly. Anyone can come and understand the tool very easily. Axon isn't as user-friendly compared to Collibra. 

It's not a complicated product. Collibra also has Collibra DG and Collibra Console, but in Informatica Axon, everything is all together. Everything, including the backup schedule and all these things, has another web application in order to maintain all that information. 

What needs improvement?

While connecting with the data source, it's not very easy. If there's a firewall, it is difficult to connect with the database. It's not easy when you are configuring on the database.

Right now, the client is decommissioning the MuleSoft integration and they're moving to APIs. Collibra Connect and MuleSoft integration were there before, however, now there's a move to API. Within a year or two, they will all move to API. Whoever is using it now with MuleSoft and Collibra Connect needs to find another way for connecting with the API. 

I don't think they are providing additional software for MuleSoft integration. Primarily, they are telling us, okay, we will decommission this and move to API. The only thing that's lacking in terms of the change is when connecting to database. Sometimes the connection causes issues if the data is breaking the firewall and ingesting the data.  

For how long have I used the solution?

I'm currently using the solution. I've been working with the solution since March of 2020.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability has been good. We haven't had any complaints. It seems to be quite reliable. We've deployed into production and until now we haven't had any page loading issues or refresh issues.

We had around 100s of business users using collibra, we never faced any performance issue. And we had SSO configuration enabled for all users. Performance wise collibra is stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is good. If a company needs to expand, they should be able to quite easily.

How are customer service and technical support?

In terms of technical support, they have documentation from Collibra University. They have subcategories that you can search through. That can help with a lot of troublshooting.

However, if we are facing an issue in production, they will reply in a short span of time, usually within half an hour or 15 minutes. They will connect with us to resolve the issue.

If it is in our working environment, it will lag by four or five hours. They try to prioritize service and get to you as quickly as they can only in critical situations.

Our client has taken some Collibra hours as well. We can schedule some sessions with the Collibra team to learn the system. We have taken around 36 hours approximately and have utilized the service alongside purchasing the product.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

While I've seen Axon, I haven't worked much with it. From the look and feel, and from my navigation, I find it's very difficult compared to Collibra, which seems to be rather straightforward.

How was the initial setup?

I was involved in the initial setup and I did not find the implementation overly complex.

Once we started setting up the Collibra tool, they provided a pretty detailed user guide. Along with that, there are so many videos available in Collibra University, which is pretty self-explanatory. We just needed to go through that and understand it all. 

You will get all end-to-end details of what software can connect, what data sources it accepts, etc. Lately, they have changed a lot of the certification levels. Earlier, it was level one, level two, level three. Now, they changed in each area. There are certifications for solution architect, business analyst, workflow manager, etc.

We had three people from our organization that assisted with the initial setup. One person was the cloud administrator. He set up everything with the cloud. Another person was doing the console setup, it was a single sign-on, so he was adding all the AD directory. We had two environments, actually, one production and one dev. The third setting up the environments. In the console only, we needed to mainly set up all these things, add all the data sources, JDBC drivers, SSN configuration, email configuration, all these things needed to be done in the console. That was the primary setup.

Deployment took, in total, about two weeks. Post-deployment, there really isn't any maintenance necessary. We can schedule backup, either on a weekly or daily basis. Whatever changes we make, we can take to the backup. If we make a mistake the backup will be available to override it.

What was our ROI?

The client is pretty happy with the Collibra work so far. They have achieved their digital transformation goals for 2020 and therefore they were pretty satisfied with the tool. We can connect with IDQ or anything we need to. It's been a successful project.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

There are two license types - author and consumer. The author has all of the rights. He can edit and catalog anything. The consumer has limited access. We have around 10,000 consumers and 40 author licenses.

Professional training costs are in addition to licensing costs.

The pricing is pretty high if you compare it to other governance tools. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We didn't evaluate other options before choosing this product.

What other advice do I have?

We are Collibra Partners. We have a business relationship with the organization.

If we have a Collibra expert on your team, it will be easy. Otherwise, new users should expect a bit of a learning curve. ANyone working closely with it should take some Collibra training alongside the product purchase. Professionals will help you and guide you in creating an organization level or department level unit with a glossary and everything. They can give you more insight. I'd also advise users to try to take the certification, which is free of cost in Collibra University, or try a partner training certification.

Overall, I would rate the solution eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
reviewer1466991 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager - Finance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Dec 9, 2020
Great search capability and UI; difficult to connect to different data sources
Pros and Cons
  • "From the perspective of a data user, the solution has a great search capability."
  • "I definitely think Collibra is the gold standard in terms of combining user experience with the actual capabilities."
  • "No easy way to connect to different data sources."
  • "The issue may be the way it's been implemented in my company but, for Collibra to be really useful, what's missing is an easy way to connect to different data sources and different types of data sources and actually ingest and profile some of that data."

What is our primary use case?

I worked with this solution a few months ago and the main use case of Collibra was as the central metadata tool for the enterprise. The plan was to have all of our data dictionaries, our business glossary, to expose data lineage through Collibra and show all of the relationships and connections between our various tables and databases and the actual semantic business layer, in Collibra. It was a way to unify our technical metadata with our business metadata and with our actual applications.

How has it helped my organization?

Recently, a lot of work has been done around sensitive data elements. Collibra is really a good tool for centralizing a list of elements that could either be first or second order PII and connecting the top policies around those specific PII elements to the systems they're found in, and how they are implemented. If they're used as different names in different systems, that's valuable because it's helping the company meet its goals in terms of new legal regulations for the EU as well as for California. Those two are our GDPR and CCPA which are the two most recent policies from that domain. It's also very good for data quality issue management. Collibra is essentially the main tool for that. It's a valuable tool in many different companies.

What is most valuable?

The interface itself is very useful. I think what I find most useful about the tool, if I'm looking at it from the perspective of a data user, would be the search capability. The fact that I can search for any data elements that are in the table and there will be a pretty comprehensive list that are either identical or very similar to one another in the tables where they are found. I think in terms of sourcing, it's really valuable. I also think that the ability to connect your business metadata with your technical metadata, is something that's very valuable from the perspective of the business. People on the business side need to understand where data is coming from, how it's connected. Doing that through one centralized repository, or document, is useful.

What needs improvement?

The issue may be the way it's been implemented in my company but, for Collibra to be really useful, what's missing is an easy way to connect to different data sources and different types of data sources and actually ingest and profile some of that data. That's the trouble we've always had in getting wider adoption of the tool. Unless there's a mandate from the enterprise data office or the like, regular users are not going to use the tool for really robust business use cases without having some actual data in there. I know there is some out of the box capability for this, but I think it needs to be easier for Collibra to actually ingest and run some basic profiling on the data itself. That's currently missing from the tool. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I think that today this is a stable solution which wasn't the case in the past. For a couple of years, there were certain outstanding issues and bugs that took a really long time to fully address. Those have been taken care of at this point.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's a very scalable tool. There is a ton of metadata in there. If they were to roll this out to other lines of business and start getting more adoption, I don't think they would have a problem with scalability. I think the problem is really with getting that adoption in the first place.

How are customer service and technical support?

The company is very hands-on providing support and solutions but I think the problem is that they might be stretched a little thin. It's a fairly small company, I believe, and there have been cases where we had to wait months to get support to fully patch something that was wrong in the tool. It's even more of an issue if you are connecting Collibra with another third party tool because you have to get everybody on the call. You have to make sure that they're corresponding, following up in a timely manner. It's just not easy.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have previously used the Sandbox versions of Alation, and Informatica. I remember Alation being overall very similar to Collibra. I think Collibra's UI may be a little better. I think it's very user-friendly. I would say definitely superior to Informatica. I haven't really heard many good things about the Informatica business glossary metadata solution although it has been a while since I have seen or used that and it may have changed. I definitely think Collibra is the gold standard in terms of combining user experience with the actual capabilities. Again, at the end of the day, it's really a matter of implementation as to how good it actually is and how positively it will be adopted.

How was the initial setup?

There have been some issues with the implementation and the adoption rate has not been high. It's not being used extremely extensively. It's being used for those use cases already mentioned, meaning at the enterprise level for identifying PII and complying with regulations. It is being used for data quality issue management in finance but as far as I'm aware it's not being used for data quality issue management for other lines of business.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I don't exactly remember the pricing but my impressions from everybody that I've talked to is that it's an expensive tool. It's more expensive than its competitors. It may well be worth it in terms of how it's being used. I think it's a superior tool, but it's also a premium tool. 

What other advice do I have?

Before purchasing a license or licenses for Collibra, you need to have a data strategy or data governance and a management strategy defined beforehand. You need to have at least some semblance of an idea of how you want the various spaces and communities in Collibra to be organized. Obviously, certain things will change as you get familiar with the tool, but you can't just wing it. You need to have a strategy that also takes into account other tools and other solutions that you want Collibra to be connected to because there could be an issue where maybe you have a data lineage tool that is getting upgraded in three months from now, and your current version of Collibra will be better suited to connect with that tool once it's been upgraded. You're never going to be able to know 100% beforehand when those types of events will happen, but you need to have some kind of strategy in mind. This is where you really need the investment in data governance and management before you define the tool that you're going to use. That has to come before any implementation of Collibra. 

It's a big tool, so it can potentially be difficult to implement if you don't have the right investment in place before deployment. It's also user-friendly with a lot of great out-of-the-box capabilities. There is some room for improvement in certain areas, but overall it's a good solution. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
President at The Consultants Company
Real User
Nov 26, 2020
A great collaboration platform with good technical support and an easy initial setup
Pros and Cons
  • "The ability to collaborate and approve business terms for the business glossary data dictionary is excellent."
  • "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."
  • "The connectors for metadata ingestion need to be improved."
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

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. 

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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

How are customer service and technical support?

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.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

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.

How was the initial setup?

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.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
Enterprise Data Governance at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Apr 4, 2024
Makes data more discoverable and transparent, but the support and documentation must be improved
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution makes data more discoverable and transparent."
  • "The workflow documentation must be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We have a full-time user interface in-house.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution makes data more discoverable and transparent.

What is most valuable?

We can easily connect to sources. It is like plug-and-play.

What needs improvement?

The workflow documentation must be improved. It is our number one pain point.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for six to seven years.

How are customer service and support?

The customer service is bad. It is not the best. I rate support two or three out of ten. The support team must be communicative and stay in touch with the customers.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Negative

How was the initial setup?

The core functionality is good. The initial setup becomes challenging if there are any vulnerabilities or changes because not much documentation is available.

What other advice do I have?

I am using the tool because my current organization decided to use it. My previous organization used a more enhanced tool. There are other tools with better functionalities. Overall, I rate the tool a six out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1829037 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Consultant at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Oct 15, 2022
A user-friendly solution that helps us set our business rules and define critical data elements
Pros and Cons
  • "It is user-friendly."
  • "Collibra Governance helps us set the business rules and define critical data elements."
  • "We had issues during setup."
  • "We had issues during setup, so we had to bring in a third party for the initial setup and migration from IGC to Collibra Governance."

What is our primary use case?

Collibra Governance helps us set the business rules and define critical data elements.

What is most valuable?

It is user-friendly, and other companies use Collibra Governance as well.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for about a year and a half.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable solution. When we initially migrated, it was a little tough, but we are getting used to it.

How was the initial setup?

We had issues during setup, so we had to bring in a third party for the initial setup and migration from IGC to Collibra Governance. We didn't have technical knowledge then, so we needed help.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I do not have details on the licensing costs.

What other advice do I have?

I rate this solution a seven out of ten. However, we like the solution, and I recommend it to others. It is better than the IGC solution we used in the past.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Collibra Platform Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: May 2026
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Collibra Platform Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.