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Alation Data Catalog vs Collibra Governance comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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

Alation Data Catalog
Ranking in Data Governance
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Metadata Management (2nd)
Collibra Governance
Ranking in Data Governance
3rd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Alation Data Catalog is 5.8%, down from 9.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Collibra Governance is 9.0%, down from 12.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance
 

Featured Reviews

Brahma Lam - PeerSpot reviewer
Has metadata cataloging features but needs changes in domain model
The tool's metadata cataloging is the most valuable feature.  The tool's domain model needs to be changed.  Alation Data Catalog is stable.  The solution is scalable.  Alation Data Catalog's deployment is easy. I rate it a nine out of ten. Deployment takes only two to three hours to complete.…
DeepakArora - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhancing data management with user-friendly features but needs better documentation
We are a customer of Collibra. Collibra Governance is applied in our data management workflows by creating all the business functions separately, maintaining the data sources of those KPIs and everything separately on those businesses Collibra Governance provides ease of use. The portal is…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can customize templates based on our use cases."
"Given the relatively low level of maturity, Alation's most relevant feature at the moment is a user interface that's easy to navigate, which helps us find and understand the data. So while Alation has a lot more functionality, our pain point right now is being able to easily find, understand, and trust the information to use it."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the ALLIE AI feature."
"Alation Data Catalog was very useful for sharing SQL queries easily in a platform."
"We had some of our data science engineers, who had built out some cloud-based data and data products for users. They were spending a lot of their time, up to 30 to 35% of their time, answering questions about the data and helping people understand how to use it. Once they were able to document that information within Alation, they were only focusing on around 5% of the high-value questions that really couldn't be solved through the catalog itself. It freed them up to be more productive, it made their end-users more productive, and it made the adoption rate of their data products rise more quickly because people were able to get to using them."
"The platform's most valuable features are workflow automation, automated business metadata tagging, technical metadata tagging, and data integration with data quality tools or platforms."
"The tool's metadata cataloging is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable features of Alation Data Catalog are the simplicity in onboarding data sources, the security in securing the data sources, and the way the various users of Alation Data Catalog communicate with each other through a messenger."
"It is user-friendly."
"I find the rule modification and the replication of the rules in Collibra happens very quickly."
"The most valuable feature is the Technical Lineage. The fact that you can trace the auditability of a particular field or attribute across various systems is very useful."
"One of the most valuable features of Collibra Governance is its scanning feature, which allows us to onboard multiple applications and their underlying databases."
"I would recommend Collibra Governance depending on the needs of the company."
"We have folks in the field doing our clinical research operations, and they have the opportunity to refer to Collibra when they are examining a particular report. When they have a question about how something in that report is derived, they can pull a metric that is defined fully in Collibra. They have the opportunity to drill back into Collibra to see that."
"Workflows is the most valuable feature of Collibra because we will typically use an interface for it and we can customize it as per our needs."
"I like the lineage feature the most because I don't think there's any other tool that actually depicts the data flow from multiple sources and the connectivities between every data element inside those sources."
 

Cons

"It would be good if the tool could show the output from the records while querying."
"Alation Data Catalog doesn't support end-to-end lineage. By that, I mean the ability to trace the movement of data from when it first comes into our organization to where it's consumed."
"We have had issues setting up the connectors and getting Alation's support team to resolve issues."
"Data observability within Alation would be incredibly helpful for addressing these challenges"
"The product's data governance features need improvement."
"I know that this has been on their roadmap and they're working on it, but as a whole, there's an untapped reservoir of capabilities within their article features that could be used and built upon."
"Alation Data Catalog does not provide end-to-end data lineage."
"Although the solution performs far better in terms of data cataloging, its data governance capabilities need improvement."
"The workflows and the language they use needs to be improved."
"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."
"There's a lot of things available in their Data Intelligence Cloud that are not available on-premise."
"There are certain limitations and difficulties regarding the migration of complex data quality rules, as the tool may struggle with lengthy calculations and longer loading times."
"When we are doing discovery for unstructured data sources, I would suggest a quality report of the data that would indicate what was unable to process."
"No easy way to connect to different data sources."
"The platform can sometimes be unstable, particularly in terms of speed and reconnection issues."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The platform is moderately expensive compared to the other competitors in the market."
"The solution is a little expensive."
"I don't have all the details on the pricing side, but the solution was more expensive than originally expected."
"A three-year agreement is better than a one-year rolling 12-month agreement from a price point of view. I'd recommend looking at a three-year deal because you can't stand up a catalog and produce value in 12 months."
"We purchase its annual license. There is an extra cost for additional users."
"Collibra Governance is extremely expensive"
"Collibra Governance is an expensive solution."
"Generally, it is a rather expensive solution compared to some other tools in the market, but I found it to be fair-priced for its capabilities."
"I would say it's probably in line with what other vendors charge for 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."
"I rate the pricing a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is expensive, and ten is cheap."
"I think they have a trust issue. I did not like the way they recently went through the process. They were like, "Finish this SOW first, only then will we sign the other SOW." Or, "Finish this code." I didn't like that much."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Alation Data Catalog?
The platform's most valuable features are workflow automation, automated business metadata tagging, technical metadata tagging, and data integration with data quality tools or platforms.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alation Data Catalog?
The price difference between Alation Data Catalog and Collibra was not significant. Collibra is a little bit expensive than Alation, but I presented the benefits of having that platform, so that li...
What needs improvement with Alation Data Catalog?
Alation Data Catalog is not user-friendly for business users. Its user experience is comparable to a Wikipedia page, lacking good visualization. In a fast-paced world, we need to grasp information ...
What do you like most about Collibra Governance?
We use the solution's Data Stewardship part.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Collibra Governance?
The pricing of Collibra Governance is moderate. It is neither extremely costly nor very cheap, as it depends on the use case and specific requirements.
What needs improvement with Collibra Governance?
There is room for improvement in the Collibra Data Catalog regarding data classification and categorization. It struggles to catalog all categories of data, particularly sensitive data on-prem, whi...
 

Also Known As

Alation
Collibra
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesforce, Snowflake, Citrix, eBay, TripAdvisor, Albertsons, Nasdaq, Pfizer, LinkedIn, Finnair.
Ministry of Economy Science and Innovation, Aspen Insurance, Barry Callebaut, Colt
Find out what your peers are saying about Alation Data Catalog vs. Collibra Governance and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.