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Alation Data Catalog vs Collibra Governance vs Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Alation Data Catalog is 5.3%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Collibra Governance is 7.9%, down from 11.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) is 5.9%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC)5.9%
Collibra Governance7.9%
Alation Data Catalog5.3%
Other80.9%
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.…
Saikat Ghosh - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates enterprise data management with strong governance and collaboration features
We use Collibra Governance for metadata management and access restrictions, as well as lineage. We use Collibra's Data Stewardship features. In terms of role assignment and accountability, there are three levels of users: people who are data users, then there are data stewards, who are users of data enforcing compliance and rigor around data, and finally, the data governor who sets up policies and principles. We have utilized Collibra's Business Glossary. It is good for reference of the data, understanding what the data is about, which helps maintain data accuracy. Collibra's integration capabilities benefit our organization, although compared to the rest of the market, it is a bit cumbersome, but it's acceptable. My experience with Collibra's collaboration tools in improving data literacy has been quite good. I think it is one of the best for helping people understand and discuss certain data sets and manage workflows.
SaurabhGaonshindhe - PeerSpot reviewer
Modular structure and AI features stream new reporting processes
One of my clients has a requirement; they want to integrate metadata into the process, which means, for example, if I just want to implement a new field into my database, that field needs to be reflected throughout, let's say, 200 mappings. This highlights the need for a data-driven approach. My experience with technical support from Informatica is quite interesting; I would rate it as nine out of ten for Informatica PowerCenter kind of products or the Informatica integration products, because my team can do some hands-on using their free licenses or one-month kind of products. However, for products Master Data Management or related to MDM or Data Governance, there is no way by which we can directly practice, and my team struggles at that point.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Alation Data Catalog's best feature is the SQL query publication."
"Alation Data Catalog was very useful for sharing SQL queries easily in a platform."
"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."
"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 solution's most valuable feature is the ALLIE AI feature."
"Alation Data Catalog provides a nice interface for connecting to the database, querying the data, and working on it."
"The solution is used to query MySQL clients and store data and documentation."
"The tool's metadata cataloging is the most valuable feature."
"From the perspective of a data user, the solution has a great search capability."
"The solution has good workflows and is based on AIML."
"The ability to collaborate and approve business terms for the business glossary data dictionary is excellent."
"In terms of data governance, as I mentioned, it can be a one-stop solution for all of your data governance needs."
"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."
"We use the solution's Data Stewardship part."
"I find the rule modification and the replication of the rules in Collibra happens very quickly."
"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."
"I give the stability a ten out of ten."
"The solution has multiple valuable features for metadata collection"
"The fuzzy matching capability is a great feature."
"The profiling feature in Informatica Data Quality is incredibly effective for data governance."
"The mass ingestion functionality and the elasticity of the solution are great."
"The scalability is very high."
"The interface is really good."
"Informatica MDM stands out as a tool that can give you the flexibility needed for doing channel-specific data quality or business validation."
 

Cons

"Alation Data Catalog does not provide end-to-end data lineage."
"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."
"The product's data governance features need improvement."
"Data observability within Alation would be incredibly helpful for addressing these challenges"
"It would be good if the tool could show the output from the records while querying."
"Alation Data Catalog needs to develop a lot in terms of data governance and would be improved with a built-in interactive data quality solution."
"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."
"We have had issues setting up the connectors and getting Alation's support team to resolve issues."
"Sometimes, if a client needs a specific customization, we cannot do it directly. The client needs to reach out to Collibra and request the customization."
"No easy way to connect to different data sources."
"We had issues during setup."
"There's a lot of things available in their Data Intelligence Cloud that are not available on-premise."
"I rate scalability a six out of ten. There is some room for improvement in terms of scalability."
"This solution could be improved with the the addition of process diagrams to help the many users of the platform understand all the fields."
"The solution's search functionality can be improved"
"Pricing policy of the product is an area with certain shortcomings that needs improvement."
"The pricing model is problematic."
"I have received feedback from certain teams and there is a steep learning curve to use this solution."
"Informatica is very expensive."
"When it comes to UI look and feel and user experience, Informatica is not as good as other solutions."
"One area that needs to improve is the user experience because it is very complex. The trial version is very complex so it's not easy to start using the program immediately. You must study the rules first."
"It is not easy to set up and configure the tool."
"Right now, although they offer some templates, I would want more templates available to be imported."
"The regions in which the data resides are still limited. This could be an issue in terms of the data residency laws of some of the countries. They should get more regions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The platform is moderately expensive compared to the other competitors in the market."
"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"Collibra Governance is an expensive solution."
"Collibra provides you with a license based on the subscription model that you purchase."
"The solution's pricing is moderate and not very expensive."
"Many of our customers I spoke to felt that the solution is a bit highly-priced."
"Informatica MDM is very expensive. Apart from licensing fees, they have broken down their products into multiple products, and they charge for each and every product. If the data is huge, they charge for the data. At times, we have to use third party services for data cleaning, and they charge for that as well."
"We switched to Informatica PIM because it was cheaper than the Oracle solution. It is cheaper initially, but they will bundle it later. This is what happens in the industry."
"I'm not sure about the most recent pricing trends, but I don't believe it's significantly different from PowerCenter. I believe it is nearly the same."
"It's a costly solution"
"Informatica is very expensive."
"The price of Informatica Cloud Data Integration could be reduced."
"It is an expensive solution. I would say it is the most expensive solution in the market."
"Informatica MDM is a costly solution because it comes as a bundle. They are also globally positioning themselves and are definitely working on very upgraded technologies. If someone wanted to do it on the cloud, they have a lot of flexibility because they upgrade themselves according to the current needs. It definitely comes with a lot of features and that's the reason why it's costly. The licensing cost should be approximately one million dollars. It's about four to five times that of other vendors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise33
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business42
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise134
 

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 metadat...
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 expensiv...
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, ...
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?
Regarding licensing, I find it is one of the more expensive options, so it is not particularly affordable.
What needs improvement with Collibra Governance?
In future updates, I would like to see more AI-based capability in Collibra Governance, wherein the data definitions ...
How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica Cloud Data Integration?
Azure Data Factory is a solid product offering many transformation functions; It has pre-load and post-load transfor...
Which Informatica product would you choose - PowerCenter or Cloud Data Integration?
Complex transformations can easily be achieved using PowerCenter, which has all the features and tools to establish a...
What are the biggest benefits of using Informatica Cloud Data Integration?
When it comes to cloud data integration, this solution can provide you with multiple benefits, including: Overhead r...
 

Also Known As

Alation
Collibra
ActiveVOS, Active Endpoints, BPM, Address Verification, Persistent Data Masking, Cloud Test Data Management, PIM, , Enterprise Data Catalog, Data Integration Hub, Cloud Data Integration, Data Quality, Cloud API and App Integration
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesforce, Snowflake, Citrix, eBay, TripAdvisor, Albertsons, Nasdaq, Pfizer, LinkedIn, Finnair.
Ministry of Economy Science and Innovation, Aspen Insurance, Barry Callebaut, Colt
The Travel Company, Carbonite
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Informatica, Collibra and others in Data Governance. Updated: September 2025.
871,358 professionals have used our research since 2012.