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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 September 2025, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Alation Data Catalog is 5.5%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Collibra Governance is 8.0%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) is 6.1%, down from 8.1% 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)6.1%
Collibra Governance8.0%
Alation Data Catalog5.5%
Other80.4%
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…
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

"The tool's metadata cataloging is the most valuable feature."
"We can customize templates based on our use cases."
"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 solution's most valuable feature is the ALLIE AI feature."
"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."
"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 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."
"There is a good community setup around the solution that can provide insights."
"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."
"The ability to collaborate and approve business terms for the business glossary data dictionary is excellent."
"I find the rule modification and the replication of the rules in Collibra happens very quickly."
"Collibra Governance is a stable solution."
"From the perspective of a data user, the solution has a great search capability."
"It's not a complicated product."
"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 governance process was fully manual before, but Axon helped us configure those processes, giving us more visibility, transparency, and control over the data."
"The solution has the best feature for parameterization."
"Whether we need data cleansing or data mastering, we get it all in one platform."
"The mass ingestion functionality and the elasticity of the solution are great."
"The data quality component is very good."
"I think the integration feature is probably one of the key features in Informatica MDM...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The product's most valuable feature is the ability to select the data flow and lineage."
"The valuable feature is that we can automate the integration part...It is a stable solution."
 

Cons

"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."
"We have had issues setting up the connectors and getting Alation's support team to resolve issues."
"The interface is not user-friendly."
"It would be good if the tool could show the output from the records while querying."
"Although the solution performs far better in terms of data cataloging, its data governance capabilities 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."
"Data observability within Alation would be incredibly helpful for addressing these challenges"
"Alation Data Catalog does not provide end-to-end data lineage."
"The UI is good if you happen to be an administrator and are familiar with the technical side of the administration. If you're a business user, the UI is not good. It is hard to learn. It is hard for those who are administering it to teach to end-users and it can take hours of training to do it. Because it is difficult and non-intuitive, business users resist using it. It is a battle to get them on board and to keep them engaged because of the UI."
"The connectors are not very sophisticated. They can do, for example, Informatica and Tableau, but the connectors themselves could be improved."
"The platform can sometimes be unstable, particularly in terms of speed and reconnection issues."
"Certain implementations, including lineage maps, could be user-friendly."
"The solution's search functionality can be improved"
"The platform can sometimes be unstable, particularly in terms of speed and reconnection issues."
"There's still room for improvement in Collibra Governance. Right now, the solution focuses more on publishing and subscription where metadata is being consumed from all systems and processes within Collibra Governance. I'd like to see more features around external systems that let those systems start consuming or start referring things from Collibra Governance automatically, in particular, more API-based integrations, so the solution can truly work as an enterprise governance tool at the heart of the organization. There have been many cases where business stakeholders feel, "Okay. I'll be doing a manual activity because every time I have to maintain and make sure that the solution is working, for example, ensuring the reporting works, I have to go to Collibra Governance." I want this step taken out of the equation, and it has to be an automatic conversion or automatic notification that something has changed. Scalability also needs improvement in the solution. If there could be some sort of self-service where people can customize the solution a bit more, that would make Collibra Governance better. What I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is an enhanced search feature because it's what users want to use. You want to search for a term and get all details in one go. Right now, if you type a term in the Collibra Governance global search function, it returns a lot of results that you need to know how to filter and what to filter, so there should be automatic filters that give accurate information to somebody who does a search on the solution. I want Collibra Governance to provide a capability where you can search and get relevant information."
"The technical support could be better."
"The cost of Informatica MDM is expensive and has room for improvement."
"The configurations could be better. It is a bit confusing because we must develop two tools when building a data model in Informatica MDM. Even though Informatica MDM is a single tool, we have our hub console plus the provisioning tool within that. Whatever data model we are building in the hub console, we have to develop it in the provisioning tool again. It is double the work to create a data model. We are also using external calls or the Java custom plans functions. This can be both positive and negative. Since MDM as a client does not support any complex validation, we have to depend on the external call or a Java call. Every time we deployed, the entire solution was impacted if something went wrong."
"When it comes to UI look and feel and user experience, Informatica is not as good as other solutions."
"It is complicated to establish the lineage in EDC using PowerCenter mappings."
"The integration could be a bit better. The process is something new."
"Informatica should simplify the rules for setting classifications and user access management permissions. It's too complex to define, configure, and make work."
"The solution doesn't directly connect to any of the analytical tools."
"The UX and UI of the solution are areas with certain shortcomings where improvements can be made in the future."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The platform is moderately expensive compared to the other competitors in the market."
"I don't have all the details on the pricing side, but the solution was more expensive than originally expected."
"The solution is a little expensive."
"I would say it's probably in line with what other vendors charge for licensing."
"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."
"Collibra provides you with a license based on the subscription model that you purchase."
"Collibra Governance is an expensive solution."
"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."
"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."
"The solution's pricing is moderate and not very expensive."
"Collibra Governance is an expensive solution."
"I rate the product's pricing a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is the lowest price and ten is the highest price."
"The price is very high and has become a big concern for our customers who require the solution in order for their business to function smoothly."
"Informatica MDM's pricing is not cheap but comparable to other vendors."
"I rate the product's price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is the cheapest and ten is the most expensive. The product is a bit expensive."
"We have licenses, and we are provided with certain particular services in the solution."
"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."
"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."
"It's pretty high for us. It's more on the higher side, like low to middle high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing 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 Enterprise32
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?
The pricing of Collibra Governance is moderate. It is neither extremely costly nor very cheap, as it depends on the u...
What needs improvement with Collibra Governance?
There is room for improvement in the Collibra Data Catalog regarding data classification and categorization. It strug...
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: August 2025.
866,561 professionals have used our research since 2012.