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Alation Data Catalog vs Collibra Governance vs SAS Data Management 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 SAS Data Management is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Collibra Governance8.0%
Alation Data Catalog5.5%
SAS Data Management0.9%
Other85.6%
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…
Vivek Trivedi - PeerSpot reviewer
Has robust data governance capabilities and efficient financial alerting features
The platform's robust data governance capabilities ensure strong compliance with regulatory standards. Our dedicated data governance team is responsible for setting policies and monitoring data access and usage. Additionally, we have a Data Protection Officer (DPO) and an independent InfoSec team that work together to enforce these policies. This multi-layered approach ensures that data governance is effectively managed and compliant with all necessary regulations. It is integrated with SQL and Power BI servers for executive management dashboard reporting. This integration supports comprehensive data analysis and reporting needs, which was a key factor in our decision. The value of using vCenter lies in its comprehensive data infrastructure management. It significantly enhances our reporting, day-to-day decision-making, and analytics capabilities. Integrating SaaS with vCenter adds value by streamlining key functions and improving overall organizational efficiency. The solution can be considered expensive, particularly due to infrastructure, maintenance, and ownership costs. The long-term savings and efficiencies gained from using vCenter can justify the investment for large organizations. However, the high costs might not be justifiable for smaller organizations with less data and fewer resources. Conducting a thorough cost-benefit analysis based on the organization's specific needs and scale is recommended. I rate it an eight.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is cloud integration."
"Alation Data Catalog was very useful for sharing SQL queries easily in a platform."
"Alation Data Catalog provides a nice interface for connecting to the database, querying the data, and working on 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."
"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 tool's metadata cataloging is the most valuable feature."
"Alation Data Catalog's best feature is the SQL query publication."
"The solution is used to query MySQL clients and store data and documentation."
"The most important feature in Collibra Governance is the ability to gather data or a collection of data into one repository. If a client creates a repository at his place, then it will get updated to the cloud automatically."
"It enables a linear view of the data assets across different levels, providing a comprehensive understanding."
"It helps us build a powerful workflow mechanism where there can be any stewardship, including issue management governing assets using policies, regulations, or business rules."
"The beauty of the solution is that you can customize it quite a bit."
"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 solution's most valuable features are its scalability and how it can be integrated to any other intakes."
"The solution's technical support is helpful and responsive."
"I rate the technical support from Collibra as nine out of ten."
"The platform's robust data governance capabilities ensure strong compliance with regulatory standards."
"If you compare it to SQL, the memory and development times are very quick."
"The solution is very stable. We haven't faced any issues with glitches or bugs. We haven't had any crashes."
"I find the solution to be very stable."
"I am impressed with the tool's ability to customize."
"In terms of which features I have found most valuable, I would say the importing and exporting features. Additionally, the data sorting, categorizing and summarizing features, especially how it can summarize based on categories. These are the key features."
"Its robustness is valuable. It is a full-fledged suite. We have a data warehouse model, and there are also a lot of data quality management tools. The repository and all other tools are there. So, it is a full package in terms of reporting tools."
"The product offers very good flexibility."
 

Cons

"Alation Data Catalog is not user-friendly for business users. Its user experience is comparable to a Wikipedia page, lacking good visualization."
"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."
"It would be good if the tool could show the output from the records while querying."
"Data observability within Alation would be incredibly helpful for addressing these challenges"
"We have had issues setting up the connectors and getting Alation's support team to resolve issues."
"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 needs to develop a lot in terms of data governance and would be improved with a built-in interactive data quality solution."
"The interface is not user-friendly."
"The workflows and the language they use needs to be improved."
"The connectors are not very sophisticated. They can do, for example, Informatica and Tableau, but the connectors themselves could be improved."
"I would like to see a feature using the runtime dashboard."
"The technical support could be better."
"There should be more detailed documentation on the selectors and certain information, and a reduction in cost as compared to other tools."
"The licensing is one area that could get improved."
"Collibra lacks the capability to read Python or R scripts, which is essential for data transformations in our pipeline ecosystems."
"Recently, I find that the default process of issue management in Collibra is really complex — It wasn't really helpful to us."
"We implemented it a while ago, and we are trying to improve the data delivery performance. We are looking into how to get faster and automated reporting. We would need better designs and workflows."
"We find we often have to go back and re-train users when there are changes made to the solution because the changes are not intuitive."
"Very little needs to improve but perhaps a nicer graphic interface and remaining competetive in the growing field of data analytics."
"There is significant room for improvement, especially with regard to using a hybrid approach that involves both CAS and persistent storage."
"The solution could use better documentation."
"With SAS Data Management, you have to purchase an external driver, configure all of the tables for all of the data that you will extract from Salesforce. It's not a straightforward process."
"One problem is accessing the data using a solution other than SAS. The SAS data, which we create in the SAS, cannot be accessed by other tools. We can't open those data in other applications. So we need to have that application in place."
"The pricing of the solution needs to be improved. They need to work to make it more affordable."
 

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."
"The solution's pricing is moderate and not very expensive."
"Collibra Governance is extremely expensive"
"Collibra Governance is an expensive solution."
"It is substantial, and we do pay yearly."
"Collibra Governance is an expensive solution."
"Many of our customers I spoke to felt that the solution is a bit highly-priced."
"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."
"The product's pricing is high, which its comprehensive features and capabilities may justify."
"The licensing model for vCenter is a perpetual license with yearly payments."
"The tool is a bit expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
"While it is even free for personal use on the cloud, it can be expensive for desktop installations and enterprise use."
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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
27%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
8%
 

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 Business7
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAS Data Management?
From my experience, SAS Data Management is an expensive tool.
What needs improvement with SAS Data Management?
There is significant room for improvement, especially with regard to using a hybrid approach that involves both CAS a...
What is your primary use case for SAS Data Management?
Some clients and I are using SAS Data Management for data cleansing, data warehousing, and IoT-related activities suc...
 

Also Known As

Alation
Collibra
SAS Data Management Platform, Data Management Platform, DataFlux
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesforce, Snowflake, Citrix, eBay, TripAdvisor, Albertsons, Nasdaq, Pfizer, LinkedIn, Finnair.
Ministry of Economy Science and Innovation, Aspen Insurance, Barry Callebaut, Colt
Data Management, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Absa, Aegon, Allianz Global Corporate & SpecialtyAusgrid, Bank of Queensland, Bell, BMC Software, Canada Post, Ceska pojistovna, Chantecler, Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, Credit Guarantee Corporation, Cr_dito y Cauci‹n, Delaware State Police, Deutsche Lufthansa, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, DSM, Enerjisa, ERGO Insurance Group, Florida Department of Corrections, Generali Hellas, Gitanjali Group, Gloucestershire Constabulary, GS Home Shopping, HealthPartners, IAG New Zealand, iJET, Invacare, Livzon Pharmaceutical Group, Los Angeles County, Miami Herald Media Company, Netherlands Enterprise Agency, New Zealand Ministry of Health, Nippon Paper, North Carolina Office of Information Technology Services, Orlando Magic, OTP Group, PITT OHIO, Plano Independent School District, RWE Poland, Spanish Air Force, Stockholm County Council, Telus, The Travel Corporation, Transitions Optical, Triad Analytic Solutions, UNIQA, US Census Bureau, US Department of Housing and Urban Development, USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, West Midlands Police, XS Inc., Zenith Insurance
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Informatica, Collibra and others in Data Governance. Updated: August 2025.
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