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Alation Data Catalog vs Collibra Governance vs Varonis Platform 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 Varonis Platform is 10.8%, up from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Collibra Governance8.0%
Varonis Platform10.8%
Alation Data Catalog5.5%
Other75.7%
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…
Frederic  Delos - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers the ability to identify sensitive areas, allowing you to drill down into the sensitive data
The most effective feature for me is its ability to identify sensitive areas, allowing you to drill down into the sensitive data, provided you have access, to determine whether it's a false positive or a true positive. That's the best thing for me, out of all of it. It's got everything, like other ones, but I like to be able to look at something if I'm doing forensics on the alert and say, "Okay, do I really need to do something with this?" For example, we don't want sensitive data in our OneDrive. So it identifies the sensitive data that's possibly in the OneDrive. And what I can do is look at it and identify whether it's actually sensitive data in Datalert or whether it looks like sensitive data, but I know it's a false positive. If it is a false positive, I can basically say ignore this pattern based on X, Y, and Z, you know, whether it's Redjax or keyword proximity. So I like that. With other tools, I gotta go through a whole process because it's a little bit more complex. Here, I can tag it and bag it in one shot. And the next good time I scan, it slips over it. So it helps in that.

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."
"The solution is used to query MySQL clients and store data and documentation."
"Alation Data Catalog provides a nice interface for connecting to the database, querying the data, and working on it."
"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."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the ALLIE AI feature."
"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."
"One of the most valuable features of Collibra Governance is its scanning feature, which allows us to onboard multiple applications and their underlying databases."
"Collibra's lineage is a very powerful feature. We have integrated Collibra with Azure and ADLS storage and we create lineage diagrams using the two tools."
"The technical support from Collibra Governance is excellent, and I rate it as ten out of ten."
"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."
"The ability to collaborate and approve business terms for the business glossary data dictionary is excellent."
"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."
"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."
"Collibra is very good at talking to modern database systems like a normal RDBMS, a DB2, or a SQL server or an Oracle."
"Varonis offers robust data access governance, allowing us to understand which sensitive data exists and who has access to it."
"It can easily identify unusual behavior or access patterns that may pose a potential threat, while operating as a unified reporting system."
"I also appreciate the reporting feature, which allows for the extraction of various reports based on specific needs. These reports can be used for audit purposes, such as tracking changes in file locations or deletions."
"The analytics would have to be our most valuable feature."
"The solution ensures that users have not accidentally shared sensitive information with the wrong people or too many people."
"The most important feature is remediation. In remediation support, there is no group permission. We'll go ahead and remediate the access from the Dell folder to the parent folder."
"The 24/7 support is the most valuable feature. They have been able to answer support questions pretty quickly."
"Varonis Platform is transparent and captures everything in the environment without impacting the performance. The tool helps us unify data feeds into a single reporting system."
 

Cons

"We have had issues setting up the connectors and getting Alation's support team to resolve issues."
"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."
"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"
"The tool's domain model needs to be changed."
"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."
"The product's data governance features need improvement."
"There are certain processes that involve a lot of manual work, specifically when searching for attributes assignment. It would be better if we could do this via APIs."
"The platform can sometimes be unstable, particularly in terms of speed and reconnection issues."
"The workflows and the language they use needs to be improved."
"The licensing is one area that could get improved."
"If someone changes the metadata, we can't see who changed it."
"I rate scalability a six out of ten. There is some room for improvement in terms of scalability."
"We had issues during setup."
"The domain-based approach could be more helpful for aspects such as customer 360 and product 360."
"There is one thing that if I add something manually, I get so many alerts. That's the biggest bad thing."
"I would like it to have cloud integration."
"The solution's interface is a little complicated with regard to setting up filters and reports."
"One area for improvement is the calculation engine. When applying rules in Varonis, especially for large datasets (terabytes of data), the calculations can be slow and require time to process. Speeding up this process would be beneficial."
"The remediation process can be improved. There will be no existing permission group for the McAfee channel domains. We can create a new permissions group for the required folder."
"The product is very complicated."
"For unstructured data monitoring, it's one of the top ones, if not the top one, due to its usability."
"Varonis requires more access permissions for its core functions compared to competitors, which can be a concern for companies about data safety."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 is a little expensive."
"I don't have all the details on the pricing side, but the solution was more expensive than originally expected."
"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 solution's pricing is moderate and not very 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."
"I rate the pricing a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is expensive, and ten is cheap."
"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."
"It is substantial, and we do pay yearly."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."
"The platform is expensive. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten."
"Varonis Platform wasn't certainly the cheapest solution."
"Licensing is on an annual basis. Maintenance and renewal fees are separate. Varonis Datalert is quite expensive."
"The pricing is good. It neither expensive nor cheap. It is average."
"You could do a subscription, where you pay yearly, or you could purchase it outright. The licensing cost is based on the number of users on the system that you are monitoring."
"It's expensive, kind of, really expensive."
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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
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
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 Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise11
 

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 do you like most about Varonis Platform?
The solution has significantly improved data security and compliance posture by allowing us to track and monitor acti...
What needs improvement with Varonis Platform?
Varonis started as an on-premises solution and is transitioning to cloud. It hasn't fully moved yet, which is an area...
What is your primary use case for Varonis Platform?
The primary use case for Varonis Platform is data discovery, specifically for discovering sensitive data in our organ...
 

Also Known As

Alation
Collibra
SlashNext Complete
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesforce, Snowflake, Citrix, eBay, TripAdvisor, Albertsons, Nasdaq, Pfizer, LinkedIn, Finnair.
Ministry of Economy Science and Innovation, Aspen Insurance, Barry Callebaut, Colt
Nottingham Building Society
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Informatica, Collibra and others in Data Governance. Updated: August 2025.
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