

Alation Data Catalog and Microsoft Purview Information Protection both compete in the realm of data management solutions. In terms of features, Microsoft Purview tends to have the upper hand due to its robustness in data classification and integration with Microsoft's ecosystem.
Features: Alation Data Catalog is recognized for its data discovery capabilities, collaborative governance tools, and efficient data asset management. It also provides a user-friendly SQL query interface and robust cloud integration. Microsoft Purview Information Protection excels with strong data classification, automated labeling, and protection features, offering comprehensive data security integrated deeply within Azure, Dynamics 365, and Office 365, as well as compliance across multiple platforms.
Room for Improvement: Alation Data Catalog could improve by extending its data governance application to integrate more easily with various data storage systems beyond specific platforms like Snowflake. Broadening its scope for non-heavy users and enhancing advanced visualization tools could also benefit its user base. On the other hand, Microsoft Purview Information Protection might enhance support for on-premises systems and increase performance with NAS or SAN storage, in addition to expanding capabilities like video and audio classification and refining user interface usability even further. Its integration time could be reduced to improve ease of deployment.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Alation Data Catalog offers a flexible and quick onboarding process, emphasizing seamless integration into existing infrastructures and responsive customer support. It is well suited for organizations seeking fast deployment and adaptability within their existing systems. Microsoft Purview, while comprehensive in its deployment by leveraging Microsoft services, potentially requires a longer integration period due to its complexity and the extent of its offerings, which may impact initial deployment speed.
Pricing and ROI: Alation Data Catalog is praised for its cost-efficiency and adaptable pricing that can cater to varied business needs, ensuring a favorable ROI. Microsoft Purview, however, involves a higher initial setup cost but is considered worth the investment due to the breadth of its data protection capabilities, leading to substantial long-term ROI, especially for businesses ingrained in Microsoft's ecosystem with significant reliance on data protection solutions.
We have seen a return on investment, having saved close to 10.5% of our costs, with expected ROI growing yearly by about 17%.
Instead of going into Google or consulting a colleague, I can just go to Alation Data Catalog, search there, and understand everything by myself.
Purview can do a quick scan, and it doesn't use human resources, so it gets time to do things that we need humans to focus on.
The E5 license comes with different solutions like data discovery classification, CASB, DLP solutions, and Defender for Cloud.
The cost of data loss and your data going to a competitor is potentially massive.
Some of them have dragged on for six months, which is much longer than we would ever want some support issues to go on.
we have defined several SLAs that have resolved critical issues and incidents with excellent support.
we have been able to contact them, and they have been able to help us whenever we have had issues
Sometimes, I get a fast and knowledgeable response, while other times, I've experienced delays and received no resolution.
It's hard to be an ambassador for a product when you know it will be hard to get support.
After our issues are reported, it takes a long time to find a resolution.
As data sizes grow, we can also scale categorizations, calibrations, and the types of data we ingest and catalog through this tool.
Alation Data Catalog's scalability is really good since everything is cloud and everything gets pulled into the system via Snowflake and DBT automatically.
Alation Data Catalog's scalability has met our needs as our data and user base has grown.
It can be scaled across different departments organization-wide very quickly and easily.
It can handle large collections of data without issues.
Scalability can be improved by reducing these intervals.
It has never gone down when we wanted to access it.
Alation Data Catalog has been stable for me, as I haven't seen much downtime.
From my experience, Alation Data Catalog is stable.
Once implemented, I haven't had issues with its consistency.
The product is stable, and whatever it does, it does better than any other thing.
Since identity is where everything is based, if that goes down, you're screwed.
The platform needs improvement in integrating with BI tools, reducing manual efforts, and facilitating a smooth connection.
Additionally, bringing in AI capabilities to automate tracking and labeling can optimize how we handle data information levels.
Alation Data Catalog can be improved by enhancing their lineage capabilities to make it easier for us as users to search the lineage without having to use the Alation Data Catalog user interface.
Effectiveness in Microsoft Purview Information Protection means enforcing the policy and making sure it works consistently across non-Microsoft products as well.
A lot of functionality in Microsoft Purview Information Protection is not exposed in an API officially yet, which has made a lot of implementation work difficult because we have to do click ops instead of DevOps.
Having a roadmap or updates about new releases would be helpful for demonstrating to clients.
Collibra is a little bit expensive than Alation, but I presented the benefits of having that platform, so that little bit of money was not a big deal.
Discussions with the vendor partners provided a detailed breakdown of costs and how they can be reduced over time.
I talked to people who had compared it to other products on the market, and they're spending five figures to get started.
The E5 license covers most of the solutions for different technologies, so that way, it is good and more affordable compared to any other solution.
Our focus is on helping customers maximize their software investment.
It was the only data catalog tool where I could save and even create SQL queries.
Importantly, we establish a single source of truth, centralizing metadata and standardizing definitions, which minimizes confusion and helps with consistent data use across the organization.
My stakeholders can find relevant data assets quickly using a Google search without needing technical jargon, reducing the time spent searching for data.
Microsoft Copilot is an advantage because it's enterprise-grade AI.
It's paramount to have a single solution for information protection.
Regardless of the education, the employee might share the information anyway, so the AI shouldn't be the first point of failure. It should be a human making good decisions.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| Alation Data Catalog | 4.3% |
| Microsoft Purview Information Protection | 2.5% |
| Other | 93.2% |

| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 4 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 2 |
| Large Enterprise | 15 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 5 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 4 |
| Large Enterprise | 12 |
Alation pioneered the data catalog market and is now leading its evolution into a platform for a broad range of data intelligence solutions including data search & discovery, data governance, lineage, stewardship, analytics, and digital transformation.
Thanks to its powerful Behavioral Analysis Engine, inbuilt collaboration capabilities, and open interfaces, Alation combines machine learning with human insight to successfully tackle even the most demanding challenges in data and metadata management. With Alation, analysts are empowered to search, query and collaborate on their data to achieve faster, more accurate insights.
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