Alation Data Catalog vs SAP Information Steward comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Alation and SAP are both solutions in the Metadata Management category. Alation is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.5, while SAP is ranked #12. Alation holds a 9.8% mindshare in MM, compared to SAP’s 3.1% mindshare. Additionally, 81% of Alation users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of SAP users who would recommend it.

Alation Data Catalog

Read 19 Alation Data Catalog reviews

7,145 Views
3,501 Comparison Views

81% willing to recommend

SAP Information Steward

Read 9 SAP Information Steward reviews

2,308 Views
969 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Alation Data Catalog

SAP Information Steward

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

Alation Data Catalog and SAP Information Steward are prominent contenders in the data management sector. SAP Information Steward often emerges as the superior choice due to its comprehensive features focused on data governance and quality.

Features: Alation Data Catalog is known for its ease of use, collaborative data search, and integration capabilities across various data sources. It emphasizes user-driven data discovery and metadata management. SAP Information Steward is robust in data profiling, validation, and monitoring, ensuring strong data quality management. These unique capabilities make each product attractive in their own right, depending on user needs.

Room for Improvement: Alation could improve by enhancing its analytical features and expanding its data governance tools, which currently are less mature compared to SAP. Additionally, Alation could increase support for more complex data environments. On the other hand, SAP Information Steward would benefit from streamlining its deployment requirements and further improving user experience for non-SAP environments. Enhancing cross-platform integration could also strengthen SAP's offering.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Alation offers a simple cloud-based deployment and provides responsive support for swift implementations. SAP Information Steward requires more complex on-premise or hybrid deployments. Despite this, SAP's extensive support infrastructure is advantageous, particularly for large-scale enterprise deployments.

Pricing and ROI: Alation Data Catalog appeals with competitive pricing, especially for those looking for low upfront costs and quick user adoption for significant ROI. SAP Information Steward, although associated with higher initial costs, offers substantial long-term ROI through its advanced features, proving invaluable for companies prioritizing data governance and quality. The higher cost is justified by the return potential in large enterprise settings.

To learn more, read our detailed Alation Data Catalog vs. SAP Information Steward Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Alation Data Catalog vs. SAP Information Steward

September 2026

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Alation Data Catalog

Ranking in Metadata Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Governance (6th)

SAP Information Steward

Ranking in Metadata Management

12th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Quality (19th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Metadata Management category, the mindshare of Alation Data Catalog is 9.8%, down from 15.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Information Steward is 3.1%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Metadata Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Alation Data Catalog	9.8%
SAP Information Steward	3.1%
Other	87.1%

Metadata Management

Featured Reviews

reviewer2776527

Senior Data and Analytics Consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Increases data discoverability and boosts self-service analytics through enriched metadata and intuitive search

The best features that Alation Data Catalog offers are its search capabilities and the fact that it works with many different data platforms; it is essentially platform agnostic. The other piece that I really think is important is how easy it is to use as well as to manage. What makes the search capabilities of Alation Data Catalog stand out for me is the fact that every item within the catalog is indexed and searchable, as well as the filtering features that allow you to narrow down to just the types of assets that you need. Wildcard searches are also very helpful. It is a very intuitive tool, as long as you are using the filters. Alation Data Catalog has positively impacted my organization by allowing users to answer questions that they had without trying to track down an expert. This has saved them quite a bit of time and frustration. It has allowed them to solve problems they probably would not have been able to solve had they not had the catalog. We have been measuring the curation of content within the catalog that has gone up over time, and we have also seen the number of users in the catalog increase, as well as the amount of activity within the catalog increase. We were seeing about an average of about 20% increase month over month for the last few months.

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FranciscoSantos

Director at Pixel Studio PTY

Provides accurate data that is validated against a personalized reference tool

For most SAP customers, Information Steward is enough because it is able to build quality data rules to detect issues in the source systems like SAP HANA, Business Warehouse, or other systems. A business user can first organize their data into several data domains. For example, procurement, human resources, and logistics setup. The domains can build data quality dimensions where you can describe the kind of rule that you are going to use. The user then can immediately see if something is wrong with their data using traffic lights. Another great feature of SAP Information Steward is the accuracy that the content is followed by validating against the reference tool. With the solution, you are creating data quality dimensions. Within these dimensions, you are creating business data quality rules that are looking for specific fields. From these rules, you can create a scorecard. The scorecard will highlight the percentage of good data and ensure the user can feel confident that the data is accurate within predetermined limits. SAP tables have field names that are very cryptic, making them hard to understand the meaning of the fields. Metapedia helps describe these fields in business terms.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"We do see a return on investment, though I cannot share exact numbers."

"We have improved data quality and accuracy, made informed decisions faster while reducing risks, and ensured compliance by enabling security and efficient access."

"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."

"Alation Data Catalog positively impacts my organization by improving data efficiency, data quality, and collaboration, allowing analysts to spend more time on analysis instead of searching and preparing, so they can just start their analysis."

"Alation Data Catalog's best feature is the SQL query publication."

"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."

"Alation Data Catalog has positively impacted my organization by improving the data marketplace section, the data utilization section, and the quality of the data."

More Alation Data Catalog pros

"The ability to analyze the data even before we start the transformation of it, and generating the user-friendly interface, giving analytical reports, and helping create the transformation rules before we proceed with the data migration part was the most helpful part of the solution for our company."

"The solution is very fast, very stable, and very easy to use and straightforward."

"Initial setup was straightforward."

"The solution is user-friendly even for those who are dealing with it for the first time."

"The most valuable features are data quality insight, metadata management, and metadata dictionary."

"The solution is very fast."

"Setup is straightforward."

"Ability to collect information, monitor user access and to plan storage capacity."

More SAP Information Steward pros

Cons

"Alation Data Catalog can be improved by treating areas that could incorporate best practices or improvements, such as identifying data domains, which refer to logical data groups customers, vendors, and other entities."

"The interface is not user-friendly."

"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."

"Data observability within Alation would be incredibly helpful for addressing these challenges"

"The current search functionality in Alation Data Catalog is not necessarily great. It mostly searches titles, and we would prefer it to search the description and some of the source comments to find answers that we need."

"Sometimes the search function in Alation Data Catalog isn't as effective as it could be."

"The tool's domain model needs to be changed."

"The product's data governance features need improvement."

More Alation Data Catalog cons

"We'd like to see some manipulation techniques included in SAP Information Steward."

"SAP is a bit pricey, and better tools are available for a lower price."

"Performance could be improved."

"From a performance perspective, sometimes it behaves weirdly. When we are connecting with the file-based system, it doesn't give us the correct results, or it somehow shows us there is this issue with the data or the file connectivity."

"In some cases they have given extraneous or erroneous information, which is completely useless."

"SAP Information Steward could be improved by offering a cloud version of the product."

"The support team is not very responsive."

"SAP Information Steward is an expensive solution compared to others."

More SAP Information Steward cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"SAP Information Steward is an expensive solution compared to others."

"A bit pricey, and better tools are available for a lower price."

"Smaller-sized organizations may not be able to invest in SAP Information Steward because of the cost."

"I do not know if there were additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Healthcare Company

Outsourcing Company

Manufacturing Company

16%

Government

11%

Comms Service Provider

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	15

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	1
Large Enterprise	7

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alation Data Catalog?

I haven't had any experience with pricing, setup costs, or licensing, as I have been strictly an end user and haven't had any administrative or management responsibilities.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Alation Data Catalog?

Some of the downsides about the lineage is that some of the code is quite difficult to read as the formatting is a bit ugly sometimes. Alation Data Catalog can be improved with the lineage formatti...

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What is your primary use case for Alation Data Catalog?

I have been using Alation Data Catalog for the past year now. My main use case for Alation Data Catalog is updating data descriptions and making sure analysts have what they need to do their job. W...

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Comparisons

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Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs Alation Data Catalog

Compared 6% of the time

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Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs SAP Information Steward

Compared 12% of the time

SAP PowerDesigner vs SAP Information Steward

Compared 12% of the time

SAP Data Quality Management vs SAP Information Steward

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Enterprise Data Quality (EDQ) vs SAP Information Steward

Compared 8% of the time

Syniti Information Management vs SAP Information Steward

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Alation Data Catalog

October 2026

Download Alation Data Catalog product report

Buyer's Guide

SAP Information Steward

September 2026

Download SAP Information Steward product report

Also Known As

Alation

Information Steward, SAP Data Insight

Overview

Alation Data Catalog offers dynamic cloud integration and robust data stewardship, aiding organizations in managing metadata and ensuring efficient data governance. Its active governance model enhances collaboration and productivity through seamless API integration.

Alation Data Catalog empowers organizations by providing tools like seamless cloud integration, automatic data crawling, and a business glossary to strengthen data management. It supports enhanced data discoverability, decision-making, and regulatory compliance. The catalog caters to diverse data sources, providing clear data lineage, aiding non-technical users, and supporting BI tools like Power BI. Its SQL query publication tool and API integration enhance productivity, while features like metadata management boost data quality and governance.

What are the main features of Alation Data Catalog?

Cloud Integration: Seamlessly integrates with cloud platforms for maximum data availability.
Automatic Data Crawling: Efficiently indexes data sources to enhance discoverability.
Data Stewardship Tools: Offers advanced tools for data management and governance.
Comprehensive Glossary: Builds an extensive business glossary for better understanding.
Data Discovery: Facilitates quick and accurate data search processes.
Data Lineage: Ensures clarity on data origins and transformations.
Metadata Management: Manages metadata efficiently to maintain data quality.
Intuitive Interface: Designed for ease of use among diverse teams.

What benefits to consider when evaluating Alation Data Catalog?

Enhanced Collaboration: Promotes teamwork through shared tools and insights.
Streamlined Data Governance: Improves policy enforcement and compliance.
Improved Data Quality: Enhances the accuracy and reliability of data.
Reduced Search Time: Optimum data retrieval efficiency.
Regulatory Compliance Support: Assists in adhering to industry regulations.

In industries like finance and healthcare, Alation Data Catalog is a key resource for data governance and metadata management. Organizations utilize it to integrate diverse data sources, establish data lineage, and manage business domains, proving invaluable in platforms such as Power BI and Snowflake.

Alation

SAP Information Steward offers data quality insights, metadata management, and data validation scorecards, ensuring accurate data validation through scorecards and dashboards, making it user-friendly and efficient for businesses seeking clarity and effective data profiling.

SAP Information Steward provides a comprehensive approach to managing data quality and governance. It is designed to simplify deployment and streamline data profiling and cleansing with ease. Businesses leverage its capabilities to create data quality rules and detect issues in source systems, enhancing business clarity and accurate data validation. Centralizing cloud data and offering business-friendly metadata descriptions with Metapedia, it supports better metadata management and data profiling. However, it requires improvements in data export capabilities, integration for data manipulation, data filtering features, and enhanced support responsiveness.

What are the key features of SAP Information Steward?

Data Quality Insight: Provides tools for insightful data quality assessments.
Metadata Management: Allows centralized management of metadata through Metapedia.
Scorecard for Data Validation: Offers intuitive scorecards and dashboards for validating data accuracy.
Data Profiling and Cleansing: Facilitates effective profiling and cleansing processes.
Cloud Data Centralization: Centralizes cloud data for effective management.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Ease of Deployment: Simplifies the integration into existing systems ensuring swift usage.
User-friendly Interface: Enhances usability for efficient operations.
Accurate Data Validation: Improves the accuracy of business data.
Comprehensive Metadata Descriptions: Offers detailed business-friendly descriptions.
Integrated Data Profiling: Enhances the quality and accuracy of data management.

Industries implement SAP Information Steward widely, notably in global enterprises for S/4HANA business processes and historical reporting, prioritizing data profiling, data quality assessments, and business rules for managing customer information and transformations. Its Metapedia component supports data governance initiatives within these businesses.

SAP

Sample Customers

Salesforce, Snowflake, Citrix, eBay, TripAdvisor, Albertsons, Nasdaq, Pfizer, LinkedIn, Finnair.

American Water, Graphic Packaging International, OSRAM Licht AG, Maxim Integrated

Buyer's Guide

Alation Data Catalog vs. SAP Information Steward

September 2026

Free Report: Alation Data Catalog vs. SAP Information Steward

Find out what your peers are saying about Alation Data Catalog vs. SAP Information Steward and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.

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