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Atlan vs IBM Data Governance 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Atlan
Ranking in Data Governance
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Metadata Management (4th)
IBM Data Governance
Ranking in Data Governance
24th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Atlan is 2.0%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Data Governance is 1.2%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Atlan2.0%
IBM Data Governance1.2%
Other96.8%
Data Governance
 

Featured Reviews

Peter Neumann - PeerSpot reviewer
IT consultant at Pathfinder
Has struggled to meet business needs but supports technical data exploration and transparency
Atlan can be improved by concentrating more on business data since it is developed from developers for developers, and it needs to be more business relevant. For instance, when re-importing data model diagrams, Atlan provides some diagram automation that is not connected to the business glossary, which I consider a significant fault. Atlan needs to improve by focusing more on the business side of data, not only on technical aspects.If you want to focus on technical considerations, it would be beneficial to have an interface with a real business data modeling tool such as Erwin or other business data tools, since data modeling is not the same as Draw.io. Additionally, Atlan can improve its workflows, which are hard to understand. Working with templates, Excel import, export, and running automations is not self-explanatory, and you always need help from Atlan support team. If business people want to use it and run their own reports, it must be easier to customize for their business needs.
Murali B - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Provides a single interface to monitor and navigate data quality metrics
One area with room for improvement would be the ability to generate detailed quality reports. Some Python libraries provide quality scores and reports—having that capability within IBM Data Governance would be beneficial. We can see the pass/fail results, but getting additional percentage ratios would add significant value. My experience with IBM Data Governance has mostly been with the GUI. I've noticed some latency when accessing the portal. Also, automating reports can sometimes hang, though that might depend on the overall system. That's where I see the most room for improvement – quicker report generation. Fetching specific data from the IBM Data Governance repository tends to be slower compared to other vendors. For example, Collibra has a more responsive GUI. Retrieving large datasets from the IBM catalog is particularly slow.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Atlan is helpful for identifying datasets and discovering PI data, such as the classification levels of datasets (gold, silver, bronze)."
"The best feature of Atlan is its integration with communication platforms like Microsoft Teams and Slack, so business users don't have to go into a data catalog to see metadata about data assets."
"As a senior analytics engineer, Atlan's ability to show end-to-end data lineage is the most important feature for me."
"They also offer automated lineage embedded in the connectors, allowing us to track where the data is coming from and where it's going. We find it very efficient in cataloging data sources. Additionally, the user-friendly interface is a big plus, making it easy for users to familiarize themselves with the solution. These two features, in my opinion, stand out the most."
"Atlan has positively impacted the organization since it helps in discovering already available assets, allowing for reduction of redundant ingestion of external data and reduction of time to market for any project."
"Overall, I rate Atlan a nine out of ten."
"By switching to Atlan, we have increased our productivity and saved a lot of business time."
"The technical support services are good."
"IBM Data Governance improved data analytics operations. During a company merger, we used IBM Data Governance to understand and bridge sample data between systems."
 

Cons

"Working with templates, Excel import, export, and running automations is not self-explanatory, and you always need help from Atlan support team."
"One of the main areas for improvement is its governance capabilities."
"The product could be improved by offering scheduled email reports for managed assets."
"One area that could be improved is the capability to find duplicates of datasets."
"Certain UI changes could make Atlan more user-friendly."
"Customer support for Atlan is not so proactive."
"The challenge is in the lineage, where it requires improvement."
"One area that could be improved is the capability to find duplicates of datasets."
"One area with room for improvement would be the ability to generate detailed quality reports. Some Python libraries provide quality scores and reports—having that capability within IBM Data Governance would be beneficial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay per-user license. It's a different classification model than with other solutions, where they usually charge you for resources. So, that was a better model for us. And because of this difference in models or classification, it was cheaper for us to go with Atlan."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Atlan?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that the licensing cost is a bit flexible but not affordable for smaller organizations. It might be way out of their budget, but it is very ...
What needs improvement with Atlan?
Atlan can be improved by enhancing their support process by reducing the resolution time. They have really bad and incomplete documentation, so they should work on the documentation as well, especi...
What is your primary use case for Atlan?
My main use case for Atlan is to define a flexible set of metadata, including measuring the quality of said data. Atlan is also a partner of ours, so we use it to integrate with our own tool. It al...
What do you like most about IBM Data Governance?
IBM Data Governance improved data analytics operations. During a company merger, we used IBM Data Governance to understand and bridge sample data between systems.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Data Governance?
I would rate pricing an eight out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive. It's pretty expensive.
What needs improvement with IBM Data Governance?
One area with room for improvement would be the ability to generate detailed quality reports. Some Python libraries provide quality scores and reports—having that capability within IBM Data Governa...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
TIAA CREF, Control Risks Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Collibra, Informatica and others in Data Governance. Updated: March 2026.
885,376 professionals have used our research since 2012.