Varonis Platform vs erwin Data Intelligence by Quest comparison

Quest Software and Varonis are both solutions in the Data Governance category. Quest Software is ranked #18 with an average rating of 7.0, while Varonis is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.0. Quest Software holds a 1.9% mindshare in DG, compared to Varonis’s 10.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Quest Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Varonis users who would recommend it.

erwin Data Intelligence by ...

Read 18 erwin Data Intelligence by Quest reviews

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3,040 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Varonis Platform

Read 14 Varonis Platform reviews

8,652 Views
4,326 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

erwin Data Intelligence by ...

Varonis Platform

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

Erwin Data Intelligence by Quest and Varonis Platform are competitors in the data management and security sector. While Erwin focuses on enhancing data governance and management, Varonis leads in data security and compliance, owing to its superior alert and reporting features.

Features: Erwin offers robust automation capabilities that significantly cut down time to market, integrates seamlessly with software development processes, and provides comprehensive metadata management with a centralized data catalog. On the other hand, Varonis excels with detailed insights into data access, effective unauthorized access detection, and outstanding alert and reporting systems that ensure compliance and data protection.

Room for Improvement: Erwin requires improvements in its SDK and API reliability for complex tasks, simplifying its complex interface, and enhancing integration aspects for better user experience. Varonis needs to improve its cloud transition, reduce the resource requirements of its operations, and consider lowering its high licensing costs for broader access to smaller businesses.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Erwin provides multiple deployment options, including on-premises and cloud environments, with positive customer service but occasional integration issues. Varonis supports diverse deployment methods, particularly hybrid models, with technical support and customer service that receive frequent praise for its knowledge and promptness.

Pricing and ROI: Erwin is competitively priced with module-based options offering cost-effectiveness and significant ROI through reduced project costs. Varonis, while more expensive with high licensing costs, delivers strong ROI by improving data protection and compliance, critical for safeguarding sensitive data.

To learn more, read our detailed Varonis Platform vs. erwin Data Intelligence by Quest Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Varonis Platform vs. erwin Data Intelligence by Quest

July 2025

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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

erwin Data Intelligence by ...

Ranking in Data Governance

18th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Varonis Platform

Ranking in Data Governance

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (9th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (5th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (3rd), Compliance Management (7th), Ransomware Protection (11th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of erwin Data Intelligence by Quest is 1.9%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Varonis Platform is 10.9%, up from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Governance

Featured Reviews

Roy Pollack

Advisor Application Architect at CPS Energy

The solution provides more profound insights into legacy data movements, lineages, and definitions in the short term.

We have loaded over 300,000 attributes and more than 1000 mappings. The performance is slow, depending on the lineage or search. This is supposed to be fixed in the later versions, but we haven't upgraded yet. The integration with various metadata sources, including erwin Data Modeler, isn't smooth in the current version. It took some experimentation to get things working. We hope this is improved in the newer version. The initial version we used felt awkward because Erwin implemented features from other companies into their offering.

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Herman Pienaar

Senior Security Consultant at Intalock Technologies

Has valuable data alerting capabilities and efficient reporting features

The solution's classification engine is highly configurable and efficient. It provides good reporting and visualization, which is superior to previous tools like Microsoft's. The platform's data alerting capabilities and automation features for managing broken permissions are particularly notable. It offers robust automation capabilities, including global permission repair, broken access repairs, and data transport engine features for archiving and migration. The automation tools are useful for managing permissions and performing cleanup tasks efficiently. It provides strong reporting capabilities that help customers adhere to regulations and maintain compliance. Automating reporting is beneficial for maintaining robust governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) posture. It does incorporate some AI elements, particularly in its data alerting module. However, AI integration has yet to be the primary focus of my implementations. AI is expected to play a larger role in future enhancements. I recommend Varonis, particularly its effectiveness in performing data security remediation tasks. Despite its high cost, it is valuable for its capabilities and the lack of impact on end users. Overall, I rate it a nine out of ten.

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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

"The solution gives us data lineage which means we can see an impact if we make a change. The ability for us to have that in this company is brilliant because we used to have 49 data stewards from some 23 different groups within six major departments. Each one of those was a silo unto itself. The ability to have different glossaries — but all pointed to the same key terms, key concepts, or key attributes — has made life really simple."

"The biggest benefit with erwin DI is that I have a single source of truth that I can send anybody to. If anybody doesn't know the answer we can go back to it. Just having a central location of business rules is good."

"It is a central place for everybody to start any ETL data pipeline builds. This tool is being heavily used, plus it's heavily integrated with all the ETL data pipeline design and build processes. Nobody can bypass these processes and do something without going through this tool."

"Data Intelligence has provided more profound insights into legacy data movements, lineages, and definitions in the short term. We have linked three critical layers of data, providing us with an end-to-end lineage at the column level."

"There is a wide range of widgets that enables the user to find the proper information quickly. The presentation of information is something very valuable."

"Data Intelligence creates a single source of truth for all of our metadata. This solution is better for data warehousing, but the metadata features speed up our development work. It's easy to create and manage mappings because we can export them to Informatica and pick up the work where we left off."

"Being able to capture different business metrics and organize them in different catalogs is most valuable. We can organize these metrics into sales-related metrics, customer-related metrics, supply chain-related metrics, etc."

"The interface is easy to use. I also like Erwin's automatic data classification and data quality checks."

More erwin Data Intelligence by Quest pros

"On the Varonis side, technical support is phenomenal. Their ability to explain is very good, and they seem to be very knowledgeable. When I get an alert that doesn't quite make sense, they dive in there and kind of take me through it. That's very useful and very good. There are some false alerts, but it is better to have a false alert than no alert at all."

"Varonis offers robust data access governance, allowing us to understand which sensitive data exists and who has access to it."

"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 solution's classification engine is highly configurable and efficient."

"The analytics would have to be our most valuable feature."

"The telemetry to capture everything and the reports are very easy to configure without having a developer degree."

"That alerting and reporting service is great."

"The 24/7 support is the most valuable feature. They have been able to answer support questions pretty quickly."

More Varonis Platform pros

Cons

"One big improvement we would like to see would be the workflow integration of codeset mapping with the erwin source to target mapping. That's a bit clunky for us. The two often seem to be in conflict with one another. Codeset mappings that are used within the source to target mappings are difficult to manage because they get locked."

"There is room for improvement with the data cataloging capability. Right now, there is a list of a lot of sources that they can catalog, or they can create metadata upon, but if they can add more then that would be a good plus for this tool."

"The fact that I sometimes have to go in and out of different applications, even though it's all part of the whole erwin suite, perhaps means it could be architected a little bit better. I think they do have some ideas for improvements there."

"If we are talking about the business side of the product, maybe the Data Literacy could be made a bit simpler. You have to put your hands on it, so there is room for improvement."

"We chose to implement on an Oracle Database because we also had the erwin Data Modeler and Web Portal products in-house, which have been set up on Oracle Databases for many years. Sometimes the Oracle Database installation has caused some hiccups that wouldn't necessarily have been caused if we had used SQL Server."

"The solution's Arabic language processing is limited. The results are limited when you use the interface in Arabic."

"The technical support could be improved."

"Another area where it can improve is by having BB-Graph-type databases where relationship discovery and relationship identification are much easier."

More erwin Data Intelligence by Quest cons

"I'd like to see automatic updates for this solution. Currently, it's a manual process to update all the keywords"

"I would like it to have cloud integration."

"The solution's areas of improvement are the interface and the dependency on on-premises deployment for some components."

"Varonis requires more access permissions for its core functions compared to competitors, which can be a concern for companies about data safety."

"The GUI should be more functional. There should be a process for connecting through Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc."

"For unstructured data monitoring, it's one of the top ones, if not the top one, due to its usability."

"We have Microsoft Office 365. I just saw an article today which says that they're actually getting integrated with Microsoft Office 365, which would be a useful feature. For user-based reports, log on activity, and stuff like that, it doesn't seem to really be present like Log360. That could just be my inexperience with it. I've been dealing with it for only about two and a half months."

"It is significantly complex."

More Varonis Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"erwin is cheaper than other solutions and this should appeal to other buyers. It has a good price tag."

"Smart Data Connectors have some costs, and then there are user-based licenses. We spend roughly $150,000 per year on the solution. It is a yearly subscription license that basically includes the cost for Smart Data Connectors and user-based licenses. We have around 30 data stewards who maintain definitions, and then we have five IT users who basically maintain the overall solution. It is not a SaaS kind of operation, and there is an infrastructure cost to host this solution, which is our regular AWS hosting cost."

"The whole suite, not just the DI but the modeling software, the harvester, Mapping Manager — everything we have — is about $100,000 a year for our renewals. That works out to each module being something like $8,000 to $10,000."

"erwin was at a good price. The federal government wouldn't buy something if the pricing wasn't good."

"The price is reasonable, and a subscription is required."

"The price is too high."

"There is an additional fee for the server maintenance."

"The licensing cost is around $7,000 for user. This is an estimation."

More erwin Data Intelligence by Quest pricing and cost advice

"Varonis Platform wasn't certainly the cheapest solution."

"It's expensive, kind of, really expensive."

"The platform is expensive. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten."

"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."

"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

25%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Non Profit

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about erwin Data Intelligence by Quest?

The data mapping manager is the most valuable feature.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for erwin Data Intelligence by Quest?

The price is reasonable, and a subscription is required.

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What needs improvement with erwin Data Intelligence by Quest?

The data quality assessment requires third-party components and a separate license. I would like to have better integration around the data quality. I would appreciate the inclusion of a non-struct...

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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 activities. We can see who accesses data and when files are created and understand w...

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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 for improvement. Varonis requires more access permissions for its core function...

See all answers

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 organization to protect it. We are looking for a solution that can scan our repositor...

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Comparisons

Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs erwin Data Intelligence by Quest

Compared 34% of the time

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Compared 25% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs erwin Data Intelligence by Quest

Compared 10% of the time

Collibra Lineage vs erwin Data Intelligence by Quest

Compared 9% of the time

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Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs Varonis Platform

Compared 20% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

BigID vs Varonis Platform

Compared 9% of the time

Wiz vs Varonis Platform

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Purview Information Protection vs Varonis Platform

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

erwin Data Intelligence by Quest

August 2025

Download erwin Data Intelligence by Quest product report

Buyer's Guide

Varonis Platform

July 2025

Download Varonis Platform product report

Also Known As

erwin DG, erwin Data Governance

No data available

Overview

The erwin Data Intelligence Suite (erwin DI) combines data catalog and data literacy capabilities for greater awareness of and access to available data assets, guidance on their use, and guardrails to ensure data policies and best practices are followed. Automatically harvest, transform and feed metadata from a wide array of data sources, operational processes, business applications and data models into a central data catalog. Then make it accessible and understandable within context via role-based views. This complete metadata-driven approach to data governance facilitates greater IT and business collaboration.

Quest Software

Varonis Platform specializes in network security and data monitoring with modules for alerting, data classification, and access management, benefiting environments like Microsoft 365.

Varonis is designed to secure data by auditing and tracking data movement. It leverages data alert and classification modules to identify and manage sensitive information. The platform enhances network security by alerting users to unexpected data modifications and deletions, crucial for effective data loss prevention. It supports unstructured data management, ensuring proper data access and permission controls. Known for its 24/7 support, Varonis offers comprehensive analytics and unified reporting, helping prevent data overexposure and facilitating compliance efforts.

What are the key features of Varonis Platform?

24/7 Support: Provides round-the-clock assistance.
Data Monitoring: Tracks data activities efficiently.
Unified Reporting: Consolidates data access reports.
Data Classification: Identifies sensitive data effectively.
Permission Management: Simplifies managing access rights.
Behavior Analytics: Detects abnormal behavior patterns.

What benefits should be highlighted in user reviews?

Enhanced Security: Improves data protection measures.
Compliance Support: Assists in meeting compliance standards.
Data Transparency: Offers clarity in data access activities.
Access Control: Ensures proper access to data.
Centralized Remediation: Eases remediation procedures.

Varonis Platform is widely utilized in industries needing stringent data confidentiality and management, such as finance and healthcare, for tracking data modifications and unauthorized access. Enterprises deploy it to manage permissions within large datasets, benefiting Microsoft 365 environments. While Varonis requires enhancements in cloud integration, the current deployment is often based on-premises, with attention to addressing the security needs and effective data handling for critical infrastructure.

Varonis

Sample Customers

Oracle, Infosys, GSK, Toyota Motor Sales, HSBC

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Buyer's Guide

Varonis Platform vs. erwin Data Intelligence by Quest

July 2025

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