Alation Data Catalog vs. Azure Data Catalog

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Alation
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Alation offers enterprise data intelligence solutions, including data search & discovery, data governance, data stewardship, analytics, and digital transformation. Alation operates in thethe data catalog market. With its Behavioral Analysis Engine, inbuilt collaboration capabilities, and open interfaces, Alation combines machine learning with human insight with the goal of tackle the most demanding challenges in data and metadata management.N/A
Azure Data Catalog
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft's Azure Data Catalog is an enterprise-wide metadata catalog designed to make data asset discovery straightforward, a fully-managed service that lets analysts. data scientists, and developers to register, enrich, discover, understand, and consume data sources.N/A
Pricing
Alation Data CatalogAzure Data Catalog
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AlationAzure Data Catalog
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Alation Data CatalogAzure Data Catalog
Considered Both Products
Alation
Chose Alation Data Catalog
1.Alation is cheaper.
2.Manta meets the needs only in discovering lineage.
3.AWS Glue is more technical data catalog and it doesn`t allow to describe source or table in detailed way.
Azure Data Catalog

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Alation Data CatalogAzure Data Catalog
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Alteryx
Alteryx
Score 9.0 out of 10
Alteryx
Alteryx
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Alteryx
Alteryx
Score 9.0 out of 10
Alteryx
Alteryx
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Alation Data CatalogAzure Data Catalog
Likelihood to Recommend
7.7
(16 ratings)
8.8
(10 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Alation Data CatalogAzure Data Catalog
Likelihood to Recommend
Alation
Alation is pretty easy to implement. We were able to do it ourselves with Alation's help, no 3rd party needed. We are currently migrating to Snowflake, and it has been helpful with prioritizing what gets migrated. It's great for searching for tables and views. I even use it when I'm trying to find fields in a large table. If I'm not sure if the field is called first_name, firstname, or fname, I can use Alation's table page, filter for fields with "name", and easily find it.
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Microsoft
Azure Data Catalog helps us solve data discovery problems
brilliantly. Our organization created a single source of truth for our data,
which allowed us to develop BI and data science solutions. We can drag tables
or data sources to manage workflow. Some of the more complicated data normalization
or standardization issues need to be simplified, and I'd like to see that
happen.
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Pros
Alation
  • Ability to link objects using the @ symbol. It allows us to easily provide a way to get more information or context. So if the business concept is part of a hierarchy, we can link to the other terms in that hierarchy.
  • The customization is really helpful. Most object types have robust customization options. Others are less so, but it is improving. We've created multiple custom fields to support our data governance framework.
  • The search feature with filtering is helpful in narrowing down what you're looking for.
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Microsoft
  • It's easy to use and implement.
  • Ownership of the data.
  • It's helpful for all businesses.
  • Policy on data preservation.
  • It can utilize various data sources.
  • Data management is secure and simple.
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Cons
Alation
  • The lineage UI is not ready for primetime. I would not recommend this feature for my users at this time because it's too complex to understand and is visually difficult to track down specific paths.
  • The underlying infrastructure of the on-premise version of the software is fragile and unnecessarily complicated, using too many modules and technologies.
  • The license model of the on-premise version contains too many add-ons. I would like to pay one price and get all of the features.
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Microsoft
  • Maintenance and creation of documentation for data sources takes a lot of time
  • One cannot connect to data using a client's app unless they know the locus of the data source.
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Usability
Alation
It's a great tool in terms of user experience.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Alation
From the RightStart Program to the Customer Success team to technical support, Alation has it all covered. They respond quickly and expertly to answer my questions and fix my problems.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Alation
Alation provided the right balance of connection with systems in use, trusted reputation and affordability. The product integrates with current ways of working and does not require reorganisation within other lines of business.
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Microsoft
Azure Data Catalogue was chosen for
  • Microsoft's customer service and expertise
  • Experience with Azure Cloud Solutions
  • Reviews from peers on functionality and performance
  • Product roadmap
  • Overall costs
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Return on Investment
Alation
  • Provides a place where people can go to find things
  • When we first implemented, someone was concerned that people would now see what a mess our data environment was. I consider that a feature. We can't clean up if we can't see what we have.
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Microsoft
  • Azure platform makes it easier for us to register & catalogue all available information easily. This way when the customer actually made a sudden request or they want to access sensitive information on their own, the data is readily presented to them. Needless to say we use this mined and catalogue data for a variety of inhouse training and other improvement initiatives.
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ScreenShots

Alation Screenshots

Screenshot of Search: Finds data with natural language or advanced search capabilities like tags, and asset typesScreenshot of Curate: Documents data with valuable context for everyone to better understand and trust dataScreenshot of Compose: Queries multiple databases and provides guided navigation with recommended data to use