Alation Data Catalog vs. Collibra Data Intelligence Cloud

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.

Incentivized

Collibra is well suited where you have multiple reporting environments and multiple source systems. Collibra works well in our environment because we can delegate roles and administration to departments or it can be used in a centralized environment. The ability to customize attributes and assets as well and integrate using the rest api is very important to us.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Data Lineage and traceability
• Easy to customize
• Easy tool to use for business users
• Workflow
• Out of the box metrics

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Data Quality and Data Profiling
• Mobile interface

Incentivized

It's a great tool in terms of user experience.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Collibra offers more features [than alternatives] and is easy for business users to use. We did a proof of concept with Collibra using the Cloud service that allowed us to kick the tires and get a comfort level before we made the investment. At the time of our purchase the market was very immature and is continuing to evolve.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• ROI is hard to measure because there are so many soft benefits that come from the tool. We do have a variety of metrics that we track using Collibra to better gauge the maturity of data governance.

Incentivized