For a collaborative SaaS catalog aimed at a warehouse, dbt and BI stack, look first at Atlan. If you want a catalog with an open source core you could self-host later, compare DataHub Cloud and Collate (managed OpenMetadata, with a free tier). For a business-friendly glossary and catalog with published plan limits and EU hosting, DataGalaxy. If nearly all your data lives in one platform, the built-in catalog may be enough: Unity Catalog for Databricks and Snowflake Horizon Catalog for Snowflake. If you need more formal governance than search, Collibra is the governance-led alternative.
Alation is an enterprise data catalog, now branded the Alation Intelligence Operating System (AIOS), that leads with search, curation and stewardship by analysts, and adds lineage, data quality, governance and data products. It is offered as Alation Cloud Service or as customer-managed software, known in its documentation as Classic Alation. Alation publishes no prices; its pricing page offers a call with sales.
Teams that look elsewhere usually give one of these reasons. The first three follow from Alation's own documentation; the last is our editorial reading.
- Quote-only pricing. There are no published prices, and features such as PrivateLink and customer-managed encryption keys are limited to the Enterprise and Enterprise+ plans.
- Cloud-first roadmap. Alation recommends the cloud service and several AI and search features are cloud-only; from 18 August 2026 the cloud documentation moved to a new site, while docs.alation.com keeps the customer-managed docs.
- Running it yourself. Customer-managed installs mean you run and upgrade the servers.
- Overlap with platform catalogs (editorial). Databricks and Snowflake now ship catalogs with search, lineage and access policies, so single-platform teams question a separate catalog.
For head-to-head pages, see Collibra vs Alation, DataHub vs OpenMetadata and Unity Catalog vs Snowflake Horizon. If your priority is stewardship workflows and policies, see Collibra alternatives; for self-hosted open source catalogs, see DataHub alternatives.
Quick picks
Single-tenant SaaS with lineage, glossary, APIs, an SDK and an MCP server across 80+ systems.
A free SaaS tier for 5 users and 500 assets, on an Apache 2.0 core you can self-host.
Managed edition of the Apache 2.0 DataHub project, with observability and access workflows added.
Included with Databricks Premium and Enterprise, with lineage, access control and auditing.
Discovery, lineage, classification and policies inside Snowflake, mostly on Enterprise Edition.
How we chose
We considered Atlan, DataHub Cloud, Collate (OpenMetadata), DataGalaxy, Collibra, Databricks Unity Catalog, Snowflake Horizon Catalog, Secoda, Select Star and data.world. To be included, a product had to be sold in November 2026, offer catalog search with documentation or curation by users, show lineage, and document its deployment model on an official page.
Three discovery-led catalogs were left out because of ownership changes: Atlassian acquired Secoda in December 2025 and plans to bring it into Rovo and its Analytics product; Snowflake agreed to acquire the Select Star team and technology in November 2025 to extend Horizon Catalog, with no statement on standalone sales; and ServiceNow completed its acquisition of data.world in July 2025, again with no statement on standalone sales. Amundsen, an open source discovery tool, was archived in September 2026 and is not recommended.
For each product we recorded the pricing model, any free tier, deployment options and its main limitation. The order is not a ranking: SaaS catalogs come first, then managed open source catalogs, then a governance-led catalog, then catalogs built into data platforms.
At a glance
| Product | Pricing model | Free option | Deployment | Best for | Main trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlan | By quote | None published | Single-tenant SaaS (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) | Cloud data stacks, API-led use | No self-hosted platform |
| DataHub Cloud | By quote | DataHub Core (self-hosted, Apache 2.0) | SaaS; Core self-hosted | Teams wanting an open source core | No public pricing or plans |
| Collate (OpenMetadata) | Plans with published limits; paid plans by quote | Free tier (5 users, 500 assets); OSS self-hosted | Multi-tenant, single-tenant, hybrid or BYOC SaaS | Low-cost managed evaluation | Free tier is small; some features Collate-only |
| DataGalaxy | Plans with published limits, by quote | None published | SaaS (EU or US hosting) | Business glossary and data literacy | Connector caps on lower plans |
| Collibra Platform | By quote, modular | None published | SaaS with Edge; self-hosted variant | Formal governance programmes | Heavier operating model |
| Unity Catalog | Included with Databricks Premium and Enterprise | Open source server (Apache 2.0) | Databricks on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud | Databricks-centred teams | Governs Databricks and connected catalogs only |
| Snowflake Horizon Catalog | Included in Snowflake; many features Enterprise Edition+ | Basic features in Standard | Snowflake on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud | Snowflake-centred teams | No documented glossary or stewardship workflows |
Atlan
Atlan is a single-tenant SaaS metadata platform combining a data catalog, lineage, glossary, governance and data quality signals, with APIs, an SDK and an MCP server for AI agents. Its home page cites more than 80 connectors. Sources behind a firewall are reached through the Self-Deployed Runtime (Docker Compose or Kubernetes), which replaced the Secure Agent deprecated on 30 June 2026.
For buyers who chose Alation for adoption by analysts, Atlan is the closest SaaS-only alternative in approach: collaborative documentation on top of the modern data stack, with an API layer for automation (editorial). See Atlan vs Collibra for how it compares with a governance-led catalog.
- No published pricing or tiers.
- No self-hosted option for the platform itself.
- Whether lineage is column-level for every source was not documented on the pages we checked.
DataHub Cloud
DataHub is an open source metadata platform under the Apache 2.0 licence, with search, lineage and governance across a data stack. DataHub Cloud is the managed edition from the company formerly called Acryl Data, which rebranded as DataHub in May 2025; it adds features such as observability monitors, access workflows and an uptime SLA that are not in the open source build. Core v1.8.0 shipped on 22 October 2026.
The open source core is the main difference from Alation: the metadata model and APIs are public, and a team can start on Core and move to the managed edition, or the reverse (editorial). See DataHub vs OpenMetadata.
- No public plans or prices for DataHub Cloud, and no free managed tier.
- Observability monitors, access workflows and the SLA are Cloud only.
- Self-hosting Core means running several services, including a search engine.
Collate (managed OpenMetadata)
OpenMetadata is an Apache 2.0 catalog that combines discovery, lineage, a glossary, governance and built-in data quality tests. Collate, the company that owns the OpenMetadata trademark, sells the managed service and publishes plan limits: a Free Tier (multi-tenant, 5 users, 500 data assets, unlimited connectors), Premium (25 users, 5,000 assets) and Enterprise (50 users, 10,000 assets, with unlimited options), the paid plans by sales contact.
Of the products here it is the only one with a free managed tier, which makes it an easy way to compare discovery features against Alation on real metadata before talking to sales (editorial). OpenMetadata 2.0.0 shipped on 24 August 2026.
- The Collate Free Tier is capped at 5 users and 500 data assets.
- Some features are Collate-only, so check release notes before assuming parity with the open source build.
- No published prices for Premium or Enterprise.
Read our Collate (managed OpenMetadata) review · Official site
DataGalaxy
DataGalaxy is a SaaS data and AI governance platform with a catalog, business glossary, automated lineage and data products, and a Portfolio product for AI use cases. It publishes plan limits (Starter, Professional and Enterprise, with minimum editor counts, connector caps and unlimited readers) but not prices.
It is aimed at business users as much as engineers, which fits programmes that measure success by how many people read and trust definitions (editorial). EU hosting may matter to European organisations.
- No published prices.
- Connector counts are capped on the Starter and Professional plans.
- Access policy and classification features are not described on the pages checked.
Collibra Platform
Collibra Platform is the governance-led alternative: a catalog and glossary with stewardship, Workflow Designer, Policy Manager, Reference Data, lineage, data quality, privacy and AI governance. Sources connect through Edge, which keeps metadata processing in your network. Collibra publishes no prices, and modules are scoped separately.
It is a fit when an Alation rollout has shown that you need owners, approvals and policies more than better search, and less of one when adoption by analysts is the gap (editorial). See Collibra vs Alation and Collibra alternatives.
- No public pricing; modules are quoted separately.
- Standard Edge sites need Kubernetes skills; Collibra Cloud sites lack some features.
- Value depends on sustained stewardship effort.
Unity Catalog (Databricks)
Unity Catalog is the governance layer built into Databricks for tables, volumes, functions, models and AI assets, with fine-grained access control, automatic lineage, auditing and Iceberg REST access. Databricks states that no separate licence is needed on the Premium and Enterprise tiers. It is also an Apache 2.0 open source project in the LF AI & Data Foundation, whose 0.7.0 release appeared on 13 October 2026.
For a team whose analysts work almost entirely in Databricks, the built-in catalog removes a second product to buy and keep in sync (editorial). See Unity Catalog vs Snowflake Horizon and our Databricks profile.
- Governs Databricks and connected catalogs, not a whole enterprise estate.
- Glossary and stewardship workflows are thinner than in dedicated catalogs.
- The open source edition is a sandbox project whose APIs are still evolving.
Snowflake Horizon Catalog
Horizon Catalog is the catalog and governance feature set built into Snowflake: discovery, lineage, classification, masking and row access policies, data metric functions and an Iceberg REST Catalog API that lets external engines read and write Snowflake-managed Iceberg tables. Snowflake's editions page shows that masking, row access policies, classification, access history, data metric functions and lineage need Enterprise Edition or higher.
Snowflake also agreed in November 2025 to acquire the Select Star team and technology to extend Horizon Catalog beyond Snowflake. For Snowflake-centred teams it is worth checking how far the built-in catalog covers your discovery needs before buying a separate one (editorial). See our Snowflake profile.
- Most governance controls need Enterprise Edition or higher.
- No documented business glossary or stewardship workflows.
- Centred on Snowflake; Iceberg REST access covers Snowflake-managed Iceberg tables, not native tables.
When to stay with Alation
Stay with Alation if analysts already use it: curated descriptions, stewardship habits and trusted definitions take years to build, and that adoption is the hardest thing to move (editorial). Alation also covers several platforms at once, which the Databricks and Snowflake catalogs do not, and it remains available as customer-managed software for organisations that cannot use SaaS.
Switching makes most sense when one platform now holds almost all your data (Unity Catalog, Horizon Catalog), when you want an open source core or a free managed tier (DataHub, Collate), when price transparency matters (Collate and DataGalaxy publish plan limits), or when the real gap is governance workflow (Collibra). Export your curated content and glossary first, and check how each candidate imports it.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free alternative to Alation?
Yes, with limits. OpenMetadata and DataHub Core are free to self-host under Apache 2.0, and Collate offers a free managed tier for 5 users and 500 data assets. The open source Unity Catalog server is also free but is a technical catalog rather than a discovery tool for business users.
Is Amundsen still an option?
No. The Amundsen repository was archived in September 2026 due to inactivity, with no releases since August 2024. Teams still running it should plan a migration; see DataHub alternatives for maintained open source catalogs.
Can Unity Catalog or Horizon Catalog replace Alation?
For a team whose data is almost all in one platform, possibly. Both cover search, lineage and access policies inside their platform, but neither documents the glossary and stewardship features of a dedicated catalog. See Unity Catalog vs Snowflake Horizon.
What happened to Secoda and Select Star?
Atlassian acquired Secoda in December 2025 and Snowflake agreed to acquire Select Star in November 2025. Secoda is still sold but will move to Atlassian's cloud; we found no statement on standalone sales of Select Star, so neither is recommended here.
Sources
- Alation home page
- Alation pricing
- Alation: cloud and customer-managed
- Atlan architecture
- DataHub Cloud overview
- DataHub v1.8.0 release
- Collate pricing
- OpenMetadata releases
- DataGalaxy plans
- Collibra products
- Databricks Unity Catalog
- Unity Catalog open source project
- Snowflake Horizon Catalog
- Snowflake editions
- Snowflake to acquire Select Star
- Atlassian acquires Secoda
- Amundsen repository (archived)
Checked November 2026.
How we research these guides: our editorial method.