Myriade vs Alation: Honest Comparison
Understanding the differences to help you choose the right data catalog solution
Quick Summary
Choose Alation if:
- You need an enterprise-proven solution with 10+ years of development
- You have dedicated catalog team to manage and maintain the platform
- You want social collaboration features like article writing and discussions
- You're okay with 2-3 month implementation timeline
Choose Myriade if:
- You want automatic documentation without manual cataloging work
- You need to start fast (10 minutes setup vs months)
- Your team is already overwhelmed and can't maintain another tool
- You want AI-powered automation for quality and governance
Feature Comparison
| Category | Myriade | Alation |
|---|---|---|
| Approach | AI agents that automate catalog building | Manual catalog with social features |
| Data Quality Monitoring | Automated, continuous | Manual or via integrations |
| Catalog Building | AI auto-generates from usage | Manual documentation required |
| Setup Time | 10 minutes | 2-3 months |
| Maintenance | Minimal (self-updating) | Requires dedicated team |
| Pricing | Usage-based, pilot program available | $200K+ annually |
| Social Features | Focused on automation over collaboration | Extensive (articles, discussions) |
| Lineage | Auto-discovered from queries | Extensive manual + auto |
| Search | AI-powered semantic search | Advanced search with filters |
| Best For | Small-medium teams, fast-moving startups | Large enterprises, established processes |
Key Differences
1. Automation vs. Collaboration
Myriade
Built on the principle that AI should do the tedious work. Our agents automatically discover, document, and monitor your data. You review and refine, not build from scratch. Ideal when your team is already stretched thin.
Alation
Focuses on human collaboration and knowledge sharing. Provides a platform for data teams to write articles, have discussions, and manually curate knowledge. Powerful when you have dedicated resources for catalog management.
2. Speed to Value
Myriade
10 minutes to see value. Connect your warehouse, AI begins scanning immediately. First insights available within an hour. Full catalog built within days.
- • Day 1: Connected, scanning started
- • Day 2: Quality reports available
- • Day 7: Full catalog with documentation
Alation
2-3 months typical implementation. Requires discovery sessions, schema mapping, permissions setup, user training, and phased rollout. Thorough but time-intensive.
- • Month 1: Discovery and setup
- • Month 2: Configuration and training
- • Month 3: Rollout and adoption
3. Maintenance Burden
Myriade
Self-maintaining catalog. As schemas change and new tables appear, AI updates documentation automatically. You review changes, not recreate everything. Works well when teams ship fast and schemas evolve weekly.
Alation
Requires ongoing curation. Teams need to manually update descriptions, articles, and relationships as data evolves. Best practice is having dedicated catalog stewards. Works when you have resources for active management.
What Alation Does Well
We believe in being fair. Here's what Alation genuinely excels at:
📚 Knowledge Management
Alation's article and discussion features create a true data Wikipedia. Great for organizations with complex domain knowledge to document.
🏢 Enterprise Maturity
Battle-tested at Fortune 500 companies. Proven security, compliance, and scale. Mature integrations with every enterprise data tool.
🔍 Advanced Search
Sophisticated search with filters, facets, and relevance ranking. Years of refinement make finding specific assets intuitive.
🤝 Change Management
Alation has extensive resources for driving organizational adoption. Their success team helps with change management at scale.
Common Questions
Can I use both?
Some teams use Myriade for automation (catalog building, quality monitoring) and Alation for knowledge sharing (articles, tribal knowledge). We have APIs to sync catalog metadata to Alation if needed. However, most teams find one tool sufficient.
How do I migrate from Alation?
We can import your existing Alation catalog metadata to seed Myriade. This preserves manual descriptions while adding AI automation. Migration typically takes 1-2 weeks for full transition. Contact us for a migration plan.
What does Alation cost vs. Myriade?
Alation typically costs $200K-500K+ annually for mid-size organizations, plus implementation costs. Myriade uses usage-based pricing starting much lower, with pilot programs available.
However, consider total cost: Alation's price + dedicated steward salaries ($100K+) vs. Myriade' price + minimal maintenance. ROI depends on your team size and automation value.
Is Myriade mature enough for enterprise?
We're in pilot phase with 5-10 partners, so we're newer than Alation's 10+ year track record. Best fit is teams who value speed and automation over established maturity. We're SOC 2 compliant and enterprise-ready for security, but don't yet have Alation's breadth of features.
Who Uses What
Teams using Alation
- ✓Large enterprises (500+ data users) with formal governance
- ✓Banks and healthcare with strict compliance requirements
- ✓Established data teams with dedicated catalog stewards
- ✓Organizations valuing knowledge sharing over automation
Teams using Myriade
- ✓Fast-moving startups (Series A-C) scaling data infrastructure
- ✓Small-medium data teams (3-15 people) already overwhelmed
- ✓SaaS and tech companies shipping features weekly
- ✓Teams wanting automation without hiring more headcount