For businesses that collect a lot of data, the sheer quantity can become one of your biggest headaches. Data governance tools become a necessity when your business is losing track of the data you’ve collected. Whether you’re drowning in a sea of data, or you want to take pre-emptive measures, find the right software to manage your data below.
To begin your search, we’ve offered you the top 13 data governance tools and compared the pros and cons of each tool.
Top 13 Data Governance Tools
- Collibra – Best Data Governance Tool for Versatility
- Talend – Best Open-Source Data Governance Tool
- IBM Data Governance – Best Data Governance Tool for Risk Management
- Informatica Axon Data Governance – Best Data Governance Tool for Collaboration
- SAP Master Data Governance – Best Data Governance Tool for Centralization
- Egnyte – Best Data Governance Tool for Organization
- OvalEdge – Best Data Governance Tool for Data Lifecycle
- Erwin Data Intelligence – Best Data Governance Tool for Beginners
- Ataccama Master Data Management – Best Data Governance Tool for Usability
- Alteryx – Best Data Governance Tool for Data Migration
- Claravine – Best Data Governance Tool for Marketing
- Atlan – Best Data Governance Tool for Data Browsing
- Cloudera Enterprise – Best Data Governance Tool for Large Firms
1. Collibra – Best Data Governance Tool for Versatility
Pricing: Contact Sales
The best business decisions are often made based on hard data, Collibra is a tool that caters to data scientists and analysts. This platform contains everything you might need from a data governance tool, from cataloging and governance to quality and privacy. In the background, create a searchable repository for all your metadata and assign roles for your users. Collibra also provides a versatile API and the possibility of several integrations with other software.
| Pros | Cons |
| Feature-rich | Expensive |
| Consolidate workflows to minimize expenses | Not good for small companies |
| Easy to customize | |
| Integrate data |
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2. Talend – Best Open-Source Data Governance Tool
Pricing: Free Trial, Contact Sales
For an open-source data governance tool, Talend handles every stage of the data lifecycle exceptionally well. Rest assured with Talend as they tend to pride themselves on security, use their trust assessor to evaluate your data. Moreover, Talend’s cloud and desktop-based solutions are trusted by retail, financial and healthcare services so they offer something for everyone.
| Pros | Cons |
| High accuracy | Difficult to learn |
| Relevant integrations | Slow to use |
| Highly scalable | For technical users |
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3. IBM Data Governance – Best Data Governance Tool for Risk Management
Pricing: Free Plan, Part of IBM cloud pricing
IBM Data Governance is a tool best suited for enterprises looking to enhance the way they share data. Take care of your security and that of your colleagues by adhering to PII compliance using their risk analysis tools. As it’s informed by machine learning insights, this tool prepares and curates data for you to share and make informed decisions with. You can also use the IBM Watson knowledge catalog to support your AI projects.
| Pros | Cons |
| Industry-standard | Hard to integrate |
| Security-oriented | Part of wider plan |
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4. Informatica Axon Data Governance – Best Data Governance Tool for Collaboration
Pricing: Free Trial, Contact Sales
If scalable data is one of your priorities, Informatica will help you identify gaps in your current data structures and universalize your rules to cover all your data sets. You might also need to share data and collaborate, do so securely and democratically with Informatica’s collaboration tools. Additionally, the software automatically measures data quality based on the rules you implement over time.
| Pros | Cons |
| Versatile workspace | Hard to debug |
| Provides ready-made workflows | Resource intensive |
| Fetches data quickly | Difficult to use |
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5. SAP Master Data Governance – Best Data Governance Tool for Centralization
Pricing: Contact Sales
SAP Master Data Governance is yet another reputable data governance software that helps facilitate data sharing across your organization’s departments. This helps you consolidate your expenses and quickly complete new projects as a team. While this tool centralizes your data governance, it also integrates easily with software like Excel. Note that this tool is better suited to large organizations with powerful computers because it takes up a lot of resources.
| Pros | Cons |
| Easy to extract data | Doesn’t always catch duplicate data |
| Good for SAP users | Database is resource-heavy |
| Prone to crashes |
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6. Egnyte – Best Data Governance Tool for Organization
Pricing: Contact Sales
Imagine Dropbox, but with features to organize your data – this is what Egnyte seeks to offer its customers. Aside from data classification and visualization, Egnyte helps you adhere to security regulations in several industries. They also automatically classify your personally identifiable information (PII) based on 400 pre-set patterns. Just like Dropbox, you can protect your sensitive data by fine-tuning permissions even at the sub-folder level.
| Pros | Cons |
| Delegate data easily | Permissions are tricky |
| Quickly store data | Mobile app is slower |
| Good for medium-sized companies |
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7. OvalEdge – Best Data Governance Tool for Data Lifecycle
Pricing: Free Trial,Contact Sales
A standard data governance tool, OvalEdge helps you catalog all your data in a matter of weeks. Simplify your data lifecycle to create more value for your organization. As an advanced user, leverage their discovery platform to quickly find vital insights. OvalEdge presents itself as an affordable alternative to comparable data governance tools on the market, though you’ll have to contact their sales team and judge for yourself.
| Pros | Cons |
| Affordable compared to similar services | Data quality section is buggy |
| Powerful data valuation tools | |
| Insight discovery is helpful |
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8. Erwin Data Intelligence – Best Data Governance Tool for Beginners
Pricing: Free Trial, Contact Sales
Not everyone is a data professional, Erwin attempts to increase your users’ data awareness so that even a novice can benefit from its insights. Erwin centralizes and catalogs your data to produce insights that are understandable in the context of your business. Moreover, Erwin accounts for data risks and helps you comply with local and industry regulations. It even lets you associate your data with physical assets.
| Pros | Cons |
| Usable for everyone in an organization | No Mac solution |
| Data regulation protocols | Steep learning curve |
| Centralizes metadata |
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9. Ataccama Master Data Management – Best Data Governance Tool for Usability
Pricing: Contact Sales
While Ataccama offers a wide range of data tools, Master Data Management is the best tool they offer for data governance. Firstly, Ataccama prides itself in offering a clean, user-friendly experience. While this software helps you set your own data rules, its AI will automatically set rules based on best practices that improve as your data evolve. They also give you the ability to work smarter by combining different types of workflows and profiling your data for you.
| Pros | Cons |
| Easy to use | Poor developer support |
| Smooth Visualizations | |
| Open source available |
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10. Alteryx – Best Data Governance Tool for Data Migration
Pricing: Free Trial, Individual: $5,195/user/year, Contact Sales
Migrating to a new data governance platform can be daunting. From the beginning, Alteryx ensures that your transition is smooth and painless as they team you up with experts from their company right away. They offer a top-notch analytics suite that lets you deploy apps trackable across your entire organization. Even those who are unfamiliar with data analysis will be able to appreciate the insights you derive from this software as you create your own drag-and-drop analytics reports.
| Pros | Cons |
| Easy visualizations | Expensive |
| Feature-rich | Lengthy load time |
| Manipulate data easily | |
| Customer support |
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11. Claravine – Best Data Governance Tool for Marketing
Pricing: Contact Sales
Marketing agencies will appreciate Claravine as they produce insights that are tailored towards your advertising campaigns. From the start, they speed up your workflows by fixing poor quality data for you automatically, as well as managing your spreadsheets. They also give creative advice on the types of content that work best for your audience.
| Pros | Cons |
| Highly adaptable and scalable | Hard to implement bulk changes |
| Responsive support team | Difficult to import/upload |
| Helps you deal with clients |
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12. Atlan – Best Data Governance Tool for Data Browsing
Pricing: Free Trial, Contact Sales
Going beyond the typical data governance tool, Atlan advertises itself as a data workspace. Atlan helps teams get context about data and includes a search algorithm that simplifies data browsing. Regardless of whether your users are technically oriented, Atlan enables them to query across big data such including data lakes. Behind the scenes. Bots will parse through your data history to outline your data lineage for you.
| Pros | Cons |
| Good for beginners | Difficult to integrate |
| Great customer support | |
| Easy to use features |
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13. Cloudera Enterprise – Best Data Governance Tool for Large Firms
Pricing: Individual: $10,000/year/user, Contact Sales
If you’re involved with a very large organization with swaths of data to sift through, Cloudera Enterprise will make many people’s lives simpler. While there is a bit of a learning curve when you first implement this cloud solution, eventually, stakeholders will grow to appreciate the insights it lends through machine learning. Not to mention, it is known to enhance your users’ productivity. Cloudera comes out of the box with many big data environments pre-installed, so you can focus on learning the software.
| Pros | Cons |
| Great if you have lots of data | Expensive, only for large orgs |
| Several integrations | Not easy to switch |
| Great for implementing analytics |
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Frequently Asked Questions
What are data governance tools and why are they important?
Data governance tools are used for discovering, capturing, and cataloging data. The best tools will help you manage your entire data lifecycle. Important aspects to consider include security, data lineage and metadata management. It’s also helpful when these tools give you the ability to visualize data so that you can make decisions quickly and share your findings with others.
When organizations grow large and accumulate mountains of data, data governance tools help bring order. Massive amounts of disorganized data become onerous to keep track of and even harder to derive any insights from. Therefore, you should choose an appropriate data governance software for your organization not only to save time but also identify potential areas of improvement.
How do you choose a data governance tool?
Choosing a data governance tool will depend on your organizational needs. First, you need to consider what kind of data you use and how much more data you need to accommodate. Then, you should consider the level of this tool’s intended users. Will your users be data professionals? Or is this software intended for use throughout your organization? Finally, you should consider how much leeway you’re willing to allow when implementing this software. Be warned, many encounter difficulties customizing data governance software for their purposes.
What is the best data governance tool?
All things considered, Collibra is the best data governance tool. It is widely recognized as the industry-standard and provides a host of features that cater to all aspects of data governance, including data quality and lineage. However, there are other tools that might be a better fit for your company’s requirements, let’s look at some other helpful tools.
What is the best open-source data governance tool?
Talend is probably the best open-source data governance tool. Developers will appreciate that it has several possible app integrations and a sophisticated API. Not to mention, they are intensely focused on data security. Ataccama and Cloudera are also good examples of open-source data governance tools.
What is the best free data governance tool?
While there isn’t a data governance tool worth discussing that offers its full functionality for free, IBM Data Governance can be used on a free plan. Moreover, many other software listed in this article come with a free trial. Given that data governance tools service huge amounts of data, it’s expected that you should pay for the privilege.
What is the best data governance tool for big data?
While most data governance tools are geared to work with big data, the tool best suited to large organizations with large amounts of data is Cloudera Enterprise. They advertise themselves as an enterprise-grade solution ideal for companies with over a billion dollars in revenue, so you know they can handle high volumes.