We performed a comparison between Alation Data Catalog and SAP PowerDesigner based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Metadata Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The tool's metadata cataloging is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable features of Alation Data Catalog are the simplicity in onboarding data sources, the security in securing the data sources, and the way the various users of Alation Data Catalog communicate with each other through a messenger."
"Alation Data Catalog's best feature is the SQL query publication."
"We can customize templates based on our use cases."
"We had some of our data science engineers, who had built out some cloud-based data and data products for users. They were spending a lot of their time, up to 30 to 35% of their time, answering questions about the data and helping people understand how to use it. Once they were able to document that information within Alation, they were only focusing on around 5% of the high-value questions that really couldn't be solved through the catalog itself. It freed them up to be more productive, it made their end-users more productive, and it made the adoption rate of their data products rise more quickly because people were able to get to using them."
"Given the relatively low level of maturity, Alation's most relevant feature at the moment is a user interface that's easy to navigate, which helps us find and understand the data. So while Alation has a lot more functionality, our pain point right now is being able to easily find, understand, and trust the information to use it."
"The platform's most valuable features are workflow automation, automated business metadata tagging, technical metadata tagging, and data integration with data quality tools or platforms."
"The most valuable feature of SAP PowerDesigner is the testing of the models, it has the best function. Reverse engineering is very helpful too."
"Very good repository features."
"I like the connectivity or the lineage between the models and usability."
"I do a data-centric design, so for me, the data analysis and design tools are the most valuable features."
"The most valuable feature is the way you can extend it and customize it. With most modeling tools, you fit your modeling process to fit the tool. In PowerDesigner, you can make the tool fit the way you want to work."
"The physical database model is definitely the most valuable feature because it describes normalization exactly the way you understand the data, and it deploys it perfectly with open source systems."
"The feature I found valuable in SAP PowerDesigner is extraction. I also like that my company hasn't faced any issues because of the clear documentation about SAP PowerDesigner."
"It's a great tool for documentation."
"Alation Data Catalog needs to develop a lot in terms of data governance and would be improved with a built-in interactive data quality solution."
"The tool's domain model needs to be changed."
"The interface is not user-friendly."
"Alation Data Catalog does not provide end-to-end data lineage."
"Alation Data Catalog doesn't support end-to-end lineage. By that, I mean the ability to trace the movement of data from when it first comes into our organization to where it's consumed."
"I know that this has been on their roadmap and they're working on it, but as a whole, there's an untapped reservoir of capabilities within their article features that could be used and built upon."
"The product's data governance features need improvement."
"Pricing for small consultancies needs improvement. They sustain prices to competing tools. The competing tools tend to do special offers. PowerDesigner SAP doesn't pay much attention to the pricing of it and there are no special offers."
"Regarding improvements, I suggest enhancing the connection between objects in process and data models. It's crucial to define the structure of objects, especially when dealing with standard frameworks like VMM. There should be better visualization of arrows between BPM and data modeling objects, specifying their structure and impact. For future versions, a feature similar to Bizagi, allowing users to see forms or SQL representations of objects, would be valuable for demonstrating and presenting project details to stakeholders."
"Not very intuitive or user-friendly."
"This product does not have a good BPMN Modeler."
"The focus is more on mainstream development environments, and I see a lack of focus on the open source world. I think SAP PowerDesigner probably interfaces better with SQL Server and Db2 but not with open source databases like PostgreSQL and MySQL."
"There are some minor things that could be easier. We're writing up procedures to bring all the modeling back into one group as this reduces delays in production."
"There should be a better usage of current hardware including multicore CPUs, higher resolutions, and multiple displays."
"It would be helpful if there were glossary, catalog and governance tools. It would help make it a true end-to-end product."
Alation Data Catalog is ranked 2nd in Metadata Management with 7 reviews while SAP PowerDesigner is ranked 4th in Metadata Management with 34 reviews. Alation Data Catalog is rated 7.8, while SAP PowerDesigner is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Alation Data Catalog writes "The catalog now provides an opportunity for people to come together, to share, and to find". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SAP PowerDesigner writes "Effective in terms of validating everything, but sometimes they don't allow us some flexibility and GUI could improve". Alation Data Catalog is most compared with Microsoft Purview Data Governance, Collibra Governance, Informatica Axon, Informatica Enterprise Data Catalog and Atlan, whereas SAP PowerDesigner is most compared with erwin Data Modeler by Quest, Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, Visio, IDERA ER/Studio and LeanIX. See our Alation Data Catalog vs. SAP PowerDesigner report.
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