Your evaluation guide to navigating
the top data catalogs
Data teams understand the challenges of handling data in modern systems. The various data sources make it difficult to keep track of data lineage, metadata, and other important information. However, using a modern data catalog with AI capabilities can solve these problems.
A data catalog is a centralized repository that automates data discovery, documentation, and governance. With Secoda, you can simplify data management and navigate your data infrastructure better.
We’ll compare Secoda to OpenMetadata against six key criteria that modern data teams should be considering during their data catalog evaluation process:
Efficiently reducing the time dedicated to data discovery and documentation is Secoda’s top use case.
Secoda offers an integrated AI assistant within your workflow, providing you with the capability to leverage its functionalities. By automatically capturing metadata from all your data sources, Secoda empowers you to automate approximately 90% of your documentation tasks. This automation includes the generation of SQL scripts, descriptions for tables and columns, user guides, and various other documentation components.
Secoda presents a feature that facilitates the automatic visualization of lineage throughout your entire data stack, encompassing all data sources. It offers the convenience of incorporating manual lineage nodes through a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface. Secoda's lineage functionality extends to both column and table levels, ensuring comprehensive coverage. Additionally, it integrates with Slack to deliver notifications regarding changes in downstream data ownership, enhancing communication and collaboration.
Secoda serves as the gateway for individuals, regardless of their technical proficiency, to access data knowledge through a user-friendly interface. With the convenience of ChatGPT, any team member can effortlessly ask data-related questions and receive relevant and contextual answers.
To deliver value, data catalogs must cater to both technical and non-technical users. Secoda recognizes the importance of ease of use and achieves it through its robust search functionality, powered by LLM. This advanced search capability enhances accuracy and speed in locating information by considering not only the meaning but also the context of search terms, facilitating efficient and comprehensive results. OpenMetadata’s search capabilities are limited to semantic keyword search. If data enablement is a part of your consideration, having an easy-to-navigate search is critical. Feedback from former users of OpenMetadata is that there is limited adoption on their platform because it is not intuitive to use and that data consumers find the search capabilities lacking.
Designed to empower every member of the organization, Secoda goes beyond serving solely data practitioners. It offers personalized user journeys and tailored views based on specific roles, such as data analysts or heads of sales, simplifying data access and enhancing user experience.
Secoda prioritizes a delightful user experience, allowing multiple collaborators at once, similar to Google Docs or Miro Boards. It also supports nested folder structures for establishing document hierarchies and relationships.
Implementing Secoda is a seamless process. Once an account is created, data teams can go live within minutes. Whether opting for self-implementation or seeking guidance from our customer success team, you can expect to have Secoda up and running by the end of the day.
Enterprise data catalogs must possess robust support for data governance workflows, encompassing essential functionalities such as version control, version history tracking, publishing workflows, role-based permissions, assignments, and access controls. Secoda, as a leading solution, caters to the specific needs of non-data team users by providing tailored experiences based on their organizational roles. This means that individuals such as the head of marketing and the director of analytics will have access to distinct reports, ensuring appropriate data visibility.
In terms of data security, Secoda prioritizes the protection and confidentiality of client data. It complies with SOC 2 Type 1 and 2 standards established by the AICPA, guaranteeing adherence to industry best practices. To offer flexibility in hosting options, Secoda allows for self-hosting within your own VPN and VPC environments. Convenient deployment can be achieved through Terraform or Docker, ensuring a seamless setup process.
Secoda seamlessly integrates with various authentication services, including Google and Microsoft SSO, Okta, MFA, and SAML. This enables users to conveniently sign in using their existing credentials, streamlining the authentication process.
When it comes to transferring data from private databases to Secoda, SSH tunneling is employed to ensure a secure and protected data transfer process. Users are equipped with granular control over their datasets, enabling them to remove or exclude sensitive data during synchronization or automatically mark it within the Secoda platform.
Secoda guarantees end-to-end encryption of data, both during transit and at rest, further safeguarding the privacy and confidentiality of the information being managed. It's important to note that Secoda does not access or view the data being moved, placing utmost importance on maintaining robust data security measures.
Secoda stands as the pioneering AI-powered catalog equipped with integrated search capabilities. With its current full-production feature set encompassing search, lineage, and documentation functionalities, Secoda AI offers a comprehensive solution. Unlike its beta counterparts, Secoda AI is actively utilized by our esteemed customers, empowering them to automate 90% of their documentation processes.
There are numerous compelling reasons for choosing solutions such as dbt or Snowflake over opting for an in-house development approach. Primarily, the advantages offered by these solutions far outweigh the potential limitations of a custom-built system, and at a significantly lower cost. This principle holds true across various Saas products in virtually any industry. Saas companies dedicate considerable effort to constantly ideate novel features that set them apart from competitors, striving to gain a cutting-edge advantage and expand their market share. In contrast, communities surrounding open-source products typically lack this dynamic, resulting in consumers falling behind the industry's forefront within a relatively short timeframe of 1-2 years.
Maintaining an internally built solution further entrenches institutional knowledge and requires more people to operate the internal build. Secoda allows you to operate with less. Open-source projects like OpenMetadata require ownership and maintenance which means a permanent headcount tied to this project which could otherwise be automated.
Customization plays a pivotal role in ensuring the effective adoption of a data catalog and other data products. If a data catalog fails to align with existing workflows, it is likely to face rejection. Therefore, it is crucial for a data catalog to seamlessly integrate with workflows without causing disruptions. Secoda surpasses expectations in terms of customization, offering a range of features that include granular user permissions and API integration for creating custom integrations. With Secoda, data teams enjoy the flexibility to create personalized alerts, keeping stakeholders informed about changes that impact downstream assets.
Data teams must carefully consider the trade-offs involved in adopting open source software. While it offers cost-effectiveness and the ability to tailor solutions to their specific requirements, it's crucial to recognize that there may be additional costs beyond the initial purchase price. Training staff and equipping them with the necessary skills to effectively utilize the software can consume valuable time and resources.
Furthermore, open source software may lack the same level of technical support as commercial alternatives, necessitating the allocation of additional resources for software maintenance and troubleshooting. The absence of formal support and comprehensive documentation may also raise legal and compliance concerns. Consequently, data engineers should conduct a thorough evaluation of the potential costs associated with open source software, ensuring that the benefits outweigh the potential drawbacks before making a decision to adopt it.
Secoda is built with business users and data teams in mind. Our name literally stands for “searchable company data,” because we believe your users should be able to discover, search, and understand all of your data in one place. With data democracy, your team can make more data-driven decisions and have the access they need to find the right data.
Data discovery has never been easier. You don’t have to have advanced data knowledge to use Secoda. Everyone is empowered to utilize company data, update information, and collaborate with other teams.
Secoda provides a holistic platform for your team to collaborate, document changes, and access in-depth data knowledge. While other platforms are focused on technical data, our platform is designed for ease of use and accessibility.
With our data catalog tool, your teams can connect their data and share data easier than ever before. Your team can also easily share data and analytics with customers and outside as necessary, making external collaboration simpler too.
Secoda consolidates all of your company data in one single source of truth. This means anyone can search data and find the right answers, without duplicates, errors, and missing data.
Our platform is your all-in-one solution for your data catalog, data documentation, data dictionary, and data management.When your data is easily searchable, you can reduce the number of data requests, increase insights collected by your data team, and increase overall data literacy in your company.
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