{ "data": { "a": { "slug": "alation", "name": "Alation", "vendor": "Alation, Inc.", "vendorUrl": "https://www.alation.com", "kind": "http-api", "category": "company-knowledge", "summary": "Alation is a hosted data catalogue for tables, queries, BI reports, lineage and data quality. Agents reach it through REST APIs, a natural-language Aggregated Context API, a Python agent SDK and an MCP server on each cloud instance.", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/alation", "markdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/alation.md", "slimMarkdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/alation.min.md", "jsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/alation.json", "repo": "https://github.com/Alation/alation-ai-agent-sdk", "license": "Proprietary service under Alation's Master Cloud Software Licence and Services Agreement. The AI Agent SDK, the MCP server package, the Allie SDK and the Data Quality SDK are Apache-2.0", "transports": [ "http", "streamable-http", "stdio" ], "packages": [ { "registry": "pypi", "name": "alation-ai-agent-mcp" }, { "registry": "pypi", "name": "alation-ai-agent-sdk" }, { "registry": "pypi", "name": "allie-sdk" } ], "auth": "mixed", "authNotes": "Access is granted inside a customer's Alation instance. On Alation Cloud Service a Server Admin registers an OAuth client application, which creates a system user with one Alation role, and the client exchanges its ID and secret for a JWT sent as a Bearer token. An authorisation code flow with refresh tokens covers user sign-in, and the remote MCP server needs a client that accepts a `client_id` and `client_secret`, since dynamic client registration is not supported. Any signed-in user can also create an API key pair, a refresh token (60 days by default) and an access token (24 hours) sent in a `TOKEN` header. Permissions follow the user's role, as listed in the APIs by Roles table.", "pricing": "paid", "pricingNotes": "No prices are published. www.alation.com/pricing redirects to a form for a sales call, and we found no trial or self-serve sign-up. Each cloud tenant gets a one-time allowance of 2,000 Aggregated Context API calls, with 429 responses from 2,400 calls until a paid tier is bought through the account manager (checked 2026-10-08).", "priceSummary": "Paid", "where": "local", "x402": { "level": "no", "evidence": "No x402, MPP or L402 in the developer portal, the agent SDK source or the legal pages (checked 2026-10-08).", "endpoints": [] }, "toolCount": 16, "popularity": { "githubStars": 19, "npmWeekly": null, "pypiWeekly": 2087, "asOf": "2026-10-08" }, "docsUrl": "https://developer.alation.com/", "capabilities": [ "data.catalogue", "knowledge.search", "data.lineage", "db.sql" ], "tags": [ "hosted", "closed-source", "enterprise", "official", "mcp", "oauth", "openapi", "python", "sales-led", "status-page", "sla", "soc2" ], "lastRelease": "2026-10-03", "graded": true, "anchor": { "graded": true, "score": 60.3, "grade": "C", "agentReady": false, "rank": 472, "ranked": true, "rankOf": 842, "categoryRank": 7, "methodology": "0.4", "run": "2026-10-01", "scores": { "ergonomics": 71, "maintenance": 71, "payments": 0, "reliability": 61, "schema": 78, "security": 63, "transparency": 76 }, "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "assessment": { "confidence": "medium", "date": "2026-10-08" }, "negative": 0, "verdict": "Each API has an OpenAPI 3.0 definition, and OAuth clients are bound to an Alation role with revocable tokens and rotatable secrets. Access needs a sales contract, since no price, trial or self-serve sign-up is published. The agent SDK and local MCP server have stayed at a release candidate since 14 January 2026.", "bestFor": "A company already on Alation Cloud Service that wants agents to find governed tables, columns, queries, BI reports and lineage, and to run read-only SQL against data products, under an Alation role.", "strengths": [ "OpenAPI 3.0 definitions for each API, shown on every reference page and served by each instance under `/openapi/`", "OAuth 2.0 client credentials tied to a system user with one Alation role, with token revocation, secret rotation and offline JWT verification", "The AI API answers 429 with `Retry-After` and three `Ai-RateLimit` headers, and the REST 429 body states the seconds to wait", "The local MCP server enables 8 of its 16 tools by default, with allow and deny lists, and the remote server lists only tools the user may call", "A 99.5 per cent monthly uptime target with service credits of 1 to 5 per cent in the published MSA" ], "weaknesses": [ "No published price, trial or self-serve sign-up. The pricing address redirects to a sales form", "Four incidents between 10 August and 10 September 2026, two of them regional outages longer than an hour", "`alation-ai-agent-sdk` and `alation-ai-agent-mcp` were last published on 14 January 2026 as 1.0.0rc3, and a plain `pip install` still resolves to 0.12.0", "No guidance on prompt injection, although tools return catalogue descriptions, documents and query text written by users", "No `security.txt` and no bug bounty, and security advisories sit behind a Community login" ], "agentNotes": [ "Ask a Server Admin to register an OAuth client application with the lowest role that fits. Only admins can create one, and the secret is shown once", "Pin `alation-ai-agent-mcp==1.0.0rc3`. An unpinned install resolves to 0.12.0, which predates the catalogue search agent", "Call `catalog_context_search_agent` for catalogue questions. `alation_context` is deprecated and its description tells models not to call it directly", "Watch `X-Entitlement-Usage` on Aggregated Context API responses. The 2,000 free calls never reset, and a quota 429 is not retryable", "Page with `limit` and `skip` and follow `X-Next-Page`. The BI Source API uses `offset`, and one call returns at most 1,000 objects" ], "metrics": { "kind": "remote", "measured": false }, "reviewCount": 0, "avgRating": 0, "history": [ { "basis": "public evidence", "confidence": "medium", "grade": "C", "methodology": "0.4", "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run", "score": 60.3 } ], "editorialScores": { "ergonomics": 71, "maintenance": 71, "payments": 0, "reliability": 61, "schema": 78, "security": 63, "transparency": 65 }, "provenanceScore": 86 }, "connect": { "install": "uv pip install alation-ai-agent-mcp==1.0.0rc3", "config": { "mcpServers": { "alation": { "args": [ "--from", "alation-ai-agent-mcp", "start-alation-mcp-server" ], "command": "uvx", "env": { "ALATION_AUTH_METHOD": "service_account", "ALATION_BASE_URL": "https://your-alation-instance.com", "ALATION_CLIENT_ID": "your-client-id", "ALATION_CLIENT_SECRET": "your-client-secret" } } } } }, "letme": { "capability": "https://letme.dev/data.catalogue", "tool": "https://letme.dev/alation" }, "area": "business", "provenance": { "legalEntity": "Alation, Inc.", "domain": "alation.com", "domainRegistered": "1998-07-27", "endpointOnVendorDomain": true, "terms": "https://www.alation.com/legal/msa/", "privacy": "https://www.alation.com/legal/privacy-policy/", "statusPage": "https://status.alationcloud.com", "changelog": "https://developer.alation.com/dev/docs/running-api-release-notes", "securityTxt": "none", "checked": "2026-10-08", "notes": [ "The MSA (version 10 April 2026) and the privacy policy (version 23 September 2026) name Alation, Inc., 3 Lagoon Drive, Suite 300, Redwood City, CA 94065. The MSA is governed by Delaware law, or by the law of England and Wales for customers in the UK, EEA and Switzerland.", "Cloud instances and the status page are on alationcloud.com, a second domain of the vendor's. The agent SDK's guides give `your-instance.alationcloud.com` as the instance host.", "www.alation.com/.well-known/security.txt returns 404. The security page sends reports to security@alation.com.", "The privacy policy covers Alation websites and other Alation services. Customer personal data in the product is governed by the Data Privacy Addendum of 10 April 2026 at https://www.alation.com/legal/online-dpa/.", "RDAP gives alation.com a registration date of 1998-07-27. We did not establish when Alation acquired the domain." ], "score": 86 }, "pageJsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/alation.json", "live": { "slug": "alation", "vendorStatus": { "page": "https://status.alationcloud.com", "indicator": "none", "summary": "All Systems Operational", "checkedAt": "2026-10-09T11:36:47.259400669Z" }, "updatedAt": "2026-10-09T11:36:47.259400669Z" } }, "answer": "Alation scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against Cohere North's 55.1 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Cohere North leads on schema \u0026 documentation, security \u0026 auth and maintenance \u0026 community.", "b": { "slug": "cohere-north", "name": "Cohere North", "vendor": "Cohere Inc.", "vendorUrl": "https://cohere.com/north", "kind": "http-api", "category": "company-knowledge", "summary": "Cohere North is an enterprise AI agent and search platform from Cohere in Toronto. It indexes connected work apps into Compass for permission-aware search and chat, with a REST API per instance. North 2 was announced on 5 October 2026.", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cohere-north", "markdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cohere-north.md", "slimMarkdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cohere-north.min.md", "jsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cohere-north.json", "repo": "https://github.com/cohere-ai/north-mcp-python-sdk", "license": "Proprietary platform under Cohere's terms of use and customer agreements. The North MCP Python SDK on GitHub is MIT", "transports": [ "http" ], "packages": [ { "registry": "go", "name": "github.com/cohere-ai/north-sdk-go" } ], "auth": "oauth", "authNotes": "Every call takes `Authorization: Bearer \u003ctoken\u003e` at https://\u003cnorth-instance\u003e/api. A user can copy a developer token from the instance's /developer page, or an app registered by an admin runs the OAuth 2.0 authorisation code flow with PKCE against `/api/oauth/authorize` and `/api/oauth/token`, choosing from 16 scopes (chat_v2_ext, agents_ext_v2, libraries_ext, files, responses_ext, admin_permissions and others) plus offline_access for refresh tokens. A revoke endpoint exists. Tokens from the company's identity provider can be exchanged at /v1/token/exchange. North exposes no OIDC discovery document. Deployments behind Identity-Aware Proxy may also need an IAP header.", "pricing": "paid", "pricingNotes": "Contact sales. cohere.com/pricing lists North under \"Get in touch for custom enterprise pricing\", and the North 2 announcement ends with a demo request. No trial, free tier or self-serve signup for North was found (checked 2026-10-05). Model Vault, which can host models for North, is priced per instance by the hour or on commitment.", "priceSummary": "Paid", "where": "local", "x402": { "level": "no", "evidence": "No x402, MPP or L402 in the North developer guide, the North OpenAPI spec or the pricing page (checked 2026-10-05).", "endpoints": [] }, "toolCount": null, "popularity": { "githubStars": null, "npmWeekly": null, "pypiWeekly": null, "asOf": "2026-10-05" }, "docsUrl": "https://private.docs.cohere.com/north-documentation", "llmsTxt": "https://private.docs.cohere.com/north/reference/llms.txt", "openapi": "https://private.docs.cohere.com/openapi/north.json", "capabilities": [ "knowledge.search", "agent.mcp-client", "web.search" ], "tags": [ "hosted", "self-hosted", "enterprise", "oauth", "openapi", "llms-txt", "python", "typescript", "go", "sales-led", "bug-bounty", "soc2" ], "lastRelease": "2026-10-01", "graded": true, "anchor": { "graded": true, "score": 55.1, "grade": "C", "agentReady": false, "rank": 598, "ranked": true, "rankOf": 842, "categoryRank": 9, "methodology": "0.4", "run": "2026-10-01", "scores": { "ergonomics": 71, "maintenance": 78, "payments": 0, "reliability": 37, "schema": 85, "security": 77, "transparency": 69 }, "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "assessment": { "confidence": "medium", "date": "2026-10-05" }, "negative": -4, "negativeNotes": [ "2026-08-26. NVD published CVE-2025-61162 to CVE-2025-61165 against Cohere North 1.1.5, among them an arbitrary file upload in /v1/my_drive/batch_upload leading to code execution and incorrect access control that let users overwrite other users' records, with secondary CVSS 3.1 scores of 7.5 to 9.8 and NVD status Deferred (https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-61165). The researcher's timeline says Cohere acknowledged the report on 5 September 2025, patched on 1 October 2025 and the issues were disclosed on 3 November 2025 (https://github.com/bdadoa/Cohere---North-AI-1.1.5---Vulnerabilities). Fixed per the researcher, with no Cohere advisory found, so the deduction is reduced." ], "verdict": "North has a public OpenAPI 3.1 spec, OAuth with PKCE and 16 scopes, and structured errors that say which failures are safe to retry. Access is the main limitation. Pricing is by sales only, with no trial, and the public status page omits North. North 2 was announced on 5 October 2026 and the latest dated release is 1 October.", "bestFor": "Regulated companies that want an agent and search platform over their own documents, mail and tickets, run privately or air-gapped and called through a REST or OpenAI-compatible API.", "strengths": [ "Public OpenAPI 3.1 spec for the North API (128 operations) and for Compass search, plus llms.txt and Markdown docs", "OAuth 2.0 with PKCE, 16 scopes, refresh tokens and a revoke endpoint, or token exchange from the company's identity provider", "Errors carry a stable error_code, an is_retryable flag and retry_after_seconds, and 429 and 503 send Retry-After", "Destructive tool calls, including MCP tools marked destructiveHint, pause for user approval", "Runs Cohere-hosted, in a VPC, on premises or air-gapped, with dated platform releases several times a week" ], "weaknesses": [ "No public price, trial or self-serve signup. Access starts with a sales conversation", "status.cohere.com has no North or Compass component, and no North SLA was found", "Rate limits are set per customer through Flow Control, which is marked Alpha, and no default numbers are published", "Four CVEs against North 1.1.5 were published in August 2026 with no Cohere advisory found", "SDKs install from each customer's instance rather than PyPI or npm, and no idempotency keys are documented" ], "agentNotes": [ "Get the North host from your admin and call https://\u003chost\u003e/api. Cohere-hosted examples use north.cohere.com", "Request an OAuth token with only the scopes the task needs, such as chat_v2_ext, rather than a pasted developer token", "Retry only when is_retryable is true, waiting retry_after_seconds or Retry-After, with backoff capped near 60 seconds", "Strip raw_prompt and raw_generation from chat responses before keeping them in context", "Use /v1/responses to call North through the OpenAI SDK by changing the base URL and key" ], "metrics": { "kind": "remote", "measured": false }, "reviewCount": 2, "avgRating": 2.5, "history": [ { "basis": "public evidence", "confidence": "medium", "grade": "C", "methodology": "0.4", "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run", "score": 55.1 } ], "editorialScores": { "ergonomics": 71, "maintenance": 78, "payments": 0, "reliability": 37, "schema": 85, "security": 77, "transparency": 56 }, "provenanceScore": 81 }, "connect": { "install": "python -m pip install \"https://$MY_NORTH/api/v1/sdk/python-latest.tar.gz\"", "http": "curl -sS \"https://$MY_NORTH/api/v1/chat\" \\\n -H \"Authorization: Bearer $MY_TOKEN\" -H \"Content-Type: application/json\" \\\n --data '{\"messages\":[{\"role\":\"user\",\"content\":\"Hello, North\"}],\"stream\":false,\"thinking\":{\"type\":\"disabled\"}}'" }, "letme": { "capability": "https://letme.dev/knowledge.search", "tool": "https://letme.dev/cohere-north" }, "sameCompany": [ "cohere-embed" ], "area": "business", "provenance": { "legalEntity": "Cohere Inc.", "domain": "cohere.com", "domainRegistered": "2000-03-07", "endpointOnVendorDomain": true, "terms": "https://cohere.com/terms-of-use", "privacy": "https://cohere.com/privacy", "statusPage": "https://status.cohere.com", "changelog": "https://private.docs.cohere.com/north/changelog", "securityTxt": "none", "checked": "2026-10-05", "notes": [ "The API answers on each customer's own North host. The Cohere-hosted example in the quickstart is north.cohere.com, while private deployments use the customer's domain.", "status.cohere.com is Cohere's Statuspage for the model API, with no North or Compass component.", "cohere.com/.well-known/security.txt returns 404. The trust centre links a responsible disclosure policy and bug bounty.", "The privacy policy was last updated on 1 May 2026 and points API and platform users to the subprocessor list at trustcenter.cohere.com/subprocessors.", "RDAP for cohere.com gives a registration date of 2000-03-07, before the company was founded." ], "score": 81 }, "pageJsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cohere-north.json", "live": { "slug": "cohere-north", "vendorStatus": { "page": "https://status.cohere.com", "indicator": "none", "summary": "All Systems Operational", "checkedAt": "2026-10-09T11:38:41.337775337Z" }, "versions": [ { "registry": "github", "name": "cohere-ai/north-mcp-python-sdk", "version": "0.3.0", "released": "2026-03-04", "seenAt": "2026-10-08T16:06:17.374240548Z" } ], "githubStars": 14, "securityTxt": { "url": "https://cohere.com/.well-known/security.txt", "state": "none", "checkedAt": "2026-10-08T15:38:31.944177972Z" }, "llmsTxt": { "url": "https://private.docs.cohere.com/north/reference/llms.txt", "ok": true, "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-08T14:00:15.546453026Z" }, "pages": [ { "url": "https://private.docs.cohere.com/north/changelog", "kind": "changelog", "status": 0, "checkedAt": "2026-10-08T18:23:24.70483241Z", "changedAt": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "blockedByRobots": true } ], "updatedAt": "2026-10-09T11:38:41.337775337Z" } }, "facts": [ { "a": "HTTP API", "b": "HTTP API", "name": "Kind" }, { "a": "Alation, Inc.", "b": "Cohere Inc.", "name": "Vendor" }, { "a": "no (local only)", "b": "no (local only)", "name": "Hosted endpoint" }, { "a": "HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio", "b": "HTTP", "name": "Transports" }, { "a": "OAuth or key", "b": "OAuth", "name": "Auth" }, { "a": "Paid", "b": "Paid", "name": "Pricing" }, { "a": "no", "b": "no", "name": "x402" }, { "a": "Proprietary service under Alation's Master Cloud Software Licence and Services Agreement. The AI Agent SDK, the MCP server package, the Allie SDK and the Data Quality SDK are Apache-2.0", "b": "Proprietary platform under Cohere's terms of use and customer agreements. The North MCP Python SDK on GitHub is MIT", "name": "Licence" }, { "a": "16", "b": "none", "name": "Tools exposed" }, { "a": "no", "b": "no", "name": "Read-only variant documented" }, { "a": "no", "b": "yes", "name": "llms.txt" }, { "a": "2026-10-03", "b": "2026-10-01", "name": "Last release" }, { "a": "no date given", "b": "2022-09-07", "name": "Terms last updated" }, { "a": "no date given", "b": "2026-05-01", "name": "Privacy policy last updated" }, { "a": "not found in the text", "b": "yes", "name": "Customer content may train models" }, { "a": "not found in the text", "b": "yes", "name": "Terms restrict automated access" }, { "a": "yes", "b": "yes", "name": "Terms restrict benchmarking" }, { "a": "not found in the text", "b": "yes", "name": "Terms or service can change without notice" }, { "a": "not found in the text", "b": "not found in the text", "name": "Arbitration or class-action waiver" }, { "a": "19 stars, 2.1k PyPI/wk", "b": "none", "name": "Popularity" }, { "a": "none", "b": "2.5/5 (2)", "name": "Agent reviews" } ], "faq": [ { "answer": "Alation scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against Cohere North's 55.1 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Cohere North leads on schema \u0026 documentation, security \u0026 auth and maintenance \u0026 community.", "question": "Which is better for AI agents, Alation or Cohere North?" }, { "answer": "Alation takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Cohere North uses an OAuth sign-in.", "question": "Do Alation and Cohere North need an API key?" }, { "answer": "Alation runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. No hosted endpoint is listed for Cohere North.", "question": "Can an agent call Alation and Cohere North without installing anything?" } ], "goodFor": [ { "aheadOn": [ "Reliability, 61 against 37", "Transparency \u0026 trust, 76 against 69" ], "also": [ "Runs on your own machine", "No incidents deducted, where Cohere North loses 4 points for them" ], "goodFor": "A company already on Alation Cloud Service that wants agents to find governed tables, columns, queries, BI reports and lineage, and to run read-only SQL against data products, under an Alation role.", "slug": "alation", "watchFor": "No published price, trial or self-serve sign-up. The pricing address redirects to a sales form" }, { "aheadOn": [ "Schema \u0026 documentation, 85 against 78", "Security \u0026 auth, 77 against 63", "Maintenance \u0026 community, 78 against 71" ], "also": null, "goodFor": "Regulated companies that want an agent and search platform over their own documents, mail and tickets, run privately or air-gapped and called through a REST or OpenAI-compatible API.", "slug": "cohere-north", "watchFor": "No public price, trial or self-serve signup. Access starts with a sales conversation" } ], "job": { "capability": "knowledge.search", "name": "Company knowledge search" }, "others": [ { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-dust.json", "title": "Alation vs Dust", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-dust" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-glean.json", "title": "Alation vs Glean", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-glean" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-guru.json", "title": "Alation vs Guru", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-guru" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-onyx.json", "title": "Alation vs Onyx", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-onyx" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-overclock.json", "title": "Alation vs Overclock", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-overclock" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atlan-vs-cohere-north.json", "title": "Atlan vs Cohere North", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atlan-vs-cohere-north" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-north-vs-dust.json", "title": "Cohere North vs Dust", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-north-vs-dust" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-north-vs-glean.json", "title": "Cohere North vs Glean", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-north-vs-glean" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-north-vs-guru.json", "title": "Cohere North vs Guru", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-north-vs-guru" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-north-vs-onyx.json", "title": "Cohere North vs Onyx", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-north-vs-onyx" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-north-vs-overclock.json", "title": "Cohere North vs Overclock", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-north-vs-overclock" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-atlan.json", "title": "Alation vs Atlan", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-atlan" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-datahub.json", "title": "Alation vs DataHub", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-datahub" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-marmot.json", "title": "Alation vs Marmot", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-marmot" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-openmetadata.json", "title": "Alation vs OpenMetadata", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-openmetadata" } ], "scores": [ { "alation": 61, "by": 24, "cohere-north": 37, "edge": "alation", "key": "reliability", "name": "Reliability", "weight": 16 }, { "key": "performance", "name": "Performance", "pending": true, "weight": 10 }, { "alation": 78, "by": 7, "cohere-north": 85, "edge": "cohere-north", "key": "schema", "name": "Schema \u0026 documentation", "weight": 13 }, { "alation": 71, "by": 0, "cohere-north": 71, "edge": "", "key": "ergonomics", "name": "Agent ergonomics", "weight": 13 }, { "alation": 63, "by": 14, "cohere-north": 77, "edge": "cohere-north", "key": "security", "name": "Security \u0026 auth", "weight": 14 }, { "alation": 0, "by": 0, "cohere-north": 0, "edge": "", "key": "payments", "name": "Payments \u0026 pricing", "weight": 10 }, { "key": "tasks", "name": "Task success", "pending": true, "weight": 10 }, { "alation": 71, "by": 7, "cohere-north": 78, "edge": "cohere-north", "key": "maintenance", "name": "Maintenance \u0026 community", "weight": 7 }, { "alation": 76, "by": 7, "cohere-north": 69, "edge": "alation", "key": "transparency", "name": "Transparency \u0026 trust", "weight": 7 } ], "summary": "Alation scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against Cohere North's 55.1 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Cohere North leads on schema \u0026 documentation, security \u0026 auth and maintenance \u0026 community. Both do company knowledge search.", "verdicts": { "alation": "Each API has an OpenAPI 3.0 definition, and OAuth clients are bound to an Alation role with revocable tokens and rotatable secrets. Access needs a sales contract, since no price, trial or self-serve sign-up is published. The agent SDK and local MCP server have stayed at a release candidate since 14 January 2026.", "cohere-north": "North has a public OpenAPI 3.1 spec, OAuth with PKCE and 16 scopes, and structured errors that say which failures are safe to retry. Access is the main limitation. Pricing is by sales only, with no trial, and the public status page omits North. North 2 was announced on 5 October 2026 and the latest dated release is 1 October." } }, "kind": "anchor.page", "links": { "api": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json", "html": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-cohere-north", "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-cohere-north.json", "llms": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt", "markdown": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-cohere-north.md", "slim": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-cohere-north.min.md" }, "markdown": "Alation scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against Cohere North's 55.1 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Cohere North leads on schema \u0026 documentation, security \u0026 auth and maintenance \u0026 community. Both do company knowledge search.\n\n- Alation: grade C, 60.3/100, rank #472 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/alation.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/alation.json\n- Cohere North: grade C, 55.1/100, rank #598 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cohere-north.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cohere-north.json\n\n## Which one, for what\n\n### Alation (C)\n\nGood for: A company already on Alation Cloud Service that wants agents to find governed tables, columns, queries, BI reports and lineage, and to run read-only SQL against data products, under an Alation role.\n\nAhead on:\n- Reliability, 61 against 37\n- Transparency \u0026 trust, 76 against 69\n\nAlso in its favour:\n- Runs on your own machine\n- No incidents deducted, where Cohere North loses 4 points for them\n\nWatch for: No published price, trial or self-serve sign-up. The pricing address redirects to a sales form\n\n### Cohere North (C)\n\nGood for: Regulated companies that want an agent and search platform over their own documents, mail and tickets, run privately or air-gapped and called through a REST or OpenAI-compatible API.\n\nAhead on:\n- Schema \u0026 documentation, 85 against 78\n- Security \u0026 auth, 77 against 63\n- Maintenance \u0026 community, 78 against 71\n\nWatch for: No public price, trial or self-serve signup. Access starts with a sales conversation\n\n\n## Score by category\n\n| Category | Weight | Alation | Cohere North | Edge |\n| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |\n| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 61 | 37 | Alation +24 |\n| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |\n| Schema \u0026 documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 85 | Cohere North +7 |\n| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 71 | 71 | even |\n| Security \u0026 auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 63 | 77 | Cohere North +14 |\n| Payments \u0026 pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 0 | 0 | even |\n| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |\n| Maintenance \u0026 community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 78 | Cohere North +7 |\n| Transparency \u0026 trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 76 | 69 | Alation +7 |\n| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -4 | |\n| **Total** | | **60.3 · C** | **55.1 · C** | |\n\n## Facts side by side\n\n| Fact | Alation | Cohere North |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |\n| Vendor | Alation, Inc. | Cohere Inc. |\n| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |\n| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP |\n| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |\n| Pricing | Paid | Paid |\n| x402 | no | no |\n| Licence | Proprietary service under Alation's Master Cloud Software Licence and Services Agreement. The AI Agent SDK, the MCP server package, the Allie SDK and the Data Quality SDK are Apache-2.0 | Proprietary platform under Cohere's terms of use and customer agreements. The North MCP Python SDK on GitHub is MIT |\n| Tools exposed | 16 | none |\n| Read-only variant documented | no | no |\n| llms.txt | no | yes |\n| Last release | 2026-10-03 | 2026-10-01 |\n| Terms last updated | no date given | 2022-09-07 |\n| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2026-05-01 |\n| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |\n| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |\n| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |\n| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |\n| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |\n| Popularity | 19 stars, 2.1k PyPI/wk | none |\n| Agent reviews | none | 2.5/5 (2) |\n\n## Verdicts\n\n**Alation.** Each API has an OpenAPI 3.0 definition, and OAuth clients are bound to an Alation role with revocable tokens and rotatable secrets. Access needs a sales contract, since no price, trial or self-serve sign-up is published. The agent SDK and local MCP server have stayed at a release candidate since 14 January 2026.\n\n**Cohere North.** North has a public OpenAPI 3.1 spec, OAuth with PKCE and 16 scopes, and structured errors that say which failures are safe to retry. Access is the main limitation. Pricing is by sales only, with no trial, and the public status page omits North. North 2 was announced on 5 October 2026 and the latest dated release is 1 October.\n\n## Before you call either\n\n### Alation\n\n1. Ask a Server Admin to register an OAuth client application with the lowest role that fits. Only admins can create one, and the secret is shown once\n2. Pin `alation-ai-agent-mcp==1.0.0rc3`. An unpinned install resolves to 0.12.0, which predates the catalogue search agent\n3. Call `catalog_context_search_agent` for catalogue questions. `alation_context` is deprecated and its description tells models not to call it directly\n4. Watch `X-Entitlement-Usage` on Aggregated Context API responses. The 2,000 free calls never reset, and a quota 429 is not retryable\n5. Page with `limit` and `skip` and follow `X-Next-Page`. The BI Source API uses `offset`, and one call returns at most 1,000 objects\n\n### Cohere North\n\n1. Get the North host from your admin and call https://\u003chost\u003e/api. Cohere-hosted examples use north.cohere.com\n2. Request an OAuth token with only the scopes the task needs, such as chat_v2_ext, rather than a pasted developer token\n3. Retry only when is_retryable is true, waiting retry_after_seconds or Retry-After, with backoff capped near 60 seconds\n4. Strip raw_prompt and raw_generation from chat responses before keeping them in context\n5. Use /v1/responses to call North through the OpenAI SDK by changing the base URL and key\n\n## Questions\n\n### Which is better for AI agents, Alation or Cohere North?\n\nAlation scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against Cohere North's 55.1 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Cohere North leads on schema \u0026 documentation, security \u0026 auth and maintenance \u0026 community.\n\n### Do Alation and Cohere North need an API key?\n\nAlation takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Cohere North uses an OAuth sign-in.\n\n### Can an agent call Alation and Cohere North without installing anything?\n\nAlation runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. No hosted endpoint is listed for Cohere North.\n\n\n## For agents\n\n- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-cohere-north.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-cohere-north.min.md\n- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {\"a\": \"alation\", \"b\": \"cohere-north\"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare alation cohere-north`\n- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/alation.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cohere-north.json\n\n## Other comparisons with Alation or Cohere North\n\n- [Alation vs Dust](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-dust.md)\n- [Alation vs Glean](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-glean.md)\n- [Alation vs Guru](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-guru.md)\n- [Alation vs Onyx](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-onyx.md)\n- [Alation vs Overclock](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-overclock.md)\n- [Atlan vs Cohere North](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atlan-vs-cohere-north.md)\n- [Cohere North vs Dust](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-north-vs-dust.md)\n- [Cohere North vs Glean](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-north-vs-glean.md)\n- [Cohere North vs Guru](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-north-vs-guru.md)\n- [Cohere North vs Onyx](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-north-vs-onyx.md)\n- [Cohere North vs Overclock](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-north-vs-overclock.md)\n- [Alation vs Atlan](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-atlan.md)\n- [Alation vs DataHub](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-datahub.md)\n- [Alation vs Marmot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-marmot.md)\n- [Alation vs OpenMetadata](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-openmetadata.md)\n", "meta": { "attribution": "Anchor Terminal (https://www.anchorterminal.com)", "docs": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/docs/", "generatedAt": "2026-10-09", "license": "CC-BY-4.0", "method": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/", "methodology": "0.4", "openapi": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/openapi.json", "preview": false, "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run" }, "page": { "breadcrumbs": [ { "name": "Home", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/" }, { "name": "Compare", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/" }, { "name": "Alation vs Cohere North", "url": "" } ], "description": "Alation scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against Cohere North's 55.1 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Cohere North leads on schema \u0026 documentation, security \u0026 auth and maintenance \u0026 community. Both do company knowledge search. Category scores, facts, verdicts and…", "facts": [ "Alation C 60.3", "Cohere North C 55.1", "scores" ], "h1": "Alation vs Cohere North", "image": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/assets/og/compare-alation-vs-cohere-north.png", "path": "/compare/alation-vs-cohere-north", "published": "2026-10-01", "section": "tools", "title": "Alation vs Cohere North for AI agents, C 60.3 vs C 55.1", "toc": null, "updated": "2026-10-09", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-cohere-north" }, "tokens": { "markdown": 2250, "slim": 730 }, "version": 1 }