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Head to head · Company knowledge search · October 2026 research run

Alation vs Hexis Cloud

Alation scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against Hexis Cloud's 55.3 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Hexis Cloud leads on schema & documentation, payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do company knowledge search.

Best company knowledge search and data catalogues for AI agents · All 87 knowledge comparisons

AlationAlation, Inc. · HTTP API C60.3/100#554 of 1084 Hexis CloudBevelites GmbH (Bevel) · MCP server C55.3/100#705 of 1084

Which one, for what

Alation C

Best 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.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 61 against 18
  • Agent ergonomics, 71 against 57

Watch for

No published price, trial or self-serve sign-up. The pricing address redirects to a sales form

Hexis Cloud C

Best for A team that wants its agent skills, company pages and tool credentials in one git repository, reviewed and access-controlled per file, and reached by any MCP client.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 83 against 78
  • Payments & pricing, 30 against 0
  • Maintenance & community, 85 against 71

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Free to start without a card
  • Open source

Watch for

The terms and security page state no backups, no SLA, no penetration test, no certification and no MFA of its own

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAlationHexis CloudEdge
Reliability16%206118Alation +43
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27883Hexis Cloud +5
Agent ergonomics13%16.27157Alation +14
Security & auth14%17.56364Hexis Cloud +1
Payments & pricing10%12.5030Hexis Cloud +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87185Hexis Cloud +14
Transparency & trust7%8.87675Alation +1
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 60.3/100C 55.3/100

Facts side by side

FactAlationHexis Cloud
KindHTTP APIMCP server
VendorAlation, Inc.Bevelites GmbH (Bevel)
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://<workspace>.hexis.software/api/mcp
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdioStreamable HTTP, stdio
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingPaidFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary 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-2.0Apache-2.0 (the Hexis software). Hexis Cloud, the hosted service at hexis.software, is governed by Bevel's Terms of Service of 11 October 2026
Tools exposed16none
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtnono
MCP registrynot listedio.github.Bevel-Software/hexis
Last release2026-10-032026-10-14
Terms last updatedno date givencouldn't be read
Privacy policy last updatedno date givencouldn't be read
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms restrict benchmarkingyescouldn't be read
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textcouldn't be read
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textcouldn't be read
Popularity19 stars, 2.1k PyPI/wk114 stars, 900 npm/wk

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.

Hexis Cloud

Agents reach a git-backed knowledge base, shared skills and connected tools through one OAuth MCP endpoint that applies each person's per-file permissions, with read-only connections and an audit log of tool calls. The hosted edition dates from 11 October 2026, and its own terms state no backups, no uptime commitment and no security certification.

Before you call either

Alation

  1. 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
  2. Pin alation-ai-agent-mcp==1.0.0rc3. An unpinned install resolves to 0.12.0, which predates the catalogue search agent
  3. Call catalog_context_search_agent for catalogue questions. alation_context is deprecated and its description tells models not to call it directly
  4. Watch X-Entitlement-Usage on Aggregated Context API responses. The 2,000 free calls never reset, and a quota 429 is not retryable
  5. 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

Hexis Cloud

  1. Ask the person for a read-only connection when the task only reads. It answers canWrite false everywhere
  2. Pass the branch you are working on to every knowledge-base tool. Calls without a required branch are refused
  3. Check canWrite from list_files, read_file or get_skill before writing, and open a change request when it is false
  4. Use list_tools and tools_info before call_tool_chain, and never ask the person for a tool's secret in chat
  5. Keep your own copy of anything important. Hexis Cloud keeps no backups of Managed repositories

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Alation or Hexis Cloud?

Alation scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against Hexis Cloud's 55.3 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Hexis Cloud leads on schema & documentation, payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

Do Alation and Hexis Cloud need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call Alation and Hexis Cloud without installing anything?

Alation runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. Hexis Cloud has a hosted endpoint at https://<workspace>.hexis.software/api/mcp.

Are Alation and Hexis Cloud open source?

No open-source release is listed for Alation. Hexis Cloud is open source (Apache-2.0 (the Hexis software). Hexis Cloud, the hosted service at hexis.software, is governed by Bevel's Terms of Service of 11 October 2026).

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