# Alation vs Hexis Cloud

> Alation scores 60.3 (C) to Hexis Cloud's 55.3 (C) for company knowledge search. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-hexis.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-hexis.min.md (~830 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-hexis.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-14

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.

- Alation: grade C, 60.3/100, rank #554 of 1084. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/alation.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/alation.json
- Hexis Cloud: grade C, 55.3/100, rank #705 of 1084. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/hexis.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/hexis.json
- Best company knowledge search and data catalogues for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/company-knowledge/index.md
- All 87 knowledge comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/company-knowledge/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Alation (C)

Good 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)

Good 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

| Category | Weight | Alation | Hexis Cloud | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 61 | 18 | Alation +43 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 83 | Hexis Cloud +5 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 71 | 57 | Alation +14 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 63 | 64 | Hexis Cloud +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 0 | 30 | Hexis Cloud +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 85 | Hexis Cloud +14 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 76 | 75 | Alation +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **60.3 · C** | **55.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Alation | Hexis Cloud |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | MCP server |
| Vendor | Alation, Inc. | Bevelites GmbH (Bevel) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://<workspace>.hexis.software/api/mcp` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| 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 | 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 |
| Tools exposed | 16 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.Bevel-Software/hexis` |
| Last release | 2026-10-03 | 2026-10-14 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | 19 stars, 2.1k PyPI/wk | 114 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).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-hexis.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-hexis.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "alation", "b": "hexis"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare alation hexis`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/alation.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/hexis.json

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- [Hexis Cloud vs Onyx](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hexis-vs-onyx.md)
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- [Alation vs Secoda](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-secoda.md)
- [DataHub vs Hexis Cloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/datahub-vs-hexis.md)
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- [Hexis Cloud vs OpenMetadata](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hexis-vs-openmetadata.md)