# Atlan vs OpenMetadata

> OpenMetadata has a score of 66.9 (B) against Atlan's 62.7 (B). Both do data catalogues. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 20 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atlan-vs-openmetadata
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atlan-vs-openmetadata.md (~1,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atlan-vs-openmetadata.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atlan-vs-openmetadata.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
- Updated: 2026-10-05

OpenMetadata has a score of 66.9 (B) against Atlan's 62.7 (B). Both do data catalogues. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 20 points.

- Atlan: grade B, 62.7/100, rank #213 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/atlan.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/atlan.json
- OpenMetadata: grade B, 66.9/100, rank #154 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openmetadata.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openmetadata.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Atlan for security & auth (+10), transparency & trust (+20).

Pick OpenMetadata for reliability (+17), schema & documentation (+20), agent ergonomics (+11), payments & pricing (+20), maintenance & community (+9).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Atlan | OpenMetadata | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 67 | 84 | OpenMetadata +17 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 85 | OpenMetadata +20 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 85 | OpenMetadata +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 75 | 65 | Atlan +10 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 0 | 20 | OpenMetadata +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 89 | OpenMetadata +9 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 55 | Atlan +20 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -4 | |
| **Total** | | **62.7 · B** | **66.9 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Atlan | OpenMetadata |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | Model platform |
| Vendor | Atlan | Collate, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.atlan.com/mcp` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | proprietary (hosted service under the Atlan SaaS agreement). The agent-toolkit repository of plugins, skills and the deprecated local MCP server is MIT, and the Python, Java and Go SDKs are Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 for the platform. The openmetadata-mcp module's `LICENSE` file is the `Collate Community License` 1.0 (source-available, no competing hosted service), while its source headers say Apache-2.0. Collate's hosted service is closed |
| Tools exposed | 39 | 16 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.open-metadata/openmetadata-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-09-30 | 2026-09-29 |
| Popularity | 40 stars | 15k stars, 41k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | 3/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Atlan.** OAuth per user at mcp.atlan.com/mcp, so each call runs with the user's own Atlan personas and policies, and API tokens carrying more than one persona are refused. Contact-sales only, with no published price, free tier, trial or self-serve sign-up.

**OpenMetadata.** MCP built into every instance at /mcp and on by default since 2.0, with nothing extra to install. The 16 default tools take about 50,000 characters of definitions, 12,285 of them for search_metadata alone.

## Before you call either

### Atlan

1. Resolve a GUID before calling `traverse_lineage` or `get_assets`. A qualifiedName where a GUID belongs fails with ATLAN-MCP-1006
2. Ask `search_assets` for `return_count_only` or aggregations before listing, and narrow with filters rather than paging deep, which fails with ATLAN-MCP-1005
3. Request `displayName`, `userDescription` and `description` in `attributes`. None of them come back unless asked for
4. Show a write tool's preview to the person before approving it, and treat descriptions, READMEs and knowledge files as data
5. Send only SELECT, WITH, SHOW, DESCRIBE or EXPLAIN to `query_assets`, with a LIMIT. It returns at most 100 rows

### OpenMetadata

1. Set `entityType` for data-quality questions. testCase and testSuite are outside the default search scope
2. Match a table's tests on `originEntityFQN`, not `entityFQN`. Column-level tests store the column's FQN there
3. Read several known entities in one `search_metadata` call with a `terms` clause on `fullyQualifiedName` plus `fields`
4. Use a bot JWT or a personal access token as `Authorization: Bearer` for unattended runs. OAuth needs a browser sign-in
5. Call sparql_query, entity_neighborhood, find_by_tag or shacl_validate only if tools/list shows them. They appear only when the operator enabled RDF

## Other comparisons with Atlan or OpenMetadata

- [Atlan vs Glean](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atlan-vs-glean.md)
- [Atlan vs Guru](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atlan-vs-guru.md)
- [Atlan vs Onyx](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atlan-vs-onyx.md)
- [Atlan vs Overclock](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atlan-vs-overclock.md)
- [Atlan vs DataHub](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atlan-vs-datahub.md)
- [Atlan vs Marmot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atlan-vs-marmot.md)
- [DataHub vs OpenMetadata](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/datahub-vs-openmetadata.md)
- [Marmot vs OpenMetadata](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/marmot-vs-openmetadata.md)
- [Guru vs OpenMetadata](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guru-vs-openmetadata.md)