# DataHub vs OpenMetadata

> OpenMetadata has a score of 66.9 (B) against DataHub's 59.5 (C). Both do data catalogues. The largest gap is reliability, 16 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-05

OpenMetadata has a score of 66.9 (B) against DataHub's 59.5 (C). Both do data catalogues. The largest gap is reliability, 16 points.

- DataHub: grade C, 59.5/100, rank #263 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/datahub.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/datahub.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 DataHub for transparency & trust (+10).

Pick OpenMetadata for reliability (+16), agent ergonomics (+7), payments & pricing (+10), maintenance & community (+12).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | DataHub | OpenMetadata | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 68 | 84 | OpenMetadata +16 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 81 | 85 | OpenMetadata +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 85 | OpenMetadata +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 65 | 65 | even |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 10 | 20 | OpenMetadata +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 89 | OpenMetadata +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 55 | DataHub +10 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | -4 | |
| **Total** | | **59.5 · C** | **66.9 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | DataHub | OpenMetadata |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | Model platform |
| Vendor | Acryl Data, Inc. (DataHub) | Collate, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.datahub.com/mcp` | no (local only) |
| Transports | stdio, HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (DataHub Core and mcp-server-datahub). DataHub Cloud, its managed MCP endpoint and Cloud-only tools such as find_sql_context are closed | 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 | 8 | 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 | 2026-09-25 | 2026-09-29 |
| Popularity | 13k stars, 1.6M PyPI/wk | 15k stars, 41k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | 3/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**DataHub.** Apache-2.0 platform and MCP server, run with `uvx mcp-server-datahub@latest` or the acryldata/mcp-server-datahub Docker image against DataHub Core or DataHub Cloud. The eight default tools carry about 26,000 characters of descriptions, and search and get_lineage each repeat the same 3,063-character filter grammar.

**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

### DataHub

1. Start keyword queries with `/q` and pass filters as one string, such as `entity_type = dataset AND platform = snowflake`
2. Call `search` with `num_results=0` first to get the tags, glossary terms, platforms and domains in use
3. Page with `offset`. `num_results` is capped at 50
4. Expect no write tools unless the operator set `TOOLS_IS_MUTATION_ENABLED=true`, and create tags and terms before `add_tags` or `add_terms` refers to them
5. Use https://mcp.datahub.com/mcp with OAuth only on DataHub Cloud v1.0.2 or later. DataHub Core needs the local server and a personal access token

### 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

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