# Guru vs OpenMetadata

> OpenMetadata has a score of 66.9 (B) against Guru's 45.3 (E). Both do docs and wikis. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 43 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guru-vs-openmetadata
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guru-vs-openmetadata.md (~1,500 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guru-vs-openmetadata.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guru-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 Guru's 45.3 (E). Both do docs and wikis. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 43 points.

- Guru: grade E, 45.3/100, rank #401 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/guru.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/guru.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 Guru for transparency & trust (+6).

Pick OpenMetadata for reliability (+36), schema & documentation (+27), agent ergonomics (+37), security & auth (+13), payments & pricing (+20), maintenance & community (+43).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Guru | OpenMetadata | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 48 | 84 | OpenMetadata +36 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 58 | 85 | OpenMetadata +27 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 48 | 85 | OpenMetadata +37 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 52 | 65 | OpenMetadata +13 |
| 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) | 46 | 89 | OpenMetadata +43 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 55 | Guru +6 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -4 | |
| **Total** | | **45.3 · E** | **66.9 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Guru | OpenMetadata |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | Model platform |
| Vendor | Guru Technologies, Inc. | Collate, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.api.getguru.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 Guru's terms of service. The Python SDK (guruhq/guru-py-sdk) is MIT, and the MCP server's public repository holds only a README and server.json | 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 | none | 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 | `com.getguru/mcp-server` | `io.github.open-metadata/openmetadata-mcp` |
| Last release | none | 2026-09-29 |
| Popularity | none | 15k stars, 41k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | 3/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Guru.** Hosted MCP server at https://mcp.api.getguru.com/mcp, registered as com.getguru/mcp-server in the official MCP registry. No public prices, plans or trial, and the pricing page sends everyone to sales.

**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

### Guru

1. Ask the person for a Guru account. There's no trial or keyless route, and OAuth needs a pre-approved client
2. Send `Authorization: Bearer email:token` to the MCP server when OAuth isn't available, and basic auth to https://api.getguru.com/api/v1/
3. Use a collection token for read-only work. User tokens write with the user's full rights
4. Follow the `Link` header to page REST search results. Each page holds at most 50 cards
5. Confirm with a person before archiving or moving cards. Guru documents no confirmation step

### 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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