# OpenMetadata vs Secoda

> OpenMetadata scores 66.6 (B) to Secoda's 44.5 (E) for data catalogues. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openmetadata-vs-secoda
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openmetadata-vs-secoda.md (~2,450 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openmetadata-vs-secoda.min.md (~830 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openmetadata-vs-secoda.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: 2026-10-09

OpenMetadata scores 66.6 (B) on agent readiness against Secoda's 44.5 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Secoda leads on transparency & trust. Both do data catalogues.

- OpenMetadata: grade B, 66.6/100, rank #281 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openmetadata.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openmetadata.json
- Secoda: grade E, 44.5/100, rank #875 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/secoda.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/secoda.json
- Best company knowledge search and data catalogues for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/company-knowledge/index.md
- All 63 knowledge comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/company-knowledge/index.md

## Which one, for what

### OpenMetadata (B)

Good for: Teams running OpenMetadata who want agents to search the catalogue, read lineage and data-quality results, find root causes and create tests or lineage under the user's own permissions.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 84 against 40
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 59
- Agent ergonomics, 85 against 44
- Security & auth, 65 against 54
- Payments & pricing, 20 against 0
- Maintenance & community, 89 against 60

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card
- Open source

Watch for: The 16 default tools take about 50,000 characters of definitions, 12,285 of them for search_metadata alone

### Secoda (E)

Good for: A data team already on Secoda that wants an agent to read and edit catalogue metadata, lineage, documents and glossary terms, or to search the catalogue and run SQL through the local MCP server.

Ahead on:
- Transparency & trust, 58 against 51

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- No incidents deducted, where OpenMetadata loses 4 points for them

Watch for: No price is published. The three plans (Core, Premium, Enterprise) link to a sales form, and no trial or sign-up button was found on the site


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | OpenMetadata | Secoda | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 84 | 40 | OpenMetadata +44 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 59 | OpenMetadata +26 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 44 | OpenMetadata +41 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 65 | 54 | OpenMetadata +11 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 0 | OpenMetadata +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 89 | 60 | OpenMetadata +29 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 51 | 58 | Secoda +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **66.6 · B** | **44.5 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | OpenMetadata | Secoda |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Collate, Inc. | Secoda, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | 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 | Proprietary service under the Secoda Master Subscription Agreement. The local MCP server in secoda/secoda-mcp is MIT |
| Tools exposed | 16 | 6 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.open-metadata/openmetadata-mcp` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-10-06 |
| Terms last updated | 2022-08-29 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2022-08-24 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 15k stars, 41k PyPI/wk | 1 stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**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.

**Secoda.** The REST API reference embeds OpenAPI 3.0 definitions on every page, with `llms.txt` and Markdown copies, and the subscription agreement carries a 99.9 per cent uptime commitment. No price, trial or sign-up is published, no status page was found, and the public changelog stops at 28 October 2025 although self-hosted releases continue.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Secoda

1. Pick the base URL by workspace region. `app.secoda.co` uses `api.secoda.co`, `eu.secoda.co` uses `eapi.secoda.co` and `apac.secoda.co` uses `aapi.secoda.co`
2. Keep writes under 30 PUT, PATCH or POST calls a minute on entity endpoints, and back off on a 429
3. List with `/api/v1/resource/catalog` and a URL-encoded JSON `filter`. The per-type list endpoints for tables are marked deprecated, and results stop at 10,000 resources
4. Send at most 100 entities to `/api/v1/resource/all/bulk_update/` in one request
5. Add a trailing slash when an endpoint does not behave as expected, as the docs advise
6. Treat an API key as the creating user. `run_sql` in the MCP server works only when an admin has enabled Run SQL and the user has query access to the integration

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, OpenMetadata or Secoda?

OpenMetadata scores 66.6 (B) on agent readiness against Secoda's 44.5 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Secoda leads on transparency & trust.

### Can an agent call OpenMetadata and Secoda without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for OpenMetadata. Secoda runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed.

### Are OpenMetadata and Secoda open source?

OpenMetadata is open source (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). No open-source release is listed for Secoda.


## For agents

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

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