Top 10 Select Star Alternatives and Substitutes

Whether you’re a small business seeking cost-effective software or a large enterprise requiring a scalable and customizable solution, having a top-notch data catalog is essential. Select Star is a popular choice due to its ease of use and quality of support. However, there are plenty of Select Star substitutes out there to choose from.

In this blog post, we will explore the top 10 Select Star alternatives. Our evaluation of pricing, features, and integrations has been unbiased, relying solely on the available facts. 

Before we delve into the alternatives, here’s a brief overview of Select Star:‍

Select Star Overview

Select Star was founded in 2020 as a central repository for capturing, organizing, and discovering a company's data. With its emphasis on column-level lineage, user-friendly interface, and quality support, Select Star is particularly popular among data teams. It stands out for its features and functionality that are tailored to meet the needs of data professionals.

Some of its key features include column-level lineage, auto-populated documentation, and entity relationship diagrams. It meets all AICPA SOC 2 Security, Confidentiality, and Availability standards. A full list of its available integrations can be viewed here.

Select Star pricing is listed on their website. They offer a free 14-day trial and four different tiers of plans - Light (free), Pro ($270/month), Growth ($810/month), and Enterprise (custom pricing).

You can learn more about Select Star by visiting their website.

There are several reasons why you may be exploring alternatives to Select Star. You may need a data catalog solution that can be easily adopted and integrated across your entire organization, such as CastorDoc, or you simply want to learn more about the data catalog landscape. Whatever your reasons, you are in the right place!

1. CastorDoc Overview

CastorDoc is a cutting-edge data catalog platform founded in 2020 by a team of experienced data scientists, engineers, and data leaders. With the aim of enhancing the data experience for businesses, Castor offers a plug-and-play solution that unifies the data stack by streamlining data discovery, collaboration, and data health monitoring.

What sets CastorDoc apart is its approach to company-wide adoption. Unlike other data catalogs, CastorDoc is designed for use by both business teams and data analysts, providing a sleek and user-friendly interface that empowers companies to analyze their data without relying on reports from the data engineering team. This user-centric approach allows for efficient and seamless data exploration and analysis, driving data-informed decision-making across the organization.

Through simplified data discovery, users can easily locate and access relevant data assets, eliminating time-consuming data hunting and accelerating data-driven insights. 

Key Features:

• Automated documentation experience
• Column-level, cross-system data lineage in minutes
• Automated infrastructure monitoring system
• Easy search tool allows users to search for data instantly
• Deep integrations across data warehouses, data transformation, and data visualization tools
• Can be integrated with a company’s data stack within 30 minutes

Companies may choose CastorDoc over Select Star if they are looking for business users and other non-data teams to access the catalog.

They may also choose CastorDoc due to higher scores in the following G2 categories for Machine Learning Data Catalog: Meets Requirements (9.5 vs 8.3), Ease of Use (9.9 vs 9), Ease of Setup (9.6 vs 8.6), Ease of Admin (9.4 vs 9.2), Quality of Support (9.8 vs 9.6), Partnership (9.9 vs 9.4), and Product Direction (10.0 vs 8.9).  Read more about CastorDoc vs Select Star here.

From a pricing perspective, CastorDoc offers three pricing plans - Starter (starting at $10,000 per year), Premium (custom pricing), and Enterprise (custom pricing). CastorDoc also offers a 14-day free trial.

Interested? Get a free demo and take your data management to the next level with CastorDoc.

2. Secoda Overview

Secoda was established in 2021 to provide organizations with a centralized and efficient means to manage their data assets. Powered by machine learning algorithms, the platform automates the indexing and categorization of data assets, facilitating easy search and retrieval of relevant data.

Secoda is built for both technical and non-technical users. It fosters collaboration among all teams and promotes data democratization.

Key Features:

• Automatically index the entire data stack
• Data catalog, lineage, and documentation features
• Assign individual user access permissions
• Automate lineage and assess the impact of changes
• Simplify the data request flow

Secoda has three pricing plans - a free plan, a Business plan ($800/month), and an Enterprise plan (custom pricing). 

Companies may choose Secoda over Select Star if they want non-technical users to access the catalog to find data. You can read more about Secoda vs Select Star here.

You can read more information about Secoda at their website, and view a complete list of their integrations here.

3. Atlan Overview

Atlan was developed in 2018 by data people for data people, to address the challenges that these teams typically face. It does provide tools for business users, but its real focus is on data teams.  

It offers several warehouse integrations including Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, and more. It also integrates with transformation tools like dbt and business intelligence tools like Metabase, Looker, Sigma, Mode, and Tableau.  

Key Features:

• No-code metadata builder
• Customized automations
• Data discovery with natural language search
• Column-level lineage

It is rated well on G2.com, with an overall score of 4.5/5. It scores above the industry average in all categories, including Meets Requirements, Quality of Support, Ease of Setup, and Ease of Use.  Atlan’s 24/7 support, with several tiers of escalation, is reviewed positively by users. 

Companies may choose Atlan over Select Star if they need more warehouse integration options, such as Athena, AWS Glue, Hive, SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, Presto, Salesforce, SAP HANA, or Trino. You can read more about Atlan vs Select Star here.

Atlan pricing is not listed on its website, but you can contact them for more information and a customized proposal.

You can learn more about Atlan here.

4. Metaphor Overview

Metaphor was established in 2020 and its Metadata Platform was released in 2022. It was developed by the team behind DataHub at LinkedIn, leveraging their experience and expertise in data management. As a result, it has quickly gained recognition as a robust and centralized solution that empowers users to efficiently discover and understand their data. It describes itself as the “Social Platform for Data” due to its use of social hashtags and wikis.

Metaphor is first and foremost built for data teams. In addition, it aims to cater to business users who may not possess technical expertise, such as business analysts and product managers. 

Key Features:

• Business-friendly wiki to assist with documentation
• Built into Slack and Teams
• Social hashtags
• Automated column-level lineage

Metaphor’s pricing is not available on its website. Companies may choose Metaphor over Select Star if they are interested in the catalog’s social and collaboration features, or would like to appeal to business users in addition to data teams. Metaphor offers a variety of warehouse, business intelligence, and cloud integrations. Read more about Metaphor vs Select Star here.

Visit their website to learn more about Metaphor. 

5. Stemma Overview

Stemma was released in 2020 as a managed version of Lyft’s Amundsen data catalog project. It provides companies with robust tools to ensure the integrity and reliability of their data within a self-service environment. 

Stemma offers integrations with data warehouses, business intelligence tools, transformation tools, and HR systems.

Key Features:

• Seamless integration into existing workflows
• Automated data stewardship
• Automated documentation
• Deep insights into data use
• Table and column-level lineage

Companies may prefer Stemma over Select Star if they’re already familiar with Amundsen, and want to upgrade to a managed version.

Stemma’s pricing is not listed on their website, but you can learn more about their solution and view a demo here. 

6. Segment Overview

Segment, a Customer Data Platform, was acquired by Twilio in late 2020. This tool enables companies to gain a comprehensive understanding of their customers by breaking down data silos and consolidating information into a single customer profile that can be accessed by all teams within the company. When combined with Twilio's personalized communications functionalities, businesses can collect, analyze, and interact with their customers seamlessly from a centralized source, streamlining their customer engagement process.

Key Features:

• Complete data toolkit for every team in your company
• Data collection from web and mobile apps
• Consolidation of all customer touchpoints
• Data pipeline functionality

Segment offers three pricing tiers - a free plan, a Team plan ($120/month), and a Business Plan (custom pricing). 

Companies may choose Segment over Select Star if they are interested in Twilio’s comprehensive suite of customer and data solutions, instead of looking for solutions from separate vendors.

Visit Segment’s website to learn more. 

7. Alation Overview

Alation, launched in 2015, empowers organizations to make sense of their data by providing a holistic view of their data assets. With features such as enhanced data discoverability and robust collaboration tools, Alation enables data users to efficiently navigate and leverage their data.

Alation appeals to both data teams and non-technical users, such as analysts and business teams. 

Key Features:

• Automated data discovery with machine learning algorithms
• Collaboration and knowledge-sharing features
• Data lineage and impact analysis
• Data governance workflows, data dictionaries, data quality metrics

Alation’s data catalog offers integrations with a variety of data warehouses, visualization tools, and other data systems. 

If companies are seeking a conventional catalog solution that offers extensive on-premise integrations with their data stack, Alation may be the preferred choice over Select Star.

Pricing is not provided on its website, but you can learn more and request a demo here.

8. DataGalaxy Overview

DataGalaxy aims to empower organizations with data intelligence, allowing them to effectively leverage their data assets for data-driven decision-making. It caters to various industries, including finance, healthcare, retail, and more, and is designed to support both on-premises and cloud-based data environments.

DataGalaxy was developed with all users in mind, not just data teams. It references bringing “data to the people” on its website, and lists a variety of data-driven roles that may use the catalog.

Key Features:

• AI Metabot assistance for complex tasks
• Visual data knowledge with lineages and diagrams
• Data dictionary and business glossary
• Advanced natural language search & discovery tools

DataGalaxy offers integrations with data warehouses such as Snowflake, Oracle, SQL Server, PostgresSQL, Azure Synapse, and more. They also offer a variety of data visualization, processing, CRM, and collaboration tools. 

Companies may choose DataGalaxy over Select Star if they are interested in business-user and other non-data roles to access the catalog. Legacy businesses also may prefer it due to its compatibility with on-premise data storage. 

Pricing is not listed online. To learn more, visit their website.

9. Amundsen Overview

Amundsen is an open-source data catalog platform developed by Lyft. It is designed to help companies discover, understand, and collaborate on their data assets. 

Amundsen caters to data people, such as Data Engineers, Data Analysts, and Data Scientists. They connect with a variety of data warehouses and tools - you can view a complete list of their integrations here. 

Key Features:

• Open-source
• PageRank-inspired search algorithm
• Automated and curated metadata
• Table/column descriptions and data stats
• Collaboration features such as data annotations and comments

Companies may choose Amundsen over Select Star if they are looking for an open-source data catalog and have enough engineering resources to build and maintain the product themselves, over seeking a managed SaaS solution.

You can learn more about Amundsen here.

10. Collibra Overview

Collibra’s Data Catalog was established in 2008 with the aim of being the Data Intelligence Company. Their solution helps companies find and utilize data across all sources while breaking down traditional silos.

Collibra appeals to both data teams as well as business users, referencing that their catalog helps users find data 57% faster while spending 34% less time dealing with data errors.

Key Features:

• Native business and technical lineage
• Connect business, privacy, and technical metadata with ease
• Column-level lineage
• ML-powered classification and automated workflows
• Embedded data governance and privacy

Collibra’s integrations can be viewed here. They also have a Professional Services team to assist companies that need custom integrations. Pricing is not available on their website, but you can contact them for a quote. 

Companies may choose Collibra over Select Star if they are seeing a compliance-first tool for their data governance team and don’t mind a higher level of complexity and implementation time.

The Best Data Catalog For Your Business

This article has looked at Select Star and its top 10 alternatives. You can view more information on Select Star competitors and alternatives here. There are plenty of great options on the market - although for ease of use and mass business adoption, CastorDoc is a proven market leader. You can view all of our product comparisons here and our Data Catalog Benchmark for mid-market companies. 

Get a 14-day free trial today and enhance your data experience with CastorDoc.