---
title: "Why we are different | Atlan"
url: "https://atlan.com/why-we-are-different/"
description: "Experience the world's first Active Metadata Platform."
---

> Atlan is hosting Context Conference, bringing together the leaders and builders at the frontier of giving AI the context it needs to understand their business. It runs online on October 28, 2026, from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM ET. Atlan co-founder Prukalpa Sankar opens and closes the day. Leaders from AstraZeneca, BNY and Verizon share why they invest in context and what they get from it. Registrants get early access to The AI Context Gap, a new study from MIT Technology Review Insights. Register: https://atlan.com/context-conference/

"From Passive to Active": Atlan's case for why it differs from traditional data catalogs. Experience the world's first Active Metadata Platform. [Book a Demo ->](https://atlan.com/forms/talk-to-sales-contact/)

"Atlan is pushing the boundary from a DataOps standpoint. You're disrupting the industry by thinking differently. That's the core essence of Atlan." - Venkat Gopalan, CTO, Belcorp

## The current paradigm of metadata is broken. We're fixing it.

Traditional data catalogs are static silos for your metadata. At Atlan, we believe that your metadata could do more. Much more. (The page illustrates this with an "Old way" vs "New way" diagram.)

## A personalized metadata experience

Data teams are diverse. Analysts, engineers, scientists, and architects all have their own preferences. Then why serve the same generic experience to every persona? ([Explore Personalization](https://atlan.com/personalization-and-curation/))

- **Personalized homepage:** every persona gets a homepage customized for their needs.
- **Metadata preferences:** only show the custom metadata that your persona needs.
- **Curated assets:** curate the right set of assets for your day-to-day workflow.

## Designed to help you flow

Work seamlessly with the tools you use every day. Collaborate effectively with your team without leaving Atlan. Power your daily workflows with microflows. ([Explore Collaboration](https://atlan.com/embedded-collaboration/))

| Situation | Microflow |
|---|---|
| Confused about what a column name in Atlan means? | Send a question to your team's Slack channel directly from Atlan. |
| Found a broken pipeline while navigating lineage? | Create a Jira ticket directly from Atlan. |
| Tired of a new analyst asking for metric definitions? | Anyone can search for business definitions with Atlan's Slackbot. |
| Need to know who owns a dashboard in your BI tool? | Access metadata from your BI tool with Atlan's Chrome plugin. |
| Frustrated searching for that Slack thread with context about a table? | Never again. Link Slack discussions to your Data Asset Profile. |
| Need to bring your engineers in to fix a pipeline issue? | Send them a link to a GitHub-like code repository with 360 degrees context. |
| Keep switching between apps to check your workflow status? | Skip the switching. Get context-rich, automated workflow alerts in Slack. |
| Need your analyst to contribute to a README? | Tag your analyst to let them know where they need to add context. |
| Making a critical change to a table that your team needs to know about? | Add an announcement to your table for everyone to see. |

## Built on open source. Open by default.

Like you, we hate being locked into closed, black-box platforms. That's why we built Atlan's core platform on leading open source projects and made every action API-driven. ([Explore Open APIs](https://atlan.com/open-api-architecture/))

## Delhivery increased documentation by 250%

Atlan auto-populated column descriptions for 90% of Delhivery's assets and assigned owners by scanning query log history. Automation helped developers document assets at scale and reduced time-to-ownership.

- 90%: column descriptions automatically deduced by Atlan
- [Read the full story](https://atlan.com/customers/build-buy-delhivery-learning-data-catalog/)

## We're partners, not vendors.

Our unique culture enablement program helps your data team go from a data-service to a data-product mindset.

- **Educational workshops:** "Thank you for the educational workshop you facilitated for our team. The cultural value-add we get from Atlan in customer engagement complements the product perfectly!" - Harel Shein, Head of Data Engineering, WeWork
- **Gamification drives:** "The Atlan team was very active and responsive to the challenges I faced. The gamification drive got an incredible response!" - Akash Deep Verma, Director, Data Engineering, Delhivery
- **Cultural workshops:** "The workshop was super helpful to set the tone. The workshop format got the team thinking and now we have a starting point for follow up discussions." - Lavanya Gopinath, Director of Operations, Chargebee

## Data catalogs are going through a paradigm shift

This ebook breaks down where they came from, why they're changing, and where they're going. [Get the Ebook](https://atlan.com/resources/data-catalog-primer/)