Ava AbbottPalantir Technologies is a software company founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, Nathan Gettings, Joe Lonsdale, Stephen Cohen, and Alex Karp. Based in Denver, Colorado, Palantir provides big data analytics and solutions for preparing, integrating, visualizing, and analyzing data.
The name “Palantir” comes from the Lord of the Rings, referring to indestructible crystal balls for communication.
Last year, Palantir generated $1.1 billion in revenue, up 47% year-over-year. The company also recorded a 41% increase in average revenue per customer to $7.9 million. [1]
Palantir went public in Sep 2020 via a direct listing. Its shares more than doubled within 6 months. The company offers Palantir Gotham, Palantir Apollo, and Palantir Foundry. Palantir Gotham for counter-terrorism analysts, while Palantir Foundry is a data preparation and analysis software.
In 2020, Palantir’s top 20 clients contributed about $33.2 million of its annual revenue, up 34% year-over-year. Palantir faces stiff competition from Alteryx, Trifacta, Cognizant, Splunk, Tableau, and IBM. [2]
Here is an in-depth analysis of top Palantir’s competitors and alternatives:
1. Alteryx
Year founded: 1997
Headquarter: Irvine, California
Alteryx is a software company that provides data analytics, location intelligence, data preparation, and technology integrations. Its self-service software drives transformational business outcomes and improves data analysis processes. Alteryx has around 1,490 employees with $495.31 million in annual revenue in FY 2020.
Alteryx and Palantir Foundry are data preparation solutions. But Palantir is more powerful than Alteryx for centralizing, integrating, and analyzing data in one place. Like Palantir, Alteryx’s software serves several sectors. The software delivers advanced analytics to any data scientist. Alteryx is Palantir’s top competitor in data preparation. [3]
2. Cognizant
Year founded: 1994
Headquarter: Teaneck, New Jersey
Cognizant is multinational IT services and consulting company. It helps businesses modernize technology, reimagine processes, and transform experiences. In 2020, Cognizant had 318,400 employees and a net income of $1.39 billion. The company expects to generate $18.5 billion in sales in 2021.
Both Cognizant and Palantir provide big data analytics. But Cognizant has spent $2.5 billion on acquisitions since 2019 to expand its portfolio, focusing on data engineering, AI, cloud, and IoT. The global solution provider unveiled Devbridge in Dec 2021, its 20th acquisition and first in the US. With Devbridge, Cognizant will expand its software engineering capabilities and global delivery footprint. Cognizant is a formidable Palantir competitor. [4]
3. Splunk
Year founded: 2003
Headquarter: San Francisco, California
Splunk is a technology company that offers solutions for monitoring, analyzing, and visualizing machine-generated data in real-time. For fiscal 2021, Splunk reported revenue of $2.23 billion. The company has around 7,500 employees and expects between $2.53 billion and $2.60 billion in revenues for 2021. [5]
Like Palantir, Splunk software analyzes and visualizes data in real-time. But Splunk specializes in machine-generated data, while Palantir ingests all data forms. In 2020, Splunk was recognized as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant and named to the Fortune 1000 list. Splunk caters to 92 Fortune 100 companies, increasing its competitive advantage over Palantir.
4. Tableau
Year founded: 2003
Headquarter: Seattle, Washington
Tableau is a self-service analytics platform that offers interactive data analysis and comprehensive BI tools. In 2019, Salesforce acquired Tableau for $15.7 billion. Tableau makes $1.16 billion annually in revenues and employs 4,200 people globally.
The main competitive advantage for Tableau over Palantir is its interactive graphics with easy-to-use features. The platform allows users to accomplish complex data analysis tasks using a drag-and-drop interface. Organizations like Amazon, Walmart, and Lenovo use Tableau for data visualization. In 2020, Salesforce and Tableau integrated their solutions to create Einstein Discovery in Tableau. Being part of Salesforce increases Tableau’s advantage over Palantir. [6]
5. Trifacta
Year founded: 2012
Headquarter: San Francisco, California
Trifacta is a software company that develops solutions to help businesses unlock the potential of their data. The company combines innovative human-computer interaction, machine learning, and scalable data management to simplify data preparation.
More than 10,000 companies use Trifacta, including Google, Kaiser Permanente, New York Life, and PepsiCo.
Like Palantir, Trifacta offers data wrangling software for exploring, cleaning, and preparing data. Dataprep by Trifacta is an intelligent self-service that works on structured and unstructured data for analysis on the cloud and on-prem.
In Sep 2021, Trifacta announced its expansion into the Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) to serve customers and attract top talent. These regions will operate from Singapore and Bengaluru. Trifacta’s expansion into APJ can help the company grab Palantir’s market share in this region. [7]
6. IBM Watson Studio
Year founded: 1911
Headquarter: Armonk, New York
IBM is a leading software developer that offers IBM Watson Studio. The tech giant serves 47 companies on the Fortune 50 list. In 2020, IBM had around 350,000 employees and generated $73.6 billion in revenues.
Both IBM Watson Studio and Palantir Foundry are data preparation solutions. But IBM Watson Studio is optimized for quick response. It provides collaboration tools for developers and enables AI adoption in business by accelerating ML and deep learning workflows. IBM Watson Studio is one of the top competitors to Palantir Foundry. [8]
7. Altair Monarch
Year founded: 1990
Headquarter: Troy, Michigan
Altair Monarch is a market-leading app that allows users to model and extract analytical insights from structured and unstructured data. This desktop-based no-code solution competes with Palantir in data preparation. But the platform offers more than 80 pre-built functions, eliminating laborious and error-prone manual data preparation tasks through automation.
The main competitive advantage for Monarch is its no-code data preparation and analysis features. Users with different skill sets can leverage this solution to transform data and extract insights for growth or data-driven decisions.
In Jun 2020, Monarch marked its 30th anniversary by launching new features for extracting and converting data automatically from Excel spreadsheets, PDFs, and text-based files. Altair Monarch is one of the most user-friendly Palantir alternatives. [9]
8. Tyler Technologies
Year founded: 1966
Headquarter: Plano, Texas
Tyler Technologies provides integrated technology solutions and services for the public sector. In 2020, Tyler had 5,368 employees and generated $1.086 billion in revenue. For the full year of 2021, the company expects between $1.577 billion and $1.597 billion in revenue.
Tyler competes with Palantir Foundry. But the company’s end-to-end solutions are designed for local, state, and federal entities. These products empower organizations by connecting data and processes across their systems.
Tyler has clients in the US, Canada, the Caribbean, and Australia, with over 37,000 successful installations across around 12,000 locations. Forbes has Tyler on its “Most Innovative Growth Companies” list several times. Tyler is the best Palantir alternative for governmental agencies. [10]
9. Verint
Year founded: 2002
Headquarter: Melville, New York
Verint Systems is an analytics company that offers software products for customer engagement, data mining, security, surveillance, and business intelligence. Its solutions streamline data analysis for governments and enterprise clients. The company has 6,500 employees and generates over $1.5 billion in revenues annually.
The company serves over 10,000 organizations from more than 180 countries worldwide. In Dec 2019, Verint commenced its plan to split into Customer Engagement and Cyber Intelligence. Both operate as independent publicly traded entities after the spin-off was completed in Jan 2021.
Cyber Intelligence vs. Palantir Gotham and Customer Engagement vs. Palantir Foundry. Now, Palantir has two competitors to worry about. [11]
10. Toad Data Point
Year founded: 1987
Headquarter: Aliso Viejo, California
Toad Data Point from Quest Software helps businesses connect, query, and prepare data faster. It provides seamless access to more than 50 data sources, allowing users to switch between sources with near-zero transition times. Quest Software has 4149 employees.
The main competitive advantage for Toad Data over Palantir is its user-friendly graphical interface that simplifies data preparation. Users can access data on-prem and in the cloud and analyze the data to extract actionable business insights.
With easy data profiling and cleaning, Toad Data Point can save up to 50 percent of users’ time. Toad Data Point is the best Palantir alternative for time-conscious users. [12]
References & more information
- Gordon, L. (2021, Feb 16). Palantir Reports Revenue Growth of 47% for Full Year 2020, Expects Q1 2021 Revenue Growth of 45%. Business Wire
- Great Speculations (2021, Jan 21). Up to 2.5x Since Its IPO, what really changed for Palantir Stock? Forbes
- Khederian, H. (2021, Mar 5). Meet Alteryx, A Big Data Analytics Competitor to Palantir. Yahoo Finance
- Haranas, M. (2021, Dec 8). Cognizant Makes 20th Acquisition Since 2019 With Devbridge Buy. CRN
- Hogan, P. (2021, Aug 25). Splunk Announces Fiscal Second Quarter 2022 Financial Results. Business Wire
- IntelliPaat (2021, Dec 11). What is Tableau? IntelliPaat.com
- Stein, D. (2021, Sep 30). Trifacta Establishes New Presence in Asia-Pacific to Support Increased Demand for Cloud Data Engineering. Business Wire
- Investi Analyst (2021, Apr 22). How to Contextualize Double Click – Understanding Palantir’s and IBM’s AI Ambitions. Seeking Alpha
- Ristic, J. (2020, June 15). Altair Monarch Marks 30th Anniversary with Major New Release. Altair
- Miller, B. (2021, Oct 27). Tyler Technologies Reports Earnings for Third Quarter 2021. Business Wire
- Bhogaraju, S. (2020, Dec 16). Palantir vs. Verint: Which SaaS Stock is a Better Pick? NASDAQ
- Quest Software (2021, Oct 25). Winter is coming, and so is Toad Data Point 5.5 and 5.6. Toad World
- Featured Image by Lagos Techie
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S.K. Gupta
Brianna Parker
Kevin Johnson
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