# Netflix/metacat

Repository: https://github.com/Netflix/metacat
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/metacat
Language: Java
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-08-26T18:27:03+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 99/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 99, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3819, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 7, "gap_med": 7.0, "n_releases_24m": 41}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1690, forks 286 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:22.502463+00:00)

## What it is
Metacat is a unified metadata exploration API service from Netflix that federates metadata across data stores like Hive, RDS, Teradata, Redshift, S3, and Cassandra. It exposes a REST API for metadata discovery and allows storing arbitrary user metadata about datasets.

## Use cases
- federate metadata from hive, redshift, s3 and cassandra into one api
- build a data catalog for discovering datasets across warehouses
- query what data exists and where it resides
- attach custom business metadata to tables and datasets
- unify hive metastore metadata with other stores behind one rest service

## When to choose
- you need a federated metadata layer over multiple big data stores
- you want a self-hosted data catalog with a REST API
- you run a heterogeneous data platform and need unified dataset discovery

## When to avoid
- you need a full-featured modern data catalog with lineage and governance UIs
- you only use a single data store with its own metastore
- you want a managed SaaS catalog solution

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: maintenance
- function: api-framework, search-engine, database
- domain: big-data, databases, analytics, developer-tools
- platform: jvm, self-hosted
- tags: metadata-catalog, data-discovery, federated-metadata, hive-metastore, rest-api, netflix-oss, metadata, data-engineering, docker, web-server

## Member repositories
- Netflix/metacat (main) score 99

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:22.502463+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:38:19.417396+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/Netflix/metacat (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:22.502463+00:00, sha 2766b7ec7d76)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.