Collibra counts named users. The Master Collibra Agreement says only Users may access the Offerings, that a User is an employee or contractor of the customer or its Affiliates, that the Offerings may allow different types of Users with different pricing, functionality and use restrictions, and that each User must keep login credentials confidential.[4] The product documentation builds on that rule with a licence type for each user. A user licence “authorizes a user to perform certain actions in Collibra”, with the specific actions depending on the user’s global roles and responsibilities.[1]
Editions
Collibra documents two licence models. The new model has three licence types and the legacy model has two. The product’s documentation page on user licences shows both, with the legacy model behind a “Show me information for the legacy license model” link, and the Seats page distinguishes them too.[1][2]
| Model | Licence type | What it allows | Seat limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| New | Viewer | Access and browse Collibra, add comments and ratings, create collections, start workflows, search business and technical content | Unlimited[2] |
| New | Contributor | Viewer rights plus participating in workflows for data product curation and certification, updating asset tags, executing classification rules, assessments and data notebooks | By subscription |
| New | Creator | Full access to all products and capabilities, platform administration and configuration, creating, editing and deleting assets, steward roles | By subscription |
| Legacy | Read-only | View resources and collaborate by comments, tags and ratings | Unlimited[2] |
| Legacy | Standard | Create, edit and delete assets, communities, domains, dashboards and views; bulk import; manage workflows, the operating model, users, groups, roles and permissions | By subscription |
The descriptions come from the user licences page, which adds that “the described actions for each license type are not all-inclusive and may be subject to change”.[1] The legacy Standard licence is available “only if you have a legacy license model”.[3] Catalog proof: The new licence model has Viewer, Contributor and Creator licences; Viewer seats are unlimited; Legacy Read-only seats are unlimited and Standard seats depend on the subscription.
Packages sit above the licence types. The Collibra Units factsheet names a “V3 & Standard/Premiere Package” and a “V4 Ultimate Package”.[6] The licence key records “package details such as included users by type, asset allowance, and product and capabilities included or purchased additionally”, and the Package page lists the products and capabilities enabled in the environment.[2][5] The retrieved pages publish no figure for the asset allowance and no description of how assets are counted. Catalog proof: The licence key carries users by type, asset allowance and enabled products; The Package page shows the products and capabilities enabled in an environment.
Metrics
How a user’s licence is determined. Licences cannot be assigned individually. “At any moment, a user has the maximum license required by any permission included in any role assigned to them directly or through group membership.” If one role has a permission that needs a Contributor licence and another needs Creator, the user occupies a Creator seat.[1] The required licence of each permission and each out-of-the-box role is shown in Settings and in the documentation.[1] Global roles are assigned in Settings, and resource roles are assigned at community, domain or asset level as responsibilities, so seat consumption can change when a role, group or responsibility changes.[3] Catalog proof: Licences are assigned automatically from the highest-licence permission in a user’s roles.
Named users. “Users will be determined on a named user basis rather than on a concurrent user or shared user basis. Each user account shall be assigned to, and Collibra customers shall cause it to be used exclusively by, a single individual”, with no generic or shared accounts. User numbers are limited to the Order, and access is restricted to that number “through a license management key provided by Collibra”.[1] A user account may be reassigned when its original person has left the company or moved to a role that no longer uses Collibra, but access may not be shared or pooled “to allow for temporary use by multiple users”.[1] Catalog proof: Users are counted on a named-user basis, not concurrent or shared; A user account may be reassigned when the person leaves, but not pooled for temporary use.
What does not count. Access to Collibra Console does not require a licence. Disabled accounts and system-reserved accounts do not count towards the seat total, and the Seats page refreshes hourly.[1][2] Catalog proof: Access to Collibra Console does not require a licence; Disabled and system-reserved accounts do not count towards the total.
Counting / floors
Buffer and restrictions. “The number of allocated Contributor or Creator seats has a 20% buffer to help manage consumption after exceeding the purchased amount.” If assigned seats exceed 120% for more than 9 consecutive weeks, the administrator cannot assign responsibilities to a role that requires that licence, add members to a global role that requires it, or add users to a group with such a role.[2] The Seats page charts the current number of assigned seats against 100% and 120% of entitled seats, keeps a daily table of operations that change seat counts (group memberships, global role membership, responsibilities and permissions) and offers a CSV download of weekly history.[2] Catalog proof: Contributor and Creator seats have a 20% buffer; beyond 120% for 9 weeks blocks new assignments.
Exceeding the maximum. “If your organization occupies more licenses than the maximum stipulated in your contract and identified in the license file, your administrator receives a warning, but all users retain access to Collibra functionality as determined by their roles and responsibilities.” The same page warns that occupying more licences than the maximum “can have financial and legal implications”.[1] The contractual position is in the Master Collibra Agreement: Collibra may ask for a written compliance certification (no more than once annually, except for repeated violations), may track usage through the Offerings, and the customer pays for excess use at Order rates.[4] Catalog proof: Occupying more licences than the maximum raises a warning but access continues; Customer certifies compliance in writing on request, at most once a year.
API use. The MCA bars circumventing Usage Limits, “including restrictions on number of authorized Users, whether through the use of APIs or other means”.[4] A service account or integration that lets many people work in Collibra without their own named account therefore needs review. Catalog proof: Usage Limits may not be circumvented through APIs or other means.
Legacy licence model
Under the legacy model, each global or resource permission requires either a Standard or a Read-only licence. A role requires a Standard licence if it contains at least one permission that does. “If the user has at least one role that requires a Standard license, then the user is occupying a Standard license seat”, known as the user’s required licence.[3] The 2021 model adds an effective licence for workflow activity: a user who does not consume a Standard licence but participates in or starts a workflow “retain[s] their Read-only license but [is] counted against a Standard license for the current calendar month”. The count resets at the start of the next month.[1] The documentation’s example has 200 effective licences at the start of September, 220 by mid-September after 20 Read-only users take part in workflows and 250 by month end, resetting to 200 on 1 October.[1] To move a user from Standard to Read-only, the administrator removes the user from every group or responsibility that requires a Standard licence, which with single sign-on may require a change in the connected LDAP system.[3] The new model “no longer uses required and effective licenses”.[1]
Catalog proof: A single role requiring a Standard licence puts the user in a Standard seat; A Read-only user who joins a workflow counts as Standard for that calendar month.
Known issue. The documentation records that Edge-only system users currently consume a Standard licence and says Collibra “will allow all customers to exceed the license agreement for such Edge only users until this known issue has been fixed”.[3] Catalog proof: Edge-only system users are not enforced against the licence while a known issue is open.
Virtualization & partitioning
User licensing in Collibra does not depend on the number of environments, hosts or processors. The documentation says a licence key is uploaded to the applicable environment for each subscription.[2] It does not say whether the same named user counts in more than one environment’s seats, and the retrieved pages contain no rule of the kind described in virtualization and partitioning. The Collibra Units documentation, by contrast, says allowances are shared across environments tied to one contract; see Collibra Units and AI features.
Cloud / BYOL
The seat rules apply to the hosted Service. For Collibra’s downloadable Software the Master Collibra Agreement grants a licence to install and use it on systems under the customer’s control within Usage Limits, and the Seats and Package pages describe the licence key uploaded to an environment.[2][4] A user’s licence type is a property of the user’s roles in that environment, not a separate entitlement the customer can bring from elsewhere.
Programs
- Seat monitoring. Administrators see seat consumption on the Seats page under Users and Subscriptions in Settings, and the page refreshes by default hourly.[2]
- Buying more seats. When seats are exceeded the Seats page lets administrators “take action by purchasing more seats or by removing permissions from users or groups to reduce the number of occupied seats”.[2]
Out of scope
This article does not cover Collibra Units (Collibra Units and AI features), data quality jobs (Collibra Data Quality, self-hosted and public sector licensing) or the contract terms (Master Collibra Agreement and policies). It does not give per-user prices, which Collibra does not publish. It does not list which individual permissions require each licence type, because the documentation presents them in Settings and in permission tables that vary by product.