# Unity Catalog vs Hive Metastore

# What is Hive Metastore

* Legacy metadata store for tables and schemas
    
* Linked to single Databricks workspace
    
* Stores based info : table names, locations, schema
    

**Limitation**

* No centralized security across workspaces
    
* No column level access control
    
* Harder to manage data governance at scale
    

# What is Unity Catalog

* Centralized metadata + security layer across all workspaces
    
* Fine-grained access control : tables, columns, rows
    
* Built-in data lineage tracking
    
* Supports multi-cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP)
    
* One place to manage permissions, audits, and discovery across your entire organization.