Ontology vs Taxonomy: The Importance of Both
Taxonomies and ontologies are essential for building AI-ready data marketplaces. They turn disconnected data into structured, trusted knowledge that drives innovation, compliance, and collaboration across the enterprise.
These models define how concepts and relationships connect in industries like healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and web search. They align with established standards such as SNOMED, SCHEMA.ORG, FIBO, and QUDT.
Ontology vs Taxonomy: What Is the Difference?
An ontology defines not only concepts but the relationships between them, showing how data, entities, and ideas interact.
This makes ontologies crucial for AI models, semantic search, knowledge graphs, and enterprise systems where context and meaning are essential.
A taxonomy, by contrast, organizes information into a simpler hierarchical structure, where each concept fits within a single category.
Taxonomies are powerful for classification and navigation, helping users group and locate information efficiently.
Model and Manage Your Enterprise Knowledge with TopBraid EDG™
Re-use vocabularies
Include, extend, enhance, and connect industry-standard vocabularies to ensure consistent meaning across systems.
Develop taxonomies
Build unlimited hierarchical structures with custom fields, multilingual content, and support for SKOS and SKOS-XL.
Develop ontologies
Define data semantics through classes, attributes, relationships, and business rules for connected enterprise intelligence.
Integration and Reuse for Data Governance
Taxonomies and ontologies reach their full potential when connected with other enterprise assets in your data marketplace. Within TopBraid EDG™, these models integrate seamlessly with business glossaries, reference data, and data catalogs, creating a unified framework for data governance and discovery.
This integration allows teams to:
Reuse and link definitions across systems for consistent understanding
Align metadata, vocabularies, and business rules under a shared governance model
Improve data quality, compliance, and AI readiness through connected semantics
TopBraid EDG enables your organization to move from siloed data management to a governed, reusable data ecosystem where every asset contributes to smarter decisions and faster innovation.
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