Litera Clean, Metadact and Workshare Protect alternative
Metadata cleaning strips what is around the document. Not what it says.
Litera Clean strips the data around your document. DataGuard reads what it says. It keeps the record, not the file.
If your firm says Metadact, this is the same product: Litera renamed the line in June 2026. It strips hidden properties, tracked changes and comments on the way out, and it is the best in legal at that job. It does not read the paragraph naming your client. DataGuard runs its pre-flight check on that layer at the same moment. Keep both.
DataGuard runs alongside Litera Clean. It keeps the record, not the file. Litera quotes per firm rather than publishing a rate, so the honest comparison here is scope, not price.
Every claim below links to Litera's own documentation. Checked 7 Sep 2026. Formerly Metadact, and before that Workshare Protect.
The gap
A gate picks the reader. It does not change the document.
Litera Clean · outbound attachment
The document leaves clean of metadata, and still names the client on page nine.
Sidian DataGuard · pre-flight
The line is gone from the copy that leaves. The rule it matched is on the record, and a person cleared it.
Feature by feature
What each one does to the document
| Capability | Litera Clean | Sidian DataGuard |
|---|---|---|
| 01Pre-flight checksWhat happens at the moment something is about to go out. | ||
| Checks a file at the moment it goes out | Litera Clean: yes. Yes. It sits at the point of send and cleans the attachment before it leaves.1 | DataGuard: yes. Yes. Every share through a connected source runs the pre-flight first. |
| What layer of the document it reads | Litera Clean: no. The data around it: 300+ metadata types across Outlook, plus tracked changes and comments.1 | DataGuard: yes. The words on the page. Names, account numbers, health detail, privileged passages. |
| Removes sensitive text from the outgoing copy | Litera Clean: no. No. Documented cleaning covers metadata, tracked changes and comments, not body text.1 | DataGuard: yes. Yes. The passage is gone from the file that leaves. |
| How often the detection is right | Litera Clean: no. Not applicable. Cleaning runs to a fixed list of metadata types rather than detecting anything.1 | DataGuard: yes. 98% on names, organisations, dates, account numbers and IDs in legal documents, tested on real ones. The rest is what the review pass is for. |
| A person approves before it leaves | Litera Clean: no. Cleaning runs to a fixed list. There is no per-item decision to make.1 | DataGuard: yes. Every flagged item, every send. DataGuard proposes, your team decides. |
| 02Your rules, and what you can seeWhose rules apply, whether they change with the recipient, and whether anyone can see everything that left. | ||
| The rule changes with who is receiving it | Litera Clean: no. No. The same metadata types are removed whoever the recipient is.1 | DataGuard: yes. Yes. One document, a version per recipient, each one cleared by your team. |
| Rules your firm writes, in its own words | Litera Clean: no. The cleaning list is metadata types, not firm policy.1 | DataGuard: yes. Your firm's own checks, written as sentences, applied on every send. |
| One view of everything that left | Litera Clean: partly. Reporting on what was cleaned, inside the Litera estate.1 | DataGuard: yes. One view across every connected system: what left, when, and to whom. |
| Covers files that never go through Outlook | Litera Clean: no. Cleaning sits on the mail path and the formats sent through it.1 | DataGuard: yes. Shares out of Clio, SharePoint, OneDrive, Drive and Gmail run the same check. |
| 03Sharing into AIWhat an assistant reads when it is pointed at the file. | ||
| What an AI assistant reads | Litera Clean: no. Not addressed by metadata cleaning. A document handed to a model is the real document.1 | DataGuard: yes. A synthetic mirror. Names and numbers are swapped for stand-ins in the copy the model reads. |
| 04Proof, afterwardsWhat you can show a client, an auditor or a court, and how fast. | ||
| What the log proves | Litera Clean: partly. That metadata was cleaned from the file that went out.1 | DataGuard: yes. Every item removed, the rule it matched, and the person who cleared it. |
| Getting it out for an auditor | Litera Clean: no. Cleaning reports.1 | DataGuard: yes. One audit pack, mapped to CCPA, SOC 2 and ISO 27701 control objectives. Mapping, not certification. |
| 05Where your files liveWhich of these two is a place your documents sit. | ||
| Still sold under the name your firm knows | Litera Clean: partly. Renamed twice. Workshare Protect's cleaning went into Expired Support at Litera's Q4 2021 release, and Metadact became Litera Clean in June 2026.2 | DataGuard: yes. One product, one name. What you buy today is what the page describes. |
| Metadata cleaning across every format you send | Litera Clean: yes. Yes. Detected in Outlook, cleaned across Word, PDF, Excel and ZIP. It is the best in legal at this.1 | DataGuard: no. Not our job. DataGuard strips metadata on what it processes; firm-wide metadata hygiene is Clean's. |
| Stores your files | Litera Clean: yes. No. It cleans a file on its way past.1 | DataGuard: yes. No. It reads each file where it already sits, and keeps nothing afterwards but the record. |
One row goes Litera Clean's way outright, and two are a tie. The outright ones are ruled in green. Where Litera Clean is stronger, and what DataGuard does not do at all, are set out in full directly below.
Honestly
Litera Clean and DataGuard, both directions
Where Litera Clean is stronger
Reasons to keep it, and reasons a firm bought Litera Clean in the first place.
- The most-used metadata tool in legal. 300+ metadata types detected across classic and new Outlook, cleaned across Word, PDF, Excel and ZIP. It holds that position in ILTA's survey work for a reason.
- Every format a firm actually sends. Word, PDF, Excel, ZIP and more, cleaned without asking the sender to think about it.
- Deployment to match the firm. Desktop, Cloud, Server and Clean+, so a firm picks the model its IT can support.
- It is already in the workflow. Sitting in Outlook at the point of send is the hard part of this problem, and Litera solved it years ago.
What DataGuard does not do
Scope, not a roadmap. If you need these, you need them from something else.
- Strip document metadata. DataGuard removes metadata, comments and tracked changes on the files it processes, but metadata cleaning across every format and every send is Clean's job, and it is better at it. Keep it.
- Repair formatting or compare versions. DocXtools and Litera Compare have no counterpart here.
- Store your files. There is no DataGuard file system. It reads each file where it already sits and keeps the record of what it did, not the file.
- Become your system of record. Nothing held in DataGuard is authoritative, so there is nothing to migrate in and nothing to migrate back out.
- Catch everything, every time. No detection is perfect, which is why a person clears each flagged item and why the check is a second pair of eyes rather than a replacement for the first.
Price
What it costs
Litera quotes per firm rather than publishing a rate, so this page is not going to invent one. What it can show is its own.
The question worth asking a Litera rep is not the number. It is whether anything in the quote reads the body text.
DataGuard, per user / month
30-day free trial, full product, no card.
Litera does not publish a price for Clean in readable page source as of 7 Sep 2026. Ask your Litera rep for a current quote to compare directly.
The stack
What changes on Monday
The source is never altered. What goes out is a separate, logged copy your team can trace to the person who cleared it. Clean sits on the mail path; DataGuard sits in front of the places the files come from, which is why the two do not collide.
With Litera Clean in the middle
Two homes for one document
- Which copy is current? The two answer differently.
- Two permission sets to keep in step, by hand.
- A second seat for the privilege of the duplicate.
With DataGuard
One source. A checkpoint on the way out.
- The source is never altered. It stays in SharePoint.
- Your permissions stay yours. Nothing to mirror.
- The outgoing copy is logged, traceable to who cleared it.
You keep
Litera Clean, and SharePoint, Drive, Outlook, Gmail and Clio alongside it. Your folder structure, your naming, your DMS.
You drop
Nothing, on this page. Clean is not the thing DataGuard replaces; the page-by-page read before a send is.
Getting started
Connect the sources, pick the removal rules your firm already follows, and run one live matter through the pre-flight. Hours, not a migration.
Questions
The ones that come up on every call
No, and we would tell you not to. Clean removes metadata, tracked changes and comments across every format your firm sends, and it is the best in legal at that. DataGuard reads the other layer, the body text, and changes what leaves based on who is receiving it. Firms run both, and the two do not collide.
See it on one of your own matters.
Bring a closed matter, or ask for an NDA and bring a live one. We'll run it through the pre-flight on the call.