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ARIS Architect and Designer vs BiZZdesign HoriZZon comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

ARIS Architect and Designer
Ranking in Business Process Design
16th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
BiZZdesign HoriZZon
Ranking in Business Process Design
11th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of ARIS Architect and Designer is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BiZZdesign HoriZZon is 2.2%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design
 

Featured Reviews

Angie Ibrahim Eissa - PeerSpot reviewer
Utilizing advanced features to optimize and improve process modeling capabilities
ARIS Architect and Designer needs to improve its cloud version reliability, as I experienced data corruption that reverted diagrams to earlier versions. This issue, especially with large-scale diagrams, led to significant inconvenience due to the lack of partial data restoration capability. Additionally, an academic license would be beneficial to accommodate educational purposes.
BijoyTalukder - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps to get a clear overview of our enterprise architecture, especially when dealing with multiple departments
One area where BiZZdesign HoriZZon could use some improvement is in its REST APIs. While the platform offers REST APIs, they have limitations when it comes to retrieving and exporting data. Obtaining detailed information at the individual application or component level, including IDs, costs, and deployment-related data, can be challenging through these APIs. This limitation makes it difficult to smoothly export such granular data. I have raised this issue with the BiZZdesign team, and they expressed interest in addressing it, but I'm not aware of the current status of this improvement effort. Nonetheless, improving the usability and flexibility of the REST APIs for data extraction is an area that could enhance the platform's capabilities.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The support team is very responsive."
"We use the product for modeling, conducting process checks, doing process flow, running, and analyzing the report."
"One of the standout features for me is its synchronization to a publication server. It makes sharing diagrams and links with non-users easy."
"It's really fast. It's much faster compared to Enterprise Architect."
"The most important feature is ARIS's ability to turn a process design into data to analyze anything you want. For example, we have some analysis reports in ARIS that can guide us when we want to change a system. It shows us how this change will affect all of the organization's processes."
"It is suitable for banks, insurance companies, public administration, etc. The method is very adaptable and can be applied independently of the business."
"Its user interface is highly regarded, especially when compared with Visual Paradigm."
"The user interface is easy to work with."
"This is one of the best tools, especially because of its collaborative nature. Anyone using it can access previous projects and related data. It's definitely a strong collaborative tool."
"The most valuable features of BiZZdesign HoriZZon, from my experience, include its out-of-the-box connectors, such as integration with ServiceNow, Excel, and SQL databases, making data repository management more efficient."
"The powerful editing function in teamwork project-based, common or shared modeling, based on a powerful repository and knowledge sharing in a portal are the most valuable features. These are the most important features for me. I can add the integration of individual modeling notations like Archimate plus BPMN and DMN, and so on. We travel from one location to another and the tool allows us to keep track."
"The initial setup of this solution was very straightforward."
"Among the valuable features is the ability to document standards. For example, we have mandatory operating standards that need to be followed by every application and every architecture. We use things like table charts and pie charts for documenting the costs incurred across the systems. All of these are good features."
"The most valuable features are the application, portfolio, data, architectures, and modeling things."
"I used BiZZdesign HoriZZon at two organizations. At Manchester Metropolitan University, I used it with a small team for architectural modeling of the student record system. We modeled teams, process objects, and their interactions with applications. We also used it to model a gradual rollout with plateaus showing migration over time. At the BBC, I used it to model software services for publishing content online. I showed key model views to senior stakeholders using Horizon, allowing them to modify and score applications and services."
"BiZZdesign HoriZZon is scalable, and I'd give it an eight out of ten for scalability. Our customers are enterprise level companies, but the solution is suitable for small and mid-sized companies as well."
 

Cons

"The product is not flexible."
"The support team takes a long time to respond to our queries."
"We face problems when the product's capacity is increased."
"Sometimes, it's not easy to convince customers to use this methodology because it's a bit rigid."
"This product could be improved by lowering the licensing cost. More organizations could use ARIS if they slashed the licensing costs even a little bit."
"The simulation part still has some way to go. It's a good feature, and it's something that other vendors don't have right now, but it can still be improved. Some features are needed in ARIS Architect, so advanced users can do things through drag-and-drop functionality."
"You can have a collaboration feature, but it's necessary to have ARIS Connect which is a separate, costly product."
"The customer service of ARIS Architect and Designer was disappointing. It took forty days to conclude that partial data restoration was not possible, and it was suggested that the data might have been accidentally deleted, despite evidence to the contrary."
"One area where BiZZdesign HoriZZon could use some improvement is in its REST APIs."
"In HoriZZon, there are different matrices. In some of the cases, there is an option to aggregate them, but in other cases, we have not done this, e.g., to see the proper costs. For example, if I have 10 different matrices, then I need to create an aggregate view out of those 10 matrices somewhere. That is where we have been struggling a bit. We have a counterpart from the HoriZZon product team with whom we have bi-weekly discussions. We have suggested to him that this can be improved."
"There's room for improvement. When I finished using it over a year ago, I discussed implementing C4 notation with BiZZdesign HoriZZon.They've likely done this now, but I haven't seen it. Setting up interactive views for stakeholders to score services was a bit difficult."
"The automatic data collection and interface need improvement."
"I have seen table charts where, if the chart is a little too big, it does not fit in HoriZZon and it is not at all visible... There have been several times where we could not publish a chart properly and we had to break the chart into small tables and create multiple artifacts, creating a complete mess. This should be seriously taken up by BiZZdesign because there is a lot of scope for improvement in terms of usability. It's not at all good, unfortunately."
"It should be more open to integrating with other existing tools. Although there has been progress in the past."
"We tested it, and we had support from BiZZdesign, including patches, but it just didn't do what we wanted."
"This tool is something of a beast - it takes a long time to learn, and it isn't possible for casual users and most architects. Unless a person spends 500 or 1,000 hours on the tool or does very concentrated sessions using all its functionalities, it's very difficult to master."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Many customers find the licensing configuration confusing. There are many different sub-details in the licensing, making it very difficult for us to understand what we are buying and what we are using with what."
"The licenses are very costly. I've seen many people who are hesitant or not able to use ARIS Suite just because of the license cost. Even though they like all the functionalities and understand the value of everything ARIS provides, they aren't able to implement it."
"The product is expensive."
"The tool is a little bit expensive."
"The price is reasonable."
"If one is very cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the product price as a seven out of ten."
"First and foremost within the scope of improvement for the solution would be the cost. It's very costly..."
"[The] Orbus... pricing model was based on every single functionality having a price. The pricing was comparable but if we wanted to scale, it would have ended up being a lot more expensive. BiZZdesign gave us one price with all of the functionality, and we could scale as much as we needed."
"The pricing model is slightly on the high side and could be more competitive for long-term partnerships."
"We were customers and bought licenses from them. We used their remote instance initially but upgraded to the on-device version due to lag. For pricing, we paid about 2200 pounds a year per seat for the client installation at an educational rate. I'm not sure about commercial rates. I managed to get a free copy at BBC since it was for evaluation purposes."
"In terms of this particular product usage, my clients currently only use per-user licenses."
"I haven't found any issues with the scalability and licensing parts that are access-related."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
11%
Insurance Company
9%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
25%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ARIS Architect and Designer?
ARIS Architect and Designer needs to improve its cloud version reliability, as I experienced data corruption that reverted diagrams to earlier versions. This issue, especially with large-scale diag...
What is your primary use case for ARIS Architect and Designer?
I use ARIS Architect and Designer ( /products/aris-architect-and-designer-reviews ) for process modeling, enterprise architecture, and business process design. I only use it for customers because i...
What do you like most about BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
This is one of the best tools, especially because of its collaborative nature. Anyone using it can access previous projects and related data. It's definitely a strong collaborative tool.
What needs improvement with BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
The ability to generate charts and deal with a use case involving Kibana was quite difficult. We don't use the chart functionality much, and I think that is quite problematic at the moment. We have...
What is your primary use case for BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
I use the solution in my company for all sorts of things, like enterprise and solution architecture. As part of our design process, BiZZdesign HoriZZon is used for road mapping. We also use it for ...
 

Also Known As

ARIS Architect & Designer, ARIS Architect, ARIS Designer
HoriZZon
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tesco, Weifu, Airbus, Siemens, Proximus, Alicorp, Sekerbank, Bancor, Philips,Sky, Emirates NBD, Dubai Municipality, Suva, U.S. Army, Australia Post, Westfalen Weser Energie - ARIS serves customers across all industries and of every size worldwide. Companies trust ARIS as the market leader for process excellence with more than 30 years of experience in the market, 10 million users worldwide, from 1 user companies to the Fortune 500.
T-Mobile, Shell, HSBC, Erasmus University, VIVAT Insurance
Find out what your peers are saying about ARIS Architect and Designer vs. BiZZdesign HoriZZon and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.