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ARIS BPA vs Avolution ABACUS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 BPA
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (6th), Business Process Management (BPM) (8th)
Avolution ABACUS
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

ARIS BPA and Avolution ABACUS aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. ARIS BPA is designed for Business Process Design and holds a mindshare of 6.7%, down 8.7% compared to last year.
Avolution ABACUS, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Architecture Management, holds 3.6% mindshare, down 3.9% since last year.
Business Process Design Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ARIS BPA6.7%
Visio12.4%
Bizagi10.9%
Other70.0%
Business Process Design
Enterprise Architecture Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Avolution ABACUS3.6%
LeanIX12.0%
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect10.9%
Other73.5%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

Tamer Eldamanhouri - PeerSpot reviewer
Empowers teams with robust business process modeling capabilities
They should examine competitor solutions to identify differentiators. One issue related to ARIS BPA is its integration with AI; it has AI features for cloud solutions, yet many in the government sector in Kuwait do not view the cloud as viable. Software AG should focus on developing AI models for ARIS BPA on-premises, particularly in user interfaces, as well as creating predefined business processes for common areas such as HR and finance. This aspect is crucial for adapting to the market's needs and streamlining custom solutions. While they have been helpful regarding pricing, I cannot compare ARIS BPA to other business process modeling tools because I understand some competitors have significantly lower costs than ARIS BPA. To maintain market share, good discounts should be provided to customers.
JoseCamacho - PeerSpot reviewer
Supports evaluating architecture through corporate objectives
I conducted an evaluation of enterprise architecture at the European Court in Luxembourg, reviewing and analyzing existing implementations to identify potential improvements and providing recommendations I conduct evaluations to identify potential improvements and make recommendations, forming a…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Features like SAP SolMan sync, Alfabet EA integration (another Software AG product)."
"The solution's basic features are easy to use, overall designed well, and it has good process mining analysis."
"Business Process Analysis: We can simulate, optimize, and analyse business processes based on various business requirements. It assures our rolling out the best processes."
"It has allowed us to model our enterprise process architecture."
"ARIS BPA has a good directory option, which helps to keep track of all of your metadata, and that's very useful."
"Objects can be reused across different BPMNs and processes, so we can design new processes quicker and easier.​"
"​The matrix model makes building relations easier.​"
"I reviewed ARIS BPA, and I noticed it was recommended by Gartner in 2024."
"If you face new challenges or issues then you can dynamically customize according to the business needs."
"There are a lot of different features, but the business/decision-maker feature, visibility, and dashboards are most valuable."
"You can design using a diagram tool installed on your desktop, a key difference from other vendors."
"There are plenty of features available such as the ability to test applications for issues and a user-friendly dashboard."
"It is a very stable solution...The initial setup of Avolution ABACUS is very easy."
"The technical support is very good. They are responsive and the answers they provide are detailed."
"It's more than just an enterprise architecture tool as it has a lot of nice features, e.g. messaging, simulation, etc."
"Avolution ABACUS allows for flexible enterprise architecture analysis."
 

Cons

"The governance mechanism could be better, as could automation."
"Areas for improvement include sales, prospecting, shopping, customer service, after-sales (claims and advice for the client), and all processes pertaining to customer loyalty."
"We should have the ability to download ARIS EPCs to Visio."
"The Risk and Compliance Management tool is rather complex and moreover, it needs to be customized if you want to use it."
"One of the biggest challenges is to realistically enable the defined structures of the processes that you have in ARIS documented, and then actually implement them in the business."
"Create simple data uploader."
"The product is difficult to use for someone without prior knowledge of working with it. It requires a certain level of administration training."
"ARIS BPA is not really a platform that offers you the opportunity to execute processes that you model."
"The tool doesn't have any intelligence built in. We have to design the dashboards ourselves, which is a challenge because we have to depend on the vendor for customizations."
"While this is one of the most powerful tools on the market it does not integrate well with Microsoft Office or others."
"It doesn't have the simulation capability, which would be helpful in doing some business process analysis and improvements."
"They should take more initiative to implement things that competing products have already come out with."
"While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."
"If they want to expand in the European market then they are going to have to improve their technical support."
"I use reference models, which are taxonomies, in my EA work. It is a reference model/taxonomy of things with capabilities, sub capabilities, and sub-sub capabilities, so you're working it down. I haven't yet found a simple way to implement that in Abacus. It could be that it is there, but I don't know how to do it."
"The company needs to update the UML version they are using for the product as it is quite old."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The setup cost and pricing depend on the license (Modeler, Viewer, Administrator)."
"It is an expensive solution."
"ARIS Express​ is free."
"This is absolutely not the cheapest solution in the market, but for large companies, the price is fine."
"ARIS has different licensing mechanisms for different modules, but they are perpetual licenses. So you pay once."
"I would recommend the product to only enterprise companies because of the pricing."
"Pricing is a bit on the higher side."
"ARIS BPA is too costly from a licensing perspective."
"I'm paying on a yearly basis. I don't know whether it's a highly expensive tool or not. I'm getting a single version of it, and I don't have the enterprise part on it because I don't need the server component, and I don't need a web browser component. My estimate would be that it's a very reasonably priced tool given that you don't need to have licenses with everyone in order to get the information and the decision support capabilities out of the tool. You use the enterprise edition on top of the studio, which is the heart of the tool. I am not aware of any additional costs."
"This solution is expensive for some people's budgets and they need to offer a Lite version at a cheaper price"
"There is a subscription for this solution. We are on an annual subscription because you sometimes receive special offers the longer you subscribe."
"My company makes annual payments toward the licensing costs of the solution. Considering the product's capabilities, its prices are very reasonable."
"It is expensive."
"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
"To get a fairly extensive license for Enterprise Architects from Spark is approximately US $400.00, maybe less, but with Avolution Abacus it was approximately US $2000.00 per year, and that includes maintenance with the Abacus tool."
"The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
14%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise47
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ARIS BPA?
The most valuable features of ARIS BPA are its flexibility and reporting.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ARIS BPA?
Pricing for ARIS BPA is average, not cheap or expensive. It's cost-effective and worth the money we pay.
What needs improvement with ARIS BPA?
ARIS BPA needs to be more accurate when generating documents. While it covers many blueprints and functions that I need, the document generation feature could be enhanced for better accuracy.
What do you like most about Avolution ABACUS?
The tool's implementation is straightforward as everything is readily available. For instance, setting up a portal is seamless, allowing easy publishing and access to data. However, integrating wit...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Avolution ABACUS?
It's pricey compared to Essential, Deltek, or Essential Cloud. However, its diagramming capabilities and metamodel design make it worth it. But it's not for large user bases. It has modules for app...
What needs improvement with Avolution ABACUS?
While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product. It would be beneficial to have seminars or other met...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM
No data available
 

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.
Barclays
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Camunda, Bizagi and others in Business Process Design. Updated: October 2025.
872,837 professionals have used our research since 2012.