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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
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (7th), Business Process Management (BPM) (12th)
Avolution ABACUS
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (10th)
 

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 6.8%, down 8.0% compared to last year.
Avolution ABACUS, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Architecture Management, holds 3.3% mindshare, down 3.8% since last year.
Business Process Design Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ARIS BPA6.8%
Visio9.9%
Bizagi9.4%
Other73.9%
Business Process Design
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Avolution ABACUS3.3%
LeanIX9.2%
erwin Data Modeler8.3%
Other79.2%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

BM
Consultant at KAFD DMC
Has improved process modeling and analysis while supporting integration with organizational data
The process design in ARIS BPA does help with our operational efficiency. What we are doing is object library management for various kinds of objects that we are using in ARIS BPA during our process modeling. We are using that to do a lot of analysis on how many times a system is being used in how many processes, who are the major stakeholders, and if we enhance one system, how is it going to impact other processes and integrated processes. This is helping us a lot. Everything related to ARIS BPA is helping us with regards to enhanced processes, strengthened controls, identifying risks, assessing process capabilities, and identifying where the gaps are and what kinds of activities within the processes are automated and manual. We are doing a lot of things with regards to the processes as it is at our heart. Processes are one thing and then we have different kinds of things which are related to it, such as SLAs, guidelines, and policy. We are identifying areas of improvement in other documents as well.
JoseCamacho - PeerSpot reviewer
Freelancer at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
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

"Aris BPA has a lot of tools that are more professional than Bizagi."
"We also have relationships specified with our IT systems and our organizational chart. That makes it possible to analyze things from the systems point of view and regarding the organizational part of the company. It all comes together in one tool and that is what gives us the most value at the moment."
"The whole ARIS BPM solution is a bit special, because from the very beginning it was targeted more to Business users and the Management."
"The solution provides integrations to ServiceNow and other systems, flexibility of connectivity, and reporting."
"It is the most flexible and embracing process modeling tool."
"The EPC modeling is very detailed, the semantic check is helpful, and auto-layout simplifies the formatting."
"This solution has helped us in terms of discovering business processes."
"Visualizes processes which helps the business see pain points."
"If you face new challenges or issues then you can dynamically customize according to the business needs."
"It's more than just an enterprise architecture tool as it has a lot of nice features, e.g. messaging, simulation, etc."
"It is a very stable solution...The initial setup of Avolution ABACUS is very easy."
"There are a lot of different features, but the business/decision-maker feature, visibility, and dashboards are most valuable."
"The technical support is very good. They are responsive and the answers they provide are detailed."
"The most valuable feature is that it has a customizable meta-model, which is key."
"You can design using a diagram tool installed on your desktop, a key difference from other vendors."
"The most valuable feature is the traceability, you can trace any object to the other."
 

Cons

"I had this decentralization mission where I had some friendly fights with the consultants of Software AG. My opinion was the business department should be able to publish their processes and do all their evaluation stuff in ARCM themselves. It has to be a one stop shop. I want a one stop shop to go from ARIS BPM to ARIS ARCM, because having everything go through that would be an improvement due to the inputs that we made with Software AG. They will make it possible that the trigger sent from BPM to ARCM will start their object generation."
"We do experience a lot of glitches with ARIS BPA. In the past one year we have seen issues and the ARIS administrator has raised tickets with Software AG regarding these issues."
"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."
"One of the issues is, when you are defining databases, the way they use entities and relationship diagrams, the way we can define data, like data models, there is still a part they could improve."
"There are reports available in ARIS and you can modify them a bit if you want something more specific, but it's not that easy to adjust them and make modifications. It would be nice to have some kind of tool to do that, something that is more user-friendly for people who are not too technical, so that they could create reports the way they want them."
"Scripting has room for improvement and the documentation is a "must"."
"The reporting and the information query features could do with some improvement."
"They should make improvements as per customer requirements."
"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 Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."
"The company needs to update the UML version they are using for the product as it is quite old."
"It doesn't have the simulation capability, which would be helpful in doing some business process analysis and improvements."
"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."
"Having more control over page size is lacking in this product. Print utilization also needs to be improved."
"The most valuable features are the catalog and the diagram."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Their license model is really difficult to understand, and licenses are quite expensive."
"If you can afford it, it's the best so far."
"It is an expensive solution."
"It is well worth the investment in the enterprise."
"The product is a bit pricey."
"I would recommend the product to only enterprise companies because of the pricing."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"​It is on the higher side."
"The solution's pricing is not an issue."
"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."
"It is competitive. It is not chump change. I am just using the studio version. I am not using the full enterprise version, which would probably cost me three times more for single-use, but it gives a lot more capability and analysis. It is server-based as well, and it is reasonably priced compared to a lot of the other tools. There are other tools that have other sorts of capabilities, but in order to use them, you'd really have to have like 50 users for the price to become justifiable."
"It is expensive."
"There is a subscription for this solution. We are on an annual subscription because you sometimes receive special offers the longer you subscribe."
"This solution is expensive for some people's budgets and they need to offer a Lite version at a cheaper price"
"The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."
"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

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

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ARIS BPA?
It is a bit expensive regarding ARIS BPA. However, ARIS BPA does save a lot of effort because this is one tool which can be used for multiple purposes and the viewers have the capability to perform...
What needs improvement with ARIS BPA?
We are not using any what-if scenario features in ARIS BPA. Currently, we are not using the performance monitoring and compliance checks features in ARIS BPA. We have plans to use them, but current...
What is your primary use case for ARIS BPA?
ARIS BPA is being used for process modeling, and we are planning to upgrade and enhance it for process mining and other purposes. We are using it for everything. Currently, we are doing HRMS integr...
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 Camunda, Microsoft, Bizagi and others in Business Process Design. Updated: February 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.