ARIS BPA vs Lucidchart vs Visio comparison

The compared Software AG and Lucid Software solutions aren't in the same category. Software AG is ranked #5 in BPD , with an average rating of 8.1, and holds a 7.5% mindshare in the category. Lucid Software is ranked #2 in MMS , with an average rating of 10.0, and holds a 23.7% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of Software AG users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Lucid Software users who would recommend it.

ARIS BPA

Read 68 ARIS BPA reviews

6,121 Views
4,223 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Lucidchart

Read 54 Lucidchart reviews

6,015 Views
782 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Visio

Read 107 Visio reviews

8,003 Views
6,562 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

ARIS BPA

Lucidchart

Visio

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between ARIS BPA, Lucidchart, and Visio based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Camunda, SAP and others in Business Process Design.

To learn more, read our detailed Business Process Design Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Business Process Design

June 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

Business Process Design

Mind Mapping Software

Business Process Design

Featured Reviews

Tamer Eldamanhouri

Software Engineering & Manager at Arab Infromation Management Services

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.

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MichaelChirinian

Data Engineer at Mindmap

Intuitive, integrates well, and is a great way to change text into visual ideas

I'm not a super user, and there might be a way of doing it that I haven't explored, but I was looking for some specific icons that are just standard icons, and I found the icon library to be very focused on architecture icons. It didn't have as many standard or generic icons. Another thing that somewhat irritated me is the fact that there is a paste function in the menu, but when you right-click and select paste, it tells you that you can't use paste. You must press Command-V or Apple-V to paste. They give you a menu option to paste, but every time you use that, they say, "We don't accept it." On top of that, normally, you'd have an option for paste or paste values, but when you use the paste function, you don't have that capability. So, to copy text from one place, I have to use Command-V to paste it, but if I don't like the format, I've got to go back and do copy style and then paste style on top of that. It is a small detail, but when you're doing diagrams, it is annoying that they don't support paste values. It is a small irk. I'm not penalizing it, and I still think it is a five-star product. In terms of other bigger things, I don't really have any comments or criticism so far.

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Tugrul TASCI

IT Professor at Sakarya University

We have seen return on investment in the form of time savings but should have more design tools

I am generally using Visio to create some diagrams Visio should implement more complex tools or graphics to facilitate processing and use flexible templates. It should allow users to easily drag and drop some previously created diagrams. The tools supplied or provided are very basic, and there…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The whole ARIS BPM solution is a bit special, because from the very beginning it was targeted more to Business users and the Management."

"It has the ability to scale up, as well as integrate with other systems within the organization to get real-time information from dashboards and reports."

"If you ever tried to draw a picture in a browser app or with a cloud service, it is normally a painful death. ARIS works perfectly on diagrams in the browser, so I was excited. I like it because there have been so many bad experiences in the past with drawing or doing something in a browser. Normally, it's always painful because it's coded badly. With ARIS, it is really well-implemented. It's simple."

"It brings transparency and 360-degree views of end-to-end processes."

"The solution provides integrations to ServiceNow and other systems, flexibility of connectivity, and reporting."

"Business Process Analysis: We can simulate, optimize, and analyse business processes based on various business requirements. It assures our rolling out the best processes."

"The most valuable features of ARIS BPA are the centralized repository and the automatic rendering of diagrams."

"It provides the discovery functionality, and you can have a simulation on top of it to get your design corrected to ensure that it is within the right state of parameters. It is a complete package that you can use from strategy to execution because you have the design layer, and within the design, you can also do analytics."

More ARIS BPA pros

"The most valuable features are the different templates that they have already created, as well as all the different shapes you can use in the process charts because each shape stands for a different element or thing that's being done. It's easy to distinguish between different steps using the already set-out shapes."

"The most valuable feature is the ease of use, and just being able to drag and drop."

"Its ease of use is most valuable. As compared to draw.io, connecting the lines and doing things like that are much easier in Lucidchart. It has been great for some of the process flow diagrams and data flow diagrams. I can export these diagrams as PDFs and share them with team members."

"Lucidchart is a 10 out of 10 when it comes to documenting things such as processes, systems, and new teams. It's just so user-friendly. The fact that even if you've never used Lucidchart, if you take a template and adapt it, you'll inevitably find something to fit your needs, but it's also perfect for building from scratch. It's the ease of use, clarity, and the different functionalities that make it incredibly useful."

"It is a very effective tool for documenting processes and using it has improved our efficiency significantly."

"The ease of creating some of the maps and diagrams is most valuable. Lucidchart is just simpler and works more intuitively than other solutions that I have used in the past, such as Microsoft Visio. I am not in a creative role, but I know how to use Adobe Illustrator and other solutions like that. If I need to map out something that I've never mapped out before, and it is going to need a totally custom graphic, eight times out of 10, I'm going to go to Lucidchart rather than trying to build it in Illustrator. Its intuition and flexibility are really big features for me."

"Creating flowcharts and documentation is easy to do and the results are very nice."

"I really like the drag and drop feature because it makes the work easier. It is very easy to use. All the pieces are very good. All the icons and all the fields are available in the left panel. So, I just click, drag, and then edit a piece. When I showed it to my managing director, he was very inspired, and he also got a premium account for himself."

More Lucidchart pros

"The most valuable features are process mapping and identifying responsibilities."

"The product provides a lot of flexibility in writing graphs and customizing them."

"Good interface and good tool configuration."

"The solution is finely stable."

"It is a useful tool to map data flows, network objects, and computer science technology and show to clients. It does what I need it to do. It's a tool I've used the longest, so I know it the best, and that's probably the claim to fame."

"Great at illustrating advanced topics which helps my team understand what I'm trying to get across."

"It has a lot of great features."

"What I like the most is the simplicity and ease of usage."

More Visio pros

Cons

"The tool needs to improve its support since they take long to respond."

"Regarding stability, when there are any customized settings being done at customer end - post upgrade to newer versions - it makes the customer environment unstable for a short duration."

"The tool's installation and configuration part needs to improve."

"Training is one of the important aspects for process awareness. As soon as a process is rolled out, process training is required. If ARIS could generate output in PowerPoint, it would be great for business users."

"I find it difficult to access the database as I want with direct querying."

"We should have the ability to download ARIS EPCs to Visio."

"User interface (UI)."

"It needs external API and the ability to navigate back, similar to "Back" in web browser."

More ARIS BPA cons

"A couple of times when I tried to move a line, connecting two shapes on an organizational chart, occasionally the line doesn't move as intuitively as I think it should. I have to fiddle around with it a few times to get it to do what I want it to do."

"In terms of improvement, there can be more templates. There are good templates but there could still be more."

"I'm not a super user, and there might be a way of doing it that I haven't explored, but I was looking for some specific icons that are just standard icons, and I found the icon library to be very focused on architecture icons. It didn't have as many standard or generic icons."

"The layering is something that can be improved because sometimes, it is confusing for me when I'm trying to get to the layer that I want to edit."

"One of the major drawbacks is that we have to extract the work in Lucidchart as an image when we want to create a presentation."

"I don't know if I will be able to add some animations if I want to. I believe the problem may be the program's process flows but if I want to transfer it into a PPP or any other document, I can only do image transfer."

"It would be really helpful if we could create a process flow based on a Word Document or a PPT file."

"The main improvement I would like to see is for them to improve the help section on the flow charts or on the formatting."

More Lucidchart cons

"It needs hyperlinked or narratives for page flows to make demos more effective."

"The product's installation phase can be a difficult process if you don't have the deployment script with you since it is very important to know what you are doing when you are dealing with the setup process."

"Visio could improve by simplifying the application to allow the business user more understanding. This will allow us to bring the solution deeper into the organization for use. It can be difficult to navigate and some users tend to rely on third-party applications for auditing, compliance, and policy configuration."

"The simulation is an area that requires improvement."

"It is a visualization tool, so database visualization is pretty static in it. They haven't moved the ERDs very well. They haven't adopted any real visualization like what you have in Hackolade for JSON or other data patterns. It has none of that. If you go onto broader patterns, you can actually label and integrate with a data set, if you want, for Visio, but it's very clunky and very difficult for me to assign that to another user. I can't assign it to a junior or a documenter. They really haven't cleaned up and made their tools simpler to use when linking to data, which is primarily what you're trying to do."

"Occasionally, the automation feature that helps you easily add the "next step" goes crazy and it will move a bunch of stuff."

"The product only functions well professionally, with adding additional software for configuration."

"Visio is not as scalable as other tools due to the proprietary restriction. You cannot customize it or scale it up like the way you do with Trello or Jira. Microsoft places restrictions on things that you can do with Visio."

More Visio cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is a bit on the higher side."

"It is well worth the investment in the enterprise."

"Usually, our company buys technical support from the Software AG site. We bought the technical support for the first year of usage for ARIS version 6 and 7. So, when we migrated to ARIS version 7, we bought support only for the first year. Then, we didn't use it the next year. Our experience was that we use it only one to three times during the first year. Therefore, there wasn't much value for us to buy this service because we have no problem with using ARIS after the first year."

"ARIS is quite expensive."

"In terms of pricing, it would be nice if it were more affordable."

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

"It is an expensive solution."

"It depends on different parameters."

More ARIS BPA pricing and cost advice

"Its pricing is very affordable and reasonable for the features that it provides. I am using its basic plan, and for my usage, it is perfectly reasonable. It suits perfectly."

"I was using the free version of Lucidchart, which was very helpful."

"There is a nominal charge for the paid version of the product. They have a free version available and from what I could see, there was not much difference between it and the pro version."

"I pay $95 a year for it. It seems like a reasonable price."

"I had a quick glimpse of it. It was about 100 Canadian Dollars a year for just me. I don't know if there are any additional costs."

"The price and licensing are good."

"I have only used the trial version and have not yet paid for it, or explored the pricing options."

"I was using the paid version, but at $12 USD per month, I canceled the plan because it was a little bit too expensive for me."

More Lucidchart pricing and cost advice

"You can purchase a corporate license for more users to use the solution. We have purchased a stand-alone license and which could be cheaper."

"I don't have any issue with the pricing. It has a subscription-based model, and the subscription is done on a yearly basis. Of course, we need internal approvals in place."

"If I want to buy Visio for myself, I think it will be around 80 to 120 USD, though it is important to consider that I am unsure of its actual costs."

"Cloud-based tools are always cheaper since they are subscription-based. I use the on-premises version of Visio hence the price is quite expensive. However, I believe that the cloud version of Visio may not be as expensive as the on-premises version."

"We're in a Visio plan that is like $15 a month per user. At the moment, it is just the standard licensing fees that I'm aware of."

"The licensing process is actually a breeze. Simply buy the license and download it from Microsoft, enter the license key in Visio to activate the software, and you're done."

"I know you can pick it up in retail for under a thousand per person. You can also pick it up for cheaper than that. Microsoft has about 7,000 licensing models, and you get certain percentages off specific licensing. If you're a partner, you get specific numbers of licenses with the partnership price."

"I pay for the license and it is very expensive. If you're only going to use this tool from time to time, you can save money by just using the available online tools. But if you plan on using it heavily, then it's worth it to invest."

More Visio pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ARIS BPA?

The most valuable features of ARIS BPA are its flexibility and reporting.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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 ne...

See all answers

LucidChart vs LucidSpark for brainstorming sessions over Zoom

Hi @Krista Thompson - Yes, LucidSpark is a much more nimble and, in some ways, user-friendly tool than LucidChart. ...

See all answers

Do you recommend Lucidchart?

I definitely recommend Lucidchart. I feel it is one of the top visual collaboration platforms that’s available on the...

See all answers

How easy is it to migrate process flow charts (modeled using tools like Visio) into Bizagi?

I have been using Bizagi with a major project for a state government agency for about four years now. It is pretty st...

See all answers

What do you like most about Visio?

The diagrams Visio creates are quite impressive in the sense that we can cooperate with more colleagues in one task a...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Visio?

One of the main problems with Visio is its licensing options and associated issues, which lead to discussions about t...

See all answers

Comparisons

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs ARIS BPA

Compared 24% of the time

ADONIS vs ARIS BPA

Compared 10% of the time

Camunda vs ARIS BPA

Compared 7% of the time

Bizagi vs ARIS BPA

Compared 6% of the time

Pega Platform vs ARIS BPA

Compared 4% of the time

More ARIS BPA Competitors

Figma vs Lucidchart

Compared 16% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs Lucidchart

Compared 10% of the time

Visual Paradigm vs Lucidchart

Compared 8% of the time

Bizagi vs Lucidchart

Compared 8% of the time

MURAL vs Lucidchart

Compared 3% of the time

More Lucidchart Competitors

Bizagi vs Visio

Compared 22% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs Visio

Compared 11% of the time

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs Visio

Compared 10% of the time

Visual Paradigm vs Visio

Compared 8% of the time

erwin Data Modeler by Quest vs Visio

Compared 3% of the time

More Visio Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ARIS BPA

July 2025

Download ARIS BPA product report

Buyer's Guide

Lucidchart

July 2025

Download Lucidchart product report

Buyer's Guide

Visio

June 2025

Download Visio product report

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM

No data available

Microsoft Visio

Overview

ARIS is the market-leading solution for professional business process management and modeling. Whether you want to document the "as-is" state of your operations for quality or certification reasons or design the "to-be" in terms of continuous improvement in your transformation program, ARIS is the best choice for establishing a single source of truth regarding all process excellence topics in your organization. It is for any organization looking to digitally transform their business, increase operational excellence and customer experience and ensure compliance in execution. ARIS helps you to make the most out of your processes with Process Mining, Risk & Compliance Management, RPA and much more.

What makes the difference?

The most comprehensive platform for process excellence in the market
Easy to use
Covers business & IT architecture from all angles
Full flexibility and >100 diagram types
Customer-driven development based on best practices
Strong partner ecosystem

ARIS is the market-leading solution for any organization and ideally suited to digitally transform the organization, increase operational excellence and customer experience and ensure compliance in execution.

Software AG

Our online diagram application makes it easy to sketch and share professional flowchart diagrams. From brainstorming to project management, we support all of your communication needs. That’s why millions of users choose Lucidchart.

Lucid Software

Visio is an innovative collaborative solution that enables users to quickly visualize data-connected business process flows with a host of integrated intuitive features that bring the power of Microsoft 365 to Visio. Visio allows users to easily create professional diagrams, graphs, and other visual data, easily anywhere, anytime, and with anyone. Users are able to confidently and easily transform data into creative powerful visuals. Visio provides dozens of easy-to-use templates along with thousands of customizable colorful shapes that bring a user's best ideas to life. Visio is available for all Microsoft 365 commercial users and is available on desktop and Web applications.

Visio Features

Visio can easily create visual data for today’s business needs. Some of its most useful visual data include:

Flowcharts: Users can easily bring business concepts to fruition with Visio’s robust flowchart features. Visio provides a huge library of shapes, stencils, and templates to transform numbers and data into impactful, easy-to-understand business stories.
Organizational charts: Visio makes it easy to design articulate org charts to better visualize team, reporting, and hierarchy structures. Users are then able to seamlessly share the charts with stakeholders, teams, and employees.
Network diagrams: Users are able to creatively display how a system design processes function and visually illustrate how devices and networks interact with each other using a variety of network shapes, templates, and connector tools.
Brainstorming: Visio makes brainstorming simple and actionable with a wide range of templates designed specifically for interpreting problems and mapping out solutions, including fishbone and Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) diagrams.
Floor plans: Users can design ergonomic workspaces, retail store layouts, new homes, and more with accurate, scalable templates and tools to help them better visualize function, flow, and overall aesthetic appeal.
Accessible: Visio is able to integrate with a wide variety of accessibility tools, such as Narrator, Accessibility Checker, and high-contrast support, to ensure Visio diagrams are available to your entire team.

Reviews from Real Users

“Visio has improved my workflow by making it easy to create charts, diagrams, and essential illustrations to use in my client reports and proposals. It has saved me a lot of time I would otherwise spend creating visuals for clients manually.” - Michael B., Principal Consultant at Lexington Consulting

“I use it for diagramming networks, racks, data centers, data flow applications, etc. It is a useful tool to map data flows, network objects, and computer science technology and to show to clients. It does what I need it to do. It's a tool I've used the longest, so I know it the best, and that's probably the claim to fame.” - Greg S., Director of Solution Architecture at Winslow Technology Group

“We use Visio for architecture modeling. We also use it to facilitate communication with other people. The feature I like most about Visio is that it acts as a facilitator of communication, as it displays information in a way that's easier to understand.” - Guy M., IT/Business Architect at a financial services firm

Microsoft

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.

Google, Salesforce, Adobe, Whirlpool, Uber, Wal Mart, Pearson, Twitch, Riot Games, Western Union, Trimble, Starbucks

Thomas College, Hamburg Port Authority, Portigon AG, Conseil G_n_ral du d_partement des Hautes-Alpes, AAA Auto a. s., Commonwealth Financial Network, ICA, Abu Dhabi National Energy Company

Buyer's Guide

Business Process Design

June 2025

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