Atlan vs erwin Data Modeler comparison

Atlan and Quest Software are both solutions in the Data Governance category. Atlan is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.3, while Quest Software is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.1. Atlan holds a 1.8% mindshare in DG, compared to Quest Software’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Atlan users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Quest Software users who would recommend it.

Atlan

Read 10 Atlan reviews

2,625 Views
2,520 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

erwin Data Modeler

Read 50 erwin Data Modeler reviews

8,381 Views
503 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Atlan

erwin Data Modeler

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Atlan and erwin Data Modeler based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Data Governance solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Atlan vs. erwin Data Modeler Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Atlan vs. erwin Data Modeler

June 2026

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Helped 902,894 peers since 2012

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

Atlan

Ranking in Data Governance

12th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Metadata Management (5th)

erwin Data Modeler

Ranking in Data Governance

10th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Architecture Management (1st), Business Process Design (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Atlan is 1.8%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 0.4%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Governance Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
erwin Data Modeler	0.4%
Atlan	1.8%
Other	97.8%

Data Governance

Featured Reviews

Peter Neumann

IT consultant at Pathfinder

Has struggled to meet business needs but supports technical data exploration and transparency

Atlan can be improved by concentrating more on business data since it is developed from developers for developers, and it needs to be more business relevant. For instance, when re-importing data model diagrams, Atlan provides some diagram automation that is not connected to the business glossary, which I consider a significant fault. Atlan needs to improve by focusing more on the business side of data, not only on technical aspects.If you want to focus on technical considerations, it would be beneficial to have an interface with a real business data modeling tool such as Erwin or other business data tools, since data modeling is not the same as Draw.io. Additionally, Atlan can improve its workflows, which are hard to understand. Working with templates, Excel import, export, and running automations is not self-explanatory, and you always need help from Atlan support team. If business people want to use it and run their own reports, it must be easier to customize for their business needs.

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Sushree Panigrahi

Snowflake Data Engineer| Senior PLSQL Developer |Data Modeler|Assitant Vice Pre at Jp Morgan Chase & Co.

Data modeling has transformed regulatory reporting and collaboration across cloud environments

In erwin Data Modeler, areas that have room for improvement include performance improvements. I see that large models sometimes cause it to be slow when opening. Impact analysis can lag as well. Version control is another aspect. If we have developed a current version, it is not integrated with Git where we can easily compare different versions. UI modernization is also something we cannot utilize as it is primarily for development. Additionally, cloud-specific optimizations are needed when it comes to Snowflake or Databricks. When it comes to AI aspects, auto-suggestions for normalization or identifying primary, foreign, or surrogate keys are areas that can be improved.

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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

"Atlan is helpful for identifying datasets and discovering PI data, such as the classification levels of datasets (gold, silver, bronze)."

"Atlan has positively impacted the organization since it helps in discovering already available assets, allowing for reduction of redundant ingestion of external data and reduction of time to market for any project."

"The technical support services are good."

"By switching to Atlan, we have increased our productivity and saved a lot of business time through automation."

"The interfaces and automated imports have helped me with transparency, as we have different sources from different techniques such as DBT, Snowflake, and other regular databases, making it effective to connect these sources and navigate through them, filter them, and enrich the data with additional meter information."

"By switching to Atlan, we have increased our productivity and saved a lot of business time."

"As a senior analytics engineer, Atlan's ability to show end-to-end data lineage is the most important feature for me."

"Overall, I rate Atlan as a ten out of ten."

More Atlan pros

"Drag-and-drop data modeling and reverse engineering out of databases are the most valuable features of erwin Data Modeler by Quest."

"This product is the strongest data modeler on the market."

"The solution’s code generation ensures accurate engineering of data sources, as there is no development time. Code doesn't even have to be reviewed. We have been using this solution for so long and all the code which has been generated is accurate with the requirements. Once we generate the DDLs out of the erwin tools, the development team does a quick review of the script line by line. They will just be running the script on the database and looking into other requirements, such as the index. So, there is less effort from development side to create tables or build a database."

"The accuracy and speed of the solution in transforming complex designs into well-aligned data sources make the cost of the tool worth it."

"The tool is also very intuitive and easy to use."

"The most valuable features are the ability to reverse engineer and do model comparison. With the reverse engineering, I can understand the databases from third-party products. With the model comparison, I can track the differences between two versions of the same database."

"In my previous company, there we had a really large return on investment from using erwin."

"I have worked with erwin Data Modeler for quite some time and familiarity is its most valuable feature."

More erwin Data Modeler pros

Cons

"Customer support for Atlan is not so proactive."

"Working with templates, Excel import, export, and running automations is not self-explanatory, and you always need help from Atlan support team."

"In my experience, it might be less suited for collaboration across teams."

"One of the main areas for improvement is its governance capabilities. Atlan supports only basic out-of-the-box workflows, and it becomes challenging to customize features like how data owners should approve access to data assets."

"Atlan can be improved by integrating agents that can support users in finding assets of interest."

"Certain UI changes could make Atlan more user-friendly."

"There are some improvements. There is a feature called Playbooks, which basically allows me to automate certain activities that would otherwise be manual. It's a very interesting feature, but there is room to improve it because, depending on the task you automate, the playbooks seem to have a hard time handling the task. So, it could be improved there. Even though it's a great feature, it can evolve further."

"One of the main areas for improvement is its governance capabilities."

More Atlan cons

"I would like to see the ability to support more NoSQL platforms more quickly. In addition, enhancing the graphics to render more quickly would be beneficial for any user."

"This is a very complex product."

"Complete Compare is set up only to compare properties that are of interest to us, but some of the differences cannot be brought over from one version of the model to another. This is despite the fact that we are clicking to bring objects from one place to another. Therefore, it's hard to tell at times if Complete Compare is working as intended without having to manually go into the details and check everything. If it could be redesigned to a degree where it is easier to use when we bring things over from one site to another and be sure that it's been done correctly, that would be nice to have. We would probably use the tool more often if the Complete Compare were easier to use."

"I love the product. I love the ability to get into the code, make it automated, and make it do what I want. I would like to see them put some kind of governance over the ability to make changes to the mart tables with the API, so that instead of just using the modeler's rights to a table -- it has a separate set of rights for API access. That would give us the ability to put governance around API applications. Right now a person with erwin and Excel/VBA has the ability to make changes to models with the API if they also have rights to make changes to the model from erwin. It's a risk."

"We are planning to move, in 2021, into their server version, where multiple data modelers can work at the same time and share their models. It has become a pain point to merge the models from individual desktops and get them into a single data model, when multiple data modelers are working on a particular project. It becomes a nightmare for the senior data modeler to bring them together, especially when it comes to recreating them when you want to merge them."

"erwin generally fails to successfully reverse engineer our Oracle Databases into erwin data models. The way that they are engineered on our side, the syntax is correct from an Oracle perspective, but it seems to be very difficult for erwin to interpret. What I end up doing is using Oracle Data Modeler to reverse engineer into the Oracle data model, then forward engineer the DDL into an Oracle syntax, and importing that DDL into erwin in order to successfully bring in most of the information from our physical data models. That is a bit of a challenge."

"It has a very steep learning curve, limited support for NoSQL or streaming systems, and potentially a high licensing cost."

"It is not a very stable solution. I rate the stability five out of ten."

More erwin Data Modeler cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay per-user license. It's a different classification model than with other solutions, where they usually charge you for resources. So, that was a better model for us. And because of this difference in models or classification, it was cheaper for us to go with Atlan."

"The primary reasons that erwin was selected were that it was much more affordable for us [than Embarcadero] and it was easily maintainable."

"Likewise, the solution is a little pricey."

"An issue right now would be that erwin doesn't have a freely available browser (that I am aware of) for people who are not data modelers or data engineers that a consumer could use to look at the data models and play with it. This would not be to make any changes, but just to visually look at what exists. There are other products out there which do have end user browsers available and allow them to access data models via the data modeling tool."

"There is either a one-year or three-year license. It is not a pay-as-you-go license like a SaaS solution. It’s more of a traditional licensing. They are a little bit on the pricier side."

"The pricing of the solution is cheap. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."

"Price-wise, erwin Data Modeler is okay. You can purchase a single license and it is not very expensive."

"I wish it wasn't so expensive. I would love to personally buy a copy of my own and have it at home, because the next job that I'm looking at is probably project management and I might not have access to the tool. I would like to keep my ability to use the tool. Therefore, they should probably have a pricing for people like me who want to just use the solution as an independent consultant, trying to get started. $3,000 is a big hit."

"Pricing is very high compared to any other product."

More erwin Data Modeler pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Energy/Utilities Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Marketing Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	1
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	9

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	38

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Atlan?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that the licensing cost is a bit flexible but not affordable for smaller organizations. It might be way out of their budget, but it is very ...

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What needs improvement with Atlan?

Atlan can be improved by enhancing their support process by reducing the resolution time. They have really bad and incomplete documentation, so they should work on the documentation as well, especi...

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What is your primary use case for Atlan?

My main use case for Atlan is to define a flexible set of metadata, including measuring the quality of said data. Atlan is also a partner of ours, so we use it to integrate with our own tool. It al...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

I have no idea about the setup cost because I did not buy the license.

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What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

The UI in erwin Data Modeler can be improved significantly because when any new person opens the tool, all the toolbars are kept open with many tools in view, making it appear chunky. If possible, ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

I primarly use erwin Data Modeler for modeling purposes. Once we have the business requirement, we create the models in erwin Data Modeler, and then we perform forward engineering to get the query ...

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

Visio vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 4% of the time

Camunda vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Atlan

June 2026

Download Atlan product report

Buyer's Guide

erwin Data Modeler

June 2026

Download erwin Data Modeler product report

Also Known As

No data available

erwin DM

Overview

Atlan is a comprehensive data management platform designed to enhance data democratization, governance, and collaboration across departments in organizations. It offers a centralized data catalog, intuitive user interface, and robust governance framework to ensure data security and compliance. Users appreciate its efficiency in streamlining processes, promoting better communication, and providing insightful analytics, which drive organizational growth and success.

Atlan

Erwin Data Modeler provides an effective approach to visualizing and managing data models. It assists in creating, reversing, and synchronizing data models with ease, supporting logical and physical transitions while enhancing understanding across teams.

Erwin Data Modeler is a comprehensive tool designed for professional database management. It offers capabilities to organize and enforce standards, automating script generation with robust reverse engineering and DDL output. Users can manage complex data environments, capitalize on integration with data intelligence, and maintain large-scale databases smoothly. Despite its strengths, improvements in multi-language support, database integration, and reporting features are needed. Users benefit from extensive support for conceptual, logical, and physical database modeling, enhancing architectural design and data governance for platforms like SQL Server, Oracle, and Teradata.

What are the key features of Erwin Data Modeler?

Visual Representation: Facilitates clear visualization of data models, aiding comprehension.
Versioning and Editing: Enhance usability with versioning and bulk editing capabilities.
Reverse Engineering: Offers powerful tools for reverse engineering and DDL generation.
Integration: Aligns with data intelligence to streamline database management.
Naming Standards: Enforces consistency with automated script creation.

What benefits should users consider in Erwin Data Modeler reviews?

Collaboration: Promotes team understanding and collaboration through visual tools.
Automation: Reduces manual effort through automated processes and integration.
Scalability: Handles large database management efficiently, crucial for enterprise settings.
Data Governance: Facilitates effective data governance with structured modeling.

Erwin Data Modeler finds application in industries focused on robust data management, implementing it for enterprise data warehouses, business domain models, and operational systems. It supports architectural design and governance, aligning with business applications demanding precise data representation and visualization.

Quest Software

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples

Buyer's Guide

Atlan vs. erwin Data Modeler

June 2026

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