Atlan vs erwin Data Modeler comparison

Atlan and Quest Software are both solutions in the Data Governance category. Atlan is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.7, while Quest Software is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.5. Atlan holds a 2.3% mindshare in DG, compared to Quest Software’s 0.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Atlan users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Quest Software users who would recommend it.

Atlan

Read 6 Atlan reviews

1,257 Views
1,257 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

erwin Data Modeler

Read 40 erwin Data Modeler reviews

4,967 Views
0 Comparison Views

95% 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: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Atlan vs. erwin Data Modeler

September 2025

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Helped 869,566 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

9th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

erwin Data Modeler

Ranking in Data Governance

14th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Architecture Management (3rd), Business Process Design (9th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Atlan is 2.3%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 0.0%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Governance Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Atlan	2.3%
erwin Data Modeler	0.0%
Other	97.7%

Data Governance

Featured Reviews

Leon Pereira

Senior Analytics Engineer at virginmediao2

Enhanced data management with intuitive data lineage and metadata visualization

Certain UI changes could make Atlan more user-friendly. While they have an Excel add-in for interaction with Atlan, it's in its early stages and could be improved. Additionally, data observability capabilities could be enhanced to provide more alerts on stale or outdated data via communication tools like Microsoft Teams, Slack, or email.

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JorgeSanz

Data Governance Senior Advisor at Abu Dhabi National Oil Company

Streamline data modeling and automate network changes for increased efficiency

The initial setup depends on the tool if you are using the data model environment. Stopping the server could be complex and require strong expertise. If you have everything set up and configured, Erwin is straightforward. You can deploy it in a few hours. In our case, it took a couple of months to address internal conditions, assign machines, and set up everything for the services. I rate the initial setup a six out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.

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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

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

"The best feature of Atlan is its integration with communication platforms like Microsoft Teams and Slack, so business users don't have to go into a data catalog to see metadata about data assets."

"Atlas is quite intuitive."

"The AI part is integrated for enriching metadata engagement, making it a comprehensive tool."

"They also offer automated lineage embedded in the connectors, allowing us to track where the data is coming from and where it's going. We find it very efficient in cataloging data sources. Additionally, the user-friendly interface is a big plus, making it easy for users to familiarize themselves with the solution. These two features, in my opinion, stand out the most."

"The technical support services are good."

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

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

More Atlan pros

"Being able to point it to a database and then pull the metadata is a valuable feature. Another valuable feature is being able to rearrange the model so that we can display it to users. We are able to divide the information into subject areas, and we can divide the data landscape into smaller chunks, which makes it easier to understand. If you had 14 subject areas, 1,000 entities, and 6,000 columns, you can't quite understand it all at once. So, being able to have the same underlying model but only display portions of it at a time is extremely useful."

"The generation of DDL saved us having to write the steps by hand. You still had to go in and make some minor modifications to make it deployable to the database system. However, for the data lineage, it is very valuable for tracing our use of data, especially personal confidential data through different systems."

"The visual data models for helping to overcome data source complexity and enabling understanding and collaboration around maintenance and usage are excellent. A picture speaks 1,000 words. Seeing a picture that shows you how the data relates to each other helps you better understand what the data is and how to use it. Pairing that information with a dictionary, which has the definitions of the tables and columns or the entities and attributes, ensures that the users understand what the data is so that they can use it best and most successfully."

"The most valuable features are being able to visualize the data in the diagrams and transform those diagrams into physical database deployments. These features help, specifically, to integrate the data. When the source data is accumulated and modeled, the target model is in erwin and it helps resolve the data integration patterns that are required to map the data to accommodate a model."

"The fitting model is very intuitive."

"It's a safeguard for me because I'm always concerned that somebody is free handing it and will forget a key coming from the parent. The migrating keys are a great feature. Identifying relationships, non-identifying relationships, and being visually right there to understand the differences are great features. erwin is key to being able to visually understand whatever the customer is requesting. They'll give you words on a paper, but once they can actually view it as a picture, it really comes to life. The data comes to life to where they understand exactly what they're asking for."

"Another feature of erwin is that it can help you enforce your naming standards. It has little modules that you can set up and, as you're building the data model, it's ensuring that they conform to the naming standards that you've developed."

"It provides flexibility with the code. You can change the code as you want. Basically, you can change SQL based on what's best for your project."

More erwin Data Modeler pros

Cons

"One area that could be improved is the capability to find duplicates of datasets."

"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."

"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."

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

"The challenge is in the lineage, where it requires improvement. Atlas needs to capture areas where organizations use less known applications."

"The product could be improved by offering scheduled email reports for managed assets."

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

More Atlan cons

"I would like to have more data sources from other, different vendors. In recent years, the vendor has reduced the number of data sources, and I would like to have more data sources for every brand. For example, with Oracle, I would like to have compatibility for many versions, including old ones, not just the most recent."

"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."

"The solution's model mark could be better because it crashes sometimes."

"We can only get licenses through partners."

"In terms of new features, it would be great to have a cloud base. We should be able to put it on the cloud for better collaboration and data models sharing."

"I would like to see the reporting capabilities be more dynamic and more inclusive of information. The API is very sparsely understood by people across the user community."

"Some Source official systems give us DDLs to work with and they have contents not required to be part of the DDL before we reverse engineer in the erwin DM. Therefore, we manually make changes to those scripts and edit them, then reverse-engineer within the tool. So, it does take some time to edit these DDL scripts generated by the source operational systems. What I would suggest: It would be helpful if there were a place within the erwin tool to import the file and automatically eliminate all the unnecessary lines of code, and just have the clean code built-in to generate the table/data model."

"The interface must be improved."

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."

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

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

"Though the solution is not cheap, it's worth the money."

"It is not a very expensive solution. Only the licensing and maintenance fee needs to be paid."

"erwin is expensive compared to other solutions. We are paying almost $6,000 per seat a month."

"This company had bought the license for three years, and it's not an individual license. While you can buy a license for each individual, that would be very expensive. There is something called concurrent licenses where you can purchase licenses in bulk and 15 to 20 people can access the license and model. Concurrent licenses are scalable to the number of users and are proportional to the cost."

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

"The solution is expensive."

More erwin Data Modeler pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	14
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	29

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Atlan?

They also offer automated lineage embedded in the connectors, allowing us to track where the data is coming from and where it's going. We find it very efficient in cataloging data sources. Additi...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Atlan?

Atlas is competitively priced compared to other data governance platforms like Collibra and Informatica. The only major drawback is its lack of an integrated data quality module.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Atlan?

The challenge is in the lineage, where it requires improvement. Atlas needs to capture areas where organizations use less known applications.

See all answers

What do you like most about erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

Forward engineering, DDL generation, reverse engineering, and reporting are the most valuable features of the solution.

See all answers

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

I do not recall the pricing from about a year and a half ago, but it seems reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

erwin Data Modeler could improve its UI as it still feels old school and not very modern. There are many features, and I would expect good documentation detailing each feature, including when and h...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs Atlan

Compared 47% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs Atlan

Compared 20% of the time

Alation Data Catalog vs Atlan

Compared 13% of the time

Ataccama ONE Platform vs Atlan

Compared 7% of the time

Collibra Governance vs Atlan

Compared 5% of the time

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SAP PowerDesigner vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 39% of the time

IDERA ER/Studio vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 18% of the time

Lucidchart vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 12% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 6% of the time

Visio vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Atlan

October 2025

Download Atlan product report

Buyer's Guide

erwin Data Modeler

October 2025

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

September 2025

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