No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Avolution ABACUS vs BiZZdesign HoriZZon comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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

Avolution ABACUS
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
BiZZdesign HoriZZon
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
6th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of Avolution ABACUS is 3.1%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BiZZdesign HoriZZon is 4.7%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
BiZZdesign HoriZZon4.7%
Avolution ABACUS3.1%
Other92.2%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

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…
Maamoun Hasuneh - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Enterprise Architect at EVC
Architecture repository has strengthened data‑driven decisions and supported risk‑aware planning
BiZZdesign HoriZZon needs to publish its integration scenarios and integration points with other digital transformation tools such as IT service management, risk management, asset management, customer service, and ERP. The company should first build the scenario and define its integration points in business and technology to make customers more confident about having a complete solution. Currently, there is a challenge with the company to offer transparent and documented integration. They offer five integration points at a fixed price, but other things come at additional costs. However, specific information about what those additional items are, what the scenarios entail, what the schemas are, what the workflows include, and what the application integration involves is not provided. The learning portal does not include integration documentation at a high level or in detail. The portal does have comprehensive resources explaining how to make their website, how to create dashboards, and how to publish EA content, which are clear. The high-end tool on the laptop is also explained in detail, covering elements, relations, and everything as standard.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a very stable solution...The initial setup of Avolution ABACUS is very easy."
"The most valuable feature is that it has a customizable meta-model, which is key."
"It is a great tool for helping you understand what you really want to develop in an immature EA practice, providing a lot of flexibility in meeting a client stage and serving as an excellent early development tool."
"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 with other tools like BI, Power BI, or Grafana requires setting up pipelines between them."
"The ease of modeling and the ease of showing interconnectivity and relationships is the most valuable. It is fairly simple and out of the box. It is customizable in many ways. It is a pretty good tool."
"It is a very powerful tool that does what an enterprise architect needs it to do and it supports the business in knowing more about the business so that they can do better."
"For what it does it is very good and a reasonable price."
"I would recommend it very strongly."
"The feature I find most valuable is that the start times and loading times are short. It takes only a few seconds to load the repository and whenever I want to open diagrams, they are there almost immediately."
"The tool's most valuable feature is that its collaboration part is very good."
"We can derive some meaningful insights from whatever data that we have, which is the main thing."
"Among the valuable features is the ability to document standards. For example, we have mandatory operating standards that need to be followed by every application and every architecture. We use things like table charts and pie charts for documenting the costs incurred across the systems. All of these are good features."
"The most valuable features of BiZZdesign HoriZZon include the diagrammatic representation of BPMN models, which I find good for modeling, and things such as capability maps."
"I used BiZZdesign HoriZZon at two organizations. At Manchester Metropolitan University, I used it with a small team for architectural modeling of the student record system. We modeled teams, process objects, and their interactions with applications. We also used it to model a gradual rollout with plateaus showing migration over time. At the BBC, I used it to model software services for publishing content online. I showed key model views to senior stakeholders using Horizon, allowing them to modify and score applications and services."
"This is one of the best tools, especially because of its collaborative nature. Anyone using it can access previous projects and related data. It's definitely a strong collaborative tool."
"BiZZdesign HoriZZon's visualization techniques help my clients make data-driven decisions."
 

Cons

"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 most valuable features are the catalog and the diagram."
"Avolution ABACUS has the drawback of needing data filtering at the development level, unlike some tools that offer filtering at deployment. Two areas where Avolution ABACUS could be improved are regional support and flexibility in model selection. Sometimes, it's challenging to access support or updates in certain regions, which can slow down progress. Additionally, it would be beneficial if the tool allowed more flexibility in selecting multiple models within a single unit."
"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."
"This solution needs to improve resource usage because it has a heavy browser. It is easy to use, but it takes time to load and to run other programs."
"In the future, there could be improvements in integration and enhancements."
"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."
"BiZZdesign HoriZZon's technical support has presented challenges, as extra fees are required and the process is not straightforward."
"The repository of duplicate objects is bad."
"It should be more open to integrating with other existing tools. Although there has been progress in the past."
"The ability to generate charts and deal with a use case involving Kibana was quite difficult."
"There could be simpler modelling."
"The visibility of things and the user experience in HoriZZon are horrible."
"There's room for improvement. When I finished using it over a year ago, I discussed implementing C4 notation with BiZZdesign HoriZZon.They've likely done this now, but I haven't seen it. Setting up interactive views for stakeholders to score services was a bit difficult."
"It takes a long time to learn and understand, which is a learning curve you have to go through, but once you know how it works, it's very nice to work with."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive."
"The solution's pricing is not an issue."
"My company makes annual payments toward the licensing costs of the solution. Considering the product's capabilities, its prices are very reasonable."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
"This solution is expensive for some people's budgets and they need to offer a Lite version at a cheaper price"
"The price is reasonable."
"First and foremost within the scope of improvement for the solution would be the cost. It's very costly..."
"We were customers and bought licenses from them. We used their remote instance initially but upgraded to the on-device version due to lag. For pricing, we paid about 2200 pounds a year per seat for the client installation at an educational rate. I'm not sure about commercial rates. I managed to get a free copy at BBC since it was for evaluation purposes."
"In terms of this particular product usage, my clients currently only use per-user licenses."
"I haven't found any issues with the scalability and licensing parts that are access-related."
"The pricing model is slightly on the high side and could be more competitive for long-term partnerships."
"If one is very cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the product price as a seven out of ten."
"[The] Orbus... pricing model was based on every single functionality having a price. The pricing was comparable but if we wanted to scale, it would have ended up being a lot more expensive. BiZZdesign gave us one price with all of the functionality, and we could scale as much as we needed."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Architecture Management solutions are best for your needs.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Government
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What is your primary use case for Avolution ABACUS?
I conducted an evaluation of enterprise architecture at the European Court in Luxembourg, reviewing and analyzing existing implementations to identify potential improvements and providing recommend...
What advice do you have for others considering Avolution ABACUS?
I rate Avolution ABACUS eight out of ten. The focus should be on implementing and understanding enterprise architecture concepts rather than the specific tool.
What needs improvement with BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
BiZZdesign could improve BiZZdesign HoriZZon in several areas. There are potential areas of improvement that should be addressed to make the product better.
What is your primary use case for BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
BiZZdesign HoriZZon is primarily used for enterprise architecture processes. My clients mostly use it for architecture modeling and planning.
What advice do you have for others considering BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
I last worked with BiZZdesign HoriZZon recently. BiZZdesign HoriZZon is deployed on Amazon Web Services. I was not involved in the purchase process, as it is totally on the client side. I would rat...
 

Also Known As

No data available
HoriZZon
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Barclays
T-Mobile, Shell, HSBC, Erasmus University, VIVAT Insurance
Find out what your peers are saying about Avolution ABACUS vs. BiZZdesign HoriZZon and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.