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Avolution ABACUS vs IDERA ER/Studio comparison

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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
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IDERA ER/Studio
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of Avolution ABACUS is 3.0%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IDERA ER/Studio is 2.9%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IDERA ER/Studio2.9%
Avolution ABACUS3.0%
Other94.1%
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…
reviewer2796111 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Improved data modeling has reduced system footprint and strengthened finance workflows
I assess the benefits of IDERA ER_Studio's metadata management for my organization as not as good as Erwin's. Erwin's metadata management is better in how it handles data. There is a lot more user involvement in managing the metadata, primarily because in IDERA ER_Studio, the logical and physical models are separately defined in the same file, so you have to map them every single time. In Erwin, it has a unified structure, so if you make a change in the logical model, it automatically shows up in the physical model. You have to go through a couple of steps in the IDERA model to make sure everything has moved over. While that is not that inconvenient when you are actually doing development, as far as metadata management, that is prone to things getting dropped and missed. The collaboration tools in IDERA ER_Studio are adequate, but I think with Erwin, there is more of an opportunity for things to crash. Changes can be merged in IDERA more fluidly; however, the locking and sharing are a little bit more defined in Erwin. I think the learning curve for Erwin might be easier than IDERA ER_Studio, especially with connecting to different models and systems.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would recommend it very strongly."
"The most valuable feature is that it has a customizable meta-model, which is key."
"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 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."
"It's a good product with a complete set of templates, frameworks, and notations."
"It is a very stable solution...The initial setup of Avolution ABACUS is very easy."
"The technical support is very good. They are responsive and the answers they provide are detailed."
"For what it does it is very good and a reasonable price."
"It's much easier to develop the database structure and change it on the fly, rather than doing it manually in SQL Server itself, which saves time."
"This application does a lot of things, as do competitor products, but the main reason to go with this product was the ability to create many automations, where we can improve our work and our process."
"It is a very robust, industrial strength data modeling product, intended ideally for very large development projects where a good ROI can be obtained."
"One of the valuable features is inheritance when joining tables. When setting up RI and domains and rules, ER/Studio does a lot of the grunt, boilerplate code that would otherwise have to be hand-coded."
"We are able to document the data lineage and data flows of our data from one system to another."
"Before this tool, just managing the changes and publishing the models to the users became very cumbersome, and this tool has simplified our day-to-day tasks a lot."
"Intuitive user interface provides for quick learning curve."
"Customer Service: It's good."
 

Cons

"If they want to expand in the European market then they are going to have to improve their technical support."
"It is vastly scalable but you can't run it on a Mac or Linux so it has limitations."
"Their local presence in the Middle East could be scaled more, particularly in customer service. It would be good if they'd also have mobile dashboards for executive management out of the box."
"The usability of the tool is an area with shortcomings that need improvement."
"In the future, there could be improvements in integration and enhancements."
"They should take more initiative to implement things that competing products have already come out with."
"While this is one of the most powerful tools on the market it does not integrate well with Microsoft Office or others."
"It doesn't have the simulation capability, which would be helpful in doing some business process analysis and improvements."
"I assess the benefits of IDERA ER_Studio's metadata management for my organization as not as good as Erwin's."
"The screens are a bit outdated. They could use a new look and feel."
"We did have a big issue when we upgraded to the 2016 version. The Team Server portion never did quite install correctly, and/or the database was corrupted, and we never figured it out."
"Installation of the product itself is straight forward although the licensing process is awkward and confusing at best."
"The model diagram because very clumsy when you save it on the team server and the models are very big."
"I cannot evaluate any areas for improvement at this time."
"Diagram versioning is not very intuitive Data Dictionary Bindings is not very intuitive"
"It is expensive! Licensing requires a subscription to their support site."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is expensive for some people's budgets and they need to offer a Lite version at a cheaper price"
"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."
"There is a subscription for this solution. We are on an annual subscription because you sometimes receive special offers the longer you subscribe."
"The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."
"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."
"It is expensive."
"As an individual user, the renewal is a little costly."
"Pricing is expensive and on the higher-end."
"The setup cost may have been around $1500 to $2000."
"The price of this product is okay."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is bad and ten is good, I would rate the licensing cost as a seven or eight. It's not too expensive for us."
"Pricing is on point, but do your due diligence - not every developer needs the tool."
"The process of licensing could be much simpler, from our experience."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Energy/Utilities Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

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 Business4
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise25
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IDERA ER Studio?
In terms of pricing, ER/Studio is slightly more expensive compared to Erwin, by about five to ten percent.
What is your primary use case for IDERA ER Studio?
I work in the finance industry, and the use cases for this product are very similar to what I mentioned previously when I discussed being in industrial management. It is simply a different product.
What advice do you have for others considering IDERA ER Studio?
I have not used IDERA ER_Studio's impact analysis tools, so I really could not judge that regarding mitigating database risks for security. I am not on the end as far as the pricing, as this is wha...
 

Also Known As

No data available
IDERA ER Studio, ER/Studio, ER/Studio Enterprise Team Edition
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Barclays
Newmont Mining, Entrust, Accolade, TalkTalk, Catalina, Protective Life, NTT Data, dir systèmes, Microsoft; American Express, Astellas Pharma, AstraZeneca, Coriant, Fedex, GlaxoSmithKline, PepsiCo, Prudential, Wells Fargo
Find out what your peers are saying about Avolution ABACUS vs. IDERA ER/Studio and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.