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Avolution ABACUS vs iServer 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
iServer
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
10th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (14th)
 

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 iServer is 4.4%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
iServer4.4%
Avolution ABACUS3.1%
Other92.5%
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…
Antonios Lazanakis - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Solution Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Flexible, easy to use, and easy to import data
We use iServer to establish an enterprise architecture function in our organization iServer is a very flexible platform for defining your own enterprise architecture model. It is very easy to import data, and we also have good integration with Visual Drawing Tools and SharePoint. The solution is…

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."
"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 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."
"There are a lot of different features, but the business/decision-maker feature, visibility, and dashboards are most valuable."
"The product is easy to use and well-structured for the integrations we need it to make."
"It's more than just an enterprise architecture tool as it has a lot of nice features, e.g. messaging, simulation, etc."
"Good and effective reporting features, which help in decision making."
"From September 2014 through January 2015, I received help from the tech support staff of iServer, who were very prompt and almost instantaneously responded, and if it was something difficult, they brought three to four people to talk with me and then solved the problem within minutes."
"The solution is easily modified to suit your needs."
"Integrating the Microsoft documents to the product and visualization matrix where we can see the end-to-end relationship of the network is of great importance to our company."
"This is a flexible tool compared to some other solutions."
"It has helped having data lineage in the business cluster, which is used as control artifacts."
"We like the governance."
"The most valuable features of iServer are the integration with Microsoft Office and the interface is similar to Microsoft applications making them easy to use."
 

Cons

"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."
"While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."
"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."
"It needs more flexible analysis parameters and more capability as a BPM tool and doing BPM simulation, compared with Bonita BPM or Bizagi."
"There are probably some things that Avolution could add to the product to enhance it and keep up with what some other products are introducing."
"The most valuable features are the catalog and the diagram."
"If they want to expand in the European market then they are going to have to improve their technical support."
"For some of the functionality, it might be a little complicated for people getting started."
"There could be features for process mining, process simulation, and analytics."
"iServer should invest in enhancing the capabilities of the embedded drawing tool, draw.io."
"The modelling needs improvement, specifically forecasting capabilities and scenarios."
"There can be some performance issues using the solution that should be improved. When you make modifications modify to files there are embedded data within that can take a while to process."
"The one issue is that if you want to import predefined work, you need to put the licensing model in. So if you wanted to import work that was done before, you then need to buy a separate product for that."
"We could allocate permissions to use only specific components to the users rather than the entire instance."
"Enhancing integration options with ERP or ITSM-related solutions for triggering automated requests for process definitions, changes, and tracking them in the iServer."
"Overall, I would say that it's a poor man's EA repository. It seems like a good idea, but doesn't really work in practice."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is not an issue."
"The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."
"This solution is expensive for some people's budgets and they need to offer a Lite version at a cheaper price"
"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."
"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
"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."
"There is a subscription for this solution. We are on an annual subscription because you sometimes receive special offers the longer you subscribe."
"Aim for the exact number of people who shall define/review approve and view the processes, as it will impact the cost."
"The price of iServer is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"They offer annual subscriptions for developing countries, which are not affordable for small or medium businesses."
"It's about 13K to set up and 9K for the license for three months. I think it's about 20K a year, but we haven't firmed up on pricing yet because the price depends on how long we commit to the solution."
"The product has a moderate pricing."
"The solution is cheaper than its competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Government
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
6%
 

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 Enterprise10
 

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 iServer?
iServer should invest in enhancing the capabilities of the embedded drawing tool, draw.io. draw.io is a drawing tool used to draw architectural diagrams, flow diagrams, etc. It is an alternative to...
What is your primary use case for iServer?
We use iServer to establish an enterprise architecture function in our organization.
What advice do you have for others considering iServer?
I would recommend the solution to other users. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Barclays
Barclays, Cathay Pacific, Deloitte, British Gas, MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about Avolution ABACUS vs. iServer and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.