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Avolution ABACUS vs LeanIX 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
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
LeanIX
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of Avolution ABACUS is 3.6%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of LeanIX is 15.9%, up from 14.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

JoseCamacho - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Umit Sengul - PeerSpot reviewer
A platform that facilitates efficient IT architecture management and integration, improving organizational coordination and decision-making
LeanIX is primarily used to create and manage architectural models, link capabilities, activities, and products and generate comprehensive reports. It serves as a central platform for overseeing the IT landscape within EON, a large organization, streamlining operations and enhancing governance…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"It's more than just an enterprise architecture tool as it has a lot of nice features, e.g. messaging, simulation, etc."
"The technical support is very good. They are responsive and the answers they provide are detailed."
"It is a very stable solution...The initial setup of Avolution ABACUS is very easy."
"There are a lot of different features, but the business/decision-maker feature, visibility, and dashboards are most valuable."
"The most valuable feature is the traceability, you can trace any object to the other."
"The most valuable feature is that it has a customizable meta-model, which is key."
"You can design using a diagram tool installed on your desktop, a key difference from other vendors."
"My favorite feature of LeanIX is its ability to induct attribute-driven surveys."
"LeanIX has good usability and stability. This SaaS is intuitive, easy to use, and comes with a nice reporting feature."
"The ability to import data and generate reports from it. That's where its power lies."
"The usability is very high. It almost looks like a Facebook for Enterprise architecture, it's pretty nice. It's HTML5 based. The repository is very easy. It has 10 different ways of sorting the objects you have in your architecture repository. Maintaining new data or to add data to your repository is very easy."
"Among the most valuable features are the easy-to-use interface and the ability to get quick results... Many tools that I have seen are great for technical people and for giving technical and business information as well, but they're not as friendly and easy as LeanIX... It works well for both technical and business users. It provides a good combination, enabling you to quickly put valuable information in for both technical and non-technical people and derive results."
"I like the tool’s integration and maps."
"Ease of use is the most valuable feature. From an enterprise architecture perspective, it's not too cumbersome with too many functionalities, yet it has a lot of attributes for the content it covers."
"Interfaces well with downstream systems of data."
 

Cons

"While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."
"It is vastly scalable but you can't run it on a Mac or Linux so it has limitations."
"The company needs to update the UML version they are using for the product as it is quite old."
"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."
"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."
"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 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 improve the out of the box connectors that they provide. They should see if clients are really ready to adapt them."
"I find LeanIX's pricing expensive for the functionality it offers. However, with the acquisition by SAP, the pricing might become more affordable due to scale and tiered application pricing. Currently, it offers different tiers for the first 400 applications: 400 to 600 and 600 to 1,000, making it expensive from a pricing standpoint."
"They could include a combination of LeanIX and some modeling extensions."
"It would be beneficial to have additional features and capabilities to enhance mapping between applications, especially across domains where the relationships may not be direct."
"The solution needs to incorporate a data patch tool that moves within and irons data."
"The solution uses Gartner's time-based framework for application rationalization. One more thing that you can consider is having some add-on frameworks for the same, not just Gartner."
"One of the challenges that I've found, even with working with Subway, was that being able to build that out into a detailed solution for a developer or for new process design was one of the challenges, just making that leap."
"LeanIX experiences a lot of server timeouts. Nearly every transaction needs to be done twice due to these issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is not an issue."
"It is expensive."
"This solution is expensive for some people's budgets and they need to offer a Lite version at a cheaper price"
"There is a subscription for this solution. We are on an annual subscription because you sometimes receive special offers the longer you subscribe."
"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."
"My company makes annual payments toward the licensing costs of the solution. Considering the product's capabilities, its prices are very reasonable."
"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."
"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 would rate the pricing a one out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"It cost me $91,000 a year for 300 applications. For any enterprise, 300 applications are minimal, as many have well over 1,000 applications."
"There is a sweet spot of where they need to be on pricing right now. They could go up a little bit in pricing, but it has to do with the cost savings, and it has to do with the practitioners using it. I use it where I get cost savings and I can justify it, but they probably have the ability to flex a 10% up channel on their sales on that. So, they could increase their settle price, not their offering price, when they sell. They can probably hold that up a little bit higher than it is because there are cost savings that we can drive from it."
"As the tool is cloud-based, its cost is more affordable."
"The pricing is very good. We definitely get good value for the money."
"The tool needs to include more flexible licensing options. We do not use the tool all the time. So pricing should be considered only when we use the tool."
"The solution's pricing is based on a licensing model that is competitive and in line with other products."
"LeanIX uses application-based account licensing, where the cost is multiplied by the number of applications in the software implementation."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
16%
Computer Software Company
9%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Avolution ABACUS?
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 wit...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Avolution ABACUS?
It's pricey compared to Essential, Deltek, or Essential Cloud. However, its diagramming capabilities and metamodel design make it worth it. But it's not for large user bases. It has modules for app...
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...
Any experience with Strategic Project Portfolio Management Solutions?
Hi @Cheryl Joseph ​Looking at the crossover between Project and Portfolio management with EA, then Planview could be a good choice. If looking at Portfolio Management from an EA perspective then Le...
What do you like most about LeanIX?
The ability to import data and generate reports from it. That's where its power lies.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for LeanIX?
LeanIX pricing ranges from moderate to high. Our usage and costs depend on the number of applications, and as the number of applications grows, so does the cost. We have aligned our usage with appl...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Barclays
adidas, Bosch, Chico's, Haworth, Helvetia, KuKa, Osram, Telekom, TUI, Santander, Swarovski, Vaillant, 7Eleven, and Zalando.
Find out what your peers are saying about Avolution ABACUS vs. LeanIX and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.