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Avolution ABACUS vs Visio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (10th)
Visio
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (3rd), Mind Mapping Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Avolution ABACUS and Visio aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Avolution ABACUS is designed for Enterprise Architecture Management and holds a mindshare of 3.2%, down 3.6% compared to last year.
Visio, on the other hand, focuses on Business Process Design, holds 8.9% mindshare, down 12.5% since last year.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Avolution ABACUS3.2%
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect8.6%
LeanIX8.1%
Other80.1%
Enterprise Architecture Management
Business Process Design Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Visio8.9%
Bizagi8.9%
Camunda8.2%
Other74.0%
Business Process Design
 

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…
NitinSharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Specialist at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Created detailed rack and network diagrams that streamline documentation and collaboration
For creating diagrams, I definitely use Visio for HLD, LLD, and traffic flow diagrams. Apart from Visio, I use Jira only if the customer specifically requests it; otherwise, I do not use an in-house version of Jira in my organization. One of the good features of using the Microsoft umbrella product is that if I create a big diagram and then work on the HLD or LLD in Word, I can select everything from Visio and paste it as an image without needing to resize it, which streamlines the process of creating documentation for customers. The main benefits Visio provides me include simplifying processes, saving time on manual work with diagram creation, and delivering a clean architecture, whether it is network architecture or application flow. I have created diagrams for AWS, Azure, GCP, and on-premises data centers, including rack elevation diagrams and organization charts. Modifications can be made easily and reflected immediately, and I can create PNG images to share with the executive team.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The portfolio management is really good, and the dashboard and the reports for the end-to-end impact analysis are really good."
"This product is very strong in terms of the meta-model because you can customize a lot according to the business plan."
"You can design using a diagram tool installed on your desktop, a key difference from other vendors."
"The most valuable feature is the traceability, you can trace any object to the other."
"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."
"If you want a data model of flexibility and catalog scalability I would recommend it from that perspective."
"It's more than just an enterprise architecture tool as it has a lot of nice features, e.g. messaging, simulation, etc."
"This is a very straightforward product and I don't think that anything needs to be simplified."
"Visio is stable."
"What I like best about Visio is that it's flexible. Sometimes, if I need to draw quickly, I use Microsoft PowerPoint, but if I need icons, which Visio has, I use Visio. I also like that the solution gives me a much more powerful range of options."
"Visio is stable; it's gotten to be much more robust since Microsoft took over."
"The most valuable features are process mapping and identifying responsibilities."
"The solution is easy to scale."
"It is easy to use."
"It helps us to secure business and C-suite leadership approval on projects."
 

Cons

"Their local presence in the Middle East could be scaled more, particularly in customer service."
"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."
"The usability of the tool is an area with shortcomings that need improvement."
"It doesn't have the simulation capability, which would be helpful in doing some business process analysis and improvements."
"While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."
"Having more control over page size is lacking in this product. Print utilization also needs to be improved."
"While this is one of the most powerful tools on the market it does not integrate well with Microsoft Office or others."
"In the future, there could be improvements in integration and enhancements."
"One thing that I always felt was missing was the ability to integrate with other Microsoft products, particularly with things like SharePoint or other Excel Office tools. It may be available, but it is not as good as it could be."
"I think that it feels a bit outside with respect to the icons that are available."
"The solution should have better integration capabilities with MacOS and Linux."
"With other products coming on the market, Visio is losing a little ground and as a result, I mainly use PowerPoint now and Visio much less."
"The inventory feature could be improved. On projects, there are sometimes inventory tasks that are lacking."
"There are too many features."
"The Auto-Align has improved significantly from the previous release; however, it still jumbles the model if your process diagram has a fair degree of complexity."
"The database modeling has deteriorated significantly in the more current versions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."
"There is a subscription for this solution. We are on an annual subscription because you sometimes receive special offers the longer you subscribe."
"It is expensive."
"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
"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."
"My company makes annual payments toward the licensing costs of the solution. Considering the product's capabilities, its prices are very reasonable."
"The solution's pricing is not an issue."
"I know you can pick it up in retail for under a thousand per person. You can also pick it up for cheaper than that. Microsoft has about 7,000 licensing models, and you get certain percentages off specific licensing. If you're a partner, you get specific numbers of licenses with the partnership price."
"The licensing process is actually a breeze. Simply buy the license and download it from Microsoft, enter the license key in Visio to activate the software, and you're done."
"It's cheaper than other solutions."
"The yearly cost is approximately $400 CAD ($300 USD)."
"While I don't recall the exact price I do recall that it was quite high."
"Visio is the cheapest solution because it has the basics. Everyone starts with Visio for designing processes because doing it in PowerPoint is a mess. I'm still a student, so I don't pay for licensing."
"We probably have an M-365 E3 license."
"Visio is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software 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 Business36
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise61
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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...
How easy is it to migrate process flow charts (modeled using tools like Visio) into Bizagi?
I have been using Bizagi with a major project for a state government agency for about four years now. It is pretty straightforward to load in files that are BPMN 2.0 compliant. The option to load V...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Visio?
One of the main problems with Visio is its licensing options and associated issues, which lead to discussions about the price with a Microsoft representative. If asked to rate the price, I would gi...
What needs improvement with Visio?
Licensing cost is one of the major points for improvement since it is quite high for personal use. People often turn to alternatives like Draw.io because of the cost, but if an organization provide...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Visio
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Barclays
Thomas College, Hamburg Port Authority, Portigon AG, Conseil G_n_ral du d_partement des Hautes-Alpes, AAA Auto a. s., Commonwealth Financial Network, ICA, Abu Dhabi National Energy Company
Find out what your peers are saying about Quest Software, SAP LeanIX, SAP and others in Enterprise Architecture Management. Updated: March 2026.
886,174 professionals have used our research since 2012.