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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 (9th)
Visio
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (1st), 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 3.6%, down 4.5% compared to last year.
Visio, on the other hand, focuses on Business Process Design, holds 12.5% mindshare, down 13.2% since last year.
Enterprise Architecture Management
Business Process Design
 

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…
Tugrul TASCI - PeerSpot reviewer
We have seen return on investment in the form of time savings but should have more design tools
I am generally using Visio to create some diagrams Visio should implement more complex tools or graphics to facilitate processing and use flexible templates. It should allow users to easily drag and drop some previously created diagrams. The tools supplied or provided are very basic, and there…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the traceability, you can trace any object to the other."
"Avolution ABACUS allows for flexible enterprise architecture analysis."
"You can design using a diagram tool installed on your desktop, a key difference from other vendors."
"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 product is easy to use and well-structured for the integrations we need it to make."
"There are a lot of different features, but the business/decision-maker feature, visibility, and dashboards are most valuable."
"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."
"A major benefit of Visio is its user-friendliness. Upon opening the program, you have access to a variety of pre-made templates, saving you time and effort. All you need to do is input your data into the template and you're ready to proceed with your project."
"The most valuable features are that the user experience is simple, and it's customizable."
"Installing Visio is straightforward."
"I like the solution's ease of use and its the integration with different templates from a variety of manufacturers."
"The most valuable feature of this product is its versatility."
"The solution is easy to understand with some hands-on experience."
"I could jump into it and learn the basics pretty quickly."
"I recommend Visio to others based on my experience."
 

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."
"Having more control over page size is lacking in this product. Print utilization also needs to be improved."
"While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."
"In the future, there could be improvements in integration and enhancements."
"If they want to expand in the European market then they are going to have to improve their technical support."
"The company needs to update the UML version they are using for the product as it is quite old."
"It is vastly scalable but you can't run it on a Mac or Linux so it has limitations."
"While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."
"Microsoft should include Visio as part of their Office 365 offering."
"Some of the improvements that have been made in Visio have not been beneficial, at least to me, personally. Too many things have been added to it, and it makes it kind of clunky sometimes. There is an overwhelming desire or competition to continue to improve it when the product is and has been pretty good, and some of what is done tends to clutter it. In some cases, the updates make it more difficult to use. It is already pretty feature-heavy and continuing to add stuff is not productive from my perspective."
"Layout configuration is sometimes a little difficult to use."
"Portability from Visio to PowerPoint and vice versa could be simplified."
"There should be more items available from a variety of other products that can be integrated."
"I would like to see the project planning element improved, although it won't happen because Microsoft deliberately made it worse."
"Transferring data was one of the issues that I expected Visio to have resolved. I use the older version."
"It does not integrate well with other solutions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"My company makes annual payments toward the licensing costs of the solution. Considering the product's capabilities, its prices are very reasonable."
"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
"The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."
"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."
"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 expensive."
"I pay for the license and it is very expensive. If you're only going to use this tool from time to time, you can save money by just using the available online tools. But if you plan on using it heavily, then it's worth it to invest."
"Our license for Visio is including with the Office 365 subscription."
"I don't have any issue with the pricing. It has a subscription-based model, and the subscription is done on a yearly basis. Of course, we need internal approvals in place."
"I haven't looked at the prices lately. We have an older copy, and it was a couple of hundred dollars for this software. That's a huge expense."
"The cost of the software is reasonably priced."
"There are some cheaper as well as free solutions."
"The price is reasonable for individual use but for an organization, the costs is high."
"If I want to buy Visio for myself, I think it will be around 80 to 120 USD, though it is important to consider that I am unsure of its actual costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
16%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

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...
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 do you like most about Visio?
The diagrams Visio creates are quite impressive in the sense that we can cooperate with more colleagues in one task and see the flow of the process.
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...
 

Comparisons

 

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
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