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Avolution ABACUS vs Visio comparison

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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 (11th)
Visio
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (2nd), 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 3.0%, down 3.6% compared to last year.
Visio, on the other hand, focuses on Business Process Design, holds 6.7% mindshare, down 11.7% since last year.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Avolution ABACUS3.0%
SAP PowerDesigner8.6%
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect8.6%
Other79.8%
Enterprise Architecture Management
Business Process Design Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Visio6.7%
Bizagi7.7%
Camunda7.1%
Other78.5%
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

"It is a very stable solution...The initial setup of Avolution ABACUS is very easy."
"The product is easy to use and well-structured for the integrations we need it to make."
"The technical support is very good. They are responsive and the answers they provide are detailed."
"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."
"ABACUS is a really forward thinking product with a lot of nice features in it; it's not just all talk, it actually works."
"For what it does it is very good and a reasonable price."
"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's a good product with a complete set of templates, frameworks, and notations."
"It is stable. I have never experienced any issues."
"Drawing BPMN diagrams."
"Visio makes it easy to communicate your ideas from several areas of your imagination across several domains."
"Visio is stable."
"The solution makes it very easy to make exciting pictures and designs. Everything is very intuitive and simple to figure out."
"I recommend this product to others because it's a useful tool for designers and architects."
"Good interface and good tool configuration."
"It works really well for flowcharting, it can label."
 

Cons

"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."
"For some of the functionality, it might be a little complicated for people getting started."
"The company needs to update the UML version they are using for the product as it is quite old."
"If they want to expand in the European market then they are going to have to improve their technical support."
"It needs more flexible analysis parameters and more capability as a BPM tool and doing BPM simulation, compared with Bonita BPM or Bizagi."
"The usability of the tool is an area with shortcomings that need improvement."
"The reporting could be easier to configure."
"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."
"When you use a BPA solution you can open an end-to-end process in one window, go down, or go up between layers to different places. You should be able to see descriptions of the steps of the process."
"Visio is not as scalable as other tools due to the proprietary restriction. You cannot customize it or scale it up like the way you do with Trello or Jira. Microsoft places restrictions on things that you can do with Visio."
"It can export to AutoCAD, however it doesn't do so very effectively."
"From my perspective, Visio could probably add more help guidelines for users, and I would prefer to see more intuitive user interfaces to help with dragging and dropping, using the right components, etc."
"There are some issues in Visio with the connectors, and it gets tricky when you want to connect objects with each other."
"Something that needs to improve, is the interface interaction with other tools."
"We need the place and route capability for the lines when we have a database."
"I would like to see the project planning element improved, although it won't happen because Microsoft deliberately made it worse."
 

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 pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
"This solution is expensive for some people's budgets and they need to offer a Lite version at a cheaper price"
"My company makes annual payments toward the licensing costs of the solution. Considering the product's capabilities, its prices are very reasonable."
"It is expensive."
"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."
"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 solution could be less expensive."
"Visio is about a $180 dollars to purchase. It is a one-time licensing fee."
"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 believe Visio to be priced pretty reasonably."
"The price of Visio is reasonable."
"There is a licensing fee, but it is fairly priced."
"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."
"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
17%
Government
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
7%
 

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 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.
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?
The pricing is reasonable now. Whereas before, I had used it when it was paid for by my work, but then as I moved to different projects, I wasn't paying $2,000 to have it. Visio is supplied by the ...
What needs improvement with Visio?
I would have said the pricing, but the pricing is fine now, so it's a good tool and a powerful one. When you know how to use it, it's very intuitive. People who don't know how to use it might want ...
 

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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