No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs erwin Evolve comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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

BiZZdesign HoriZZon
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
4th
Ranking in Business Process Design
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
erwin Evolve
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
12th
Ranking in Business Process Design
21st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of BiZZdesign HoriZZon is 4.3%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of erwin Evolve is 3.4%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
BiZZdesign HoriZZon4.3%
erwin Evolve3.4%
Other92.3%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2022765 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Consultant BI Z Zdesign Center Of Excellence at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Targeted stakeholder views have improved decision making and reduced architecture costs
BiZZdesign HoriZZon offers various valuable features. The best ones, besides those I have mentioned, include the AI space with the Diagram Describer and the Explorer functionality. I understand that BiZZdesign HoriZZon is also working on the Diagram Importer, which complements the Diagram Describer feature, providing full import and export functionality. Together with the contributor role and targeted stakeholder management, these features are essential. BiZZdesign HoriZZon introduced the Dynamic Solution Intent, enhancing the solution architecture by engaging diverse stakeholders with architectural artifacts. It supports the development of holistic solutions using reusable repository components. The deployment is hybrid cloud-based, specifically using Amazon Web Services as the cloud provider. I have also seen the implementation of return on investment features that contribute significantly to the organization’s overall effectiveness.
ScottLawson - PeerSpot reviewer
Director IT Architecture at QAD
Enables us to present data and objects visually, in diagrams, and to make them available via the web. Also enables web-based editing of data.
We tried their collaborative web modeling and we used it with a few people but we tend to not use that piece. We tend to collaborate with the people and then my team of architects draws up the diagram using the modeling tool. We then iterate through those. I would like to use it, but it was a little clunky when they first rolled it out. Overall, it's more about the company having room for improvement. What they need to do is to consolidate more of their products. For example, I was just looking and I couldn't figure out what erwin DT is. It's on the website but it would help if they could put information together and make it more clear as to what products they have and how they work with other things. I hear them talking in the support forums and, when I talk to the representative, they say they're going to do a bunch of stuff but it seems the progress is slow. The changes they need to make are to take their old, legacy product, which we use, and focus a lot on it so they can transform it into a modern cloud tool so that we have fewer little pieces to deal with. They could also fix their security model. It's very confusing to get new people onto the tool and to make sure that your content isn't being exposed to the wrong people.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"BiZZdesign helps us look at everything in our enterprise architecture through a business capability lens, rather than in EA language."
"This is one of the best tools, especially because of its collaborative nature. Anyone using it can access previous projects and related data. It's definitely a strong collaborative tool."
"BiZZdesign HoriZZon is a fantastic tool for enterprise architecture and capability mapping that helps map capabilities by turning complex engineering data into clear design documents, which is very important for cross-functional alignment and onboarding teams so they can onboard faster and it acts as a single source of truth."
"Overall, the solution is invaluable to our organization."
"BiZZdesign HoriZZon's visualization techniques help my clients make data-driven decisions."
"The enterprise studio where the modelling happens is valuable."
"The most valuable feature is that it allows you to work with different methods, using the same tool."
"I used BiZZdesign HoriZZon at two organizations. At Manchester Metropolitan University, I used it with a small team for architectural modeling of the student record system. We modeled teams, process objects, and their interactions with applications. We also used it to model a gradual rollout with plateaus showing migration over time. At the BBC, I used it to model software services for publishing content online. I showed key model views to senior stakeholders using Horizon, allowing them to modify and score applications and services."
"Its flexibility and scalability to support all stakeholders in making informed decisions are powerful capabilities."
"Evolve is scalable with multi-user ability, so multiple designers and engineers can work on the same data model simultaneously."
"The ERwin tool helped to reduce the rate of design and deployment errors and increased the ease of validation."
"We can efficiently deploy business models into the databases and generate SQL scripts."
"The process of capturing all the standard operating procedures forced us to come to an agreement across all the divisions, as far as standardization goes."
"One of the most valuable features is the website that sits on top of the database. There's a database of objects and how they are related, and you can make views and diagrams and visual elements out of that information on the website. The website is the part that is called Evolve and we use the Evolve Designer and publish the website out to our employees. They can click around and navigate and search, etc."
"I can send images in the PDF form, along with the relationships and the associations that are a very important part of what we do. It can show what is affected and what is impacted by a certain change in one area of the system architecture or enterprise architecture. I can very quickly draw those issues and topics to the fore."
"This product is a cross platform database designer, data inventory control and metadata library, and supports soft link integration."
 

Cons

"I haven't observed a significant positive impact of BiZZdesign HoriZZon on my organization, and it's difficult to point that out."
"The visibility of things and the user experience in HoriZZon are horrible."
"Since the accuracy is less, there is not much reliability, which means we need to cross-verify multiple times to ensure the data."
"The users of BiZZdesign should be able to enter their data or make modeling changes via HoriZZon."
"I noticed that there were times when the cloud version would get stuck or was not able to load."
"The frame, the labeling, the text, everything, they are scattered."
"BiZZdesign should really work on its documentation and user acceleration to enhance the experience."
"I rate it a nine because it is a great tool, but the user-friendliness regarding moving things across is a bit of a letdown."
"If it had fewer features to model all kinds of architecture, it would be less complicated."
"The solution needs to focus on allowing for more integrations."
"There might be improvement required to better support some of the MPP databases for non-relational data structures and NoSQL databases."
"What they need to do is to consolidate more of their products. For example, I was just looking and I couldn't figure out what erwin DT is. It's on the website but it would help if they could put information together and make it more clear as to what products they have and how they work with other things."
"Would like to see canonical modeling supported for web services."
"I would like it to be easier to make changes and then deploy them into production, especially when you have multiple web servers or front-ends. It would be nice to make a change and then have it propagate to the production servers in a more automated fashion."
"The way that we are using it for application management, we have several KPIs. We want to follow and monitor them regarding a number of solutions. We cannot calculate this today. We would like real-time calculations along with the KPIs in order to improve the user experience. We would like the tool to be able to display this, not only as signals, but as charts."
"Add some ability to do conditional Visualization on the models and in reports (some ideas) – maybe as a specialized Theme or Diagram or Display."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is reasonable."
"In terms of this particular product usage, my clients currently only use per-user licenses."
"If one is very cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the product price as a seven out of ten."
"First and foremost within the scope of improvement for the solution would be the cost. It's very costly..."
"[The] Orbus... pricing model was based on every single functionality having a price. The pricing was comparable but if we wanted to scale, it would have ended up being a lot more expensive. BiZZdesign gave us one price with all of the functionality, and we could scale as much as we needed."
"We were customers and bought licenses from them. We used their remote instance initially but upgraded to the on-device version due to lag. For pricing, we paid about 2200 pounds a year per seat for the client installation at an educational rate. I'm not sure about commercial rates. I managed to get a free copy at BBC since it was for evaluation purposes."
"I haven't found any issues with the scalability and licensing parts that are access-related."
"The pricing model is slightly on the high side and could be more competitive for long-term partnerships."
"Unless you are a one person shop – always go with the Workgroup edition and Concurrent licensing."
"The cost is something like $15,000, per license. But I haven't looked at those numbers in three years. It was over $100,000 to initially set everything up and get it all configured."
"I think erwin is quite expensive. I have difficulty selling the portal, in fact."
"I estimate that we pay between $40,000 and $50,000 a year for the solution, not including the upfront costs to buy things the first time."
"The licensing enables you to differentiate between people who edit the content and the people who consume it. We are able to keep the licensing costs down by keeping the "contributor" licenses to a minimum, and we then just roll out the content in a read-only version for the rest of our users."
"Yearly, our cost is €100,000."
"On a yearly basis, our licensing costs are 50,000 euro. There are no additional costs because we are on a SaaS model."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Architecture Management solutions are best for your needs.
909,679 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Performing Arts
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
BiZZdesign HoriZZon could improve with features such as whiteboarding or canvasing, currently being developed on the Unify platform. Adding these features to BiZZdesign HoriZZon would simplify coll...
What is your primary use case for BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
My main use case for BiZZdesign HoriZZon is as a read-only content platform primarily for everyone. BiZZdesign HoriZZon was introduced to us as a read-only platform, and we have added value by targ...
What advice do you have for others considering BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
While we covered most topics, I wish I had prepared more metric data. My advice for others considering BiZZdesign HoriZZon is, if you are already a customer, explore all features BiZZdesign HoriZZo...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

HoriZZon
erwin EA, erwin Business Process, erwin Enterprise Architecture
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

T-Mobile, Shell, HSBC, Erasmus University, VIVAT Insurance
AT&T, Bank of America, Chevron, Duke University, ESPN, Fidelity, GE, JP Morgan Chase, KPMG, McGraw Hill, NASA, Pfizer, Royal Bank of Scotland, Teradata, Union Pacific, Vodafone, Wells Fargo.
Find out what your peers are saying about BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs. erwin Evolve and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,679 professionals have used our research since 2012.