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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
5th
Ranking in Business Process Design
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
22
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 July 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of BiZZdesign HoriZZon is 4.5%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of erwin Evolve is 3.5%, 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 HoriZZon4.5%
erwin Evolve3.5%
Other92.0%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2868378 - PeerSpot reviewer
De Pratique Architecture De Domaine Leader at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Centralized documentation has transformed how I manage and understand our HR application portfolio
To improve BiZZdesign HoriZZon, I would say performance is crucial. We have had very bad experiences with performance over the years. It takes a lot of time, but I would say when I use the web browser, it is working well. The performance issue is more with BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio, where we have main issues. I know that the IT team does their best to improve performance, but it is still not as good as we were hoping. Regarding BiZZdesign HoriZZon's AI capabilities, I am not concerned about governance and security. The application has been reviewed during the deployment by the IT team and the security team, so I do not see any issue regarding security or governance. The AI feature only provides a summary of information that is already in BiZZdesign HoriZZon and is just used for understanding purposes, so I do not see any concern regarding governance. Regarding the accuracy and reliability of output from BiZZdesign HoriZZon's AI capabilities, it is not always accurate, so that is why I read the summary. It is based on the information that is already in BiZZdesign HoriZZon, and sometimes the information is not up to date. Any AI solution requires that we keep a human eye on it and challenge the results that we have.
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

"The most valuable feature is that it allows you to work with different methods, using the same tool."
"We can derive some meaningful insights from whatever data that we have, which is the main thing."
"Among the valuable features is the ability to document standards. For example, we have mandatory operating standards that need to be followed by every application and every architecture. We use things like table charts and pie charts for documenting the costs incurred across the systems. All of these are good features."
"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."
"A big impact that BiZZdesign HoriZZon has on my organization is to improve the overview of the whole system for people around us."
"The most valuable features of BiZZdesign HoriZZon include the diagrammatic representation of BPMN models, which I find good for modeling, and things such as capability maps."
"The enterprise studio where the modelling happens is valuable."
"BiZZdesign Architect separates model from views and has a quite extensive set of analytical stuff built in to be very useful in complex environments."
"This is the first time that we have a central repository in our company where we can see and look at all the legacy applications which are used to serve the world."
"Without this tool, we couldn't have made and defined all the new processes."
"Evolve is like a tank. You can do whatever you want with the solution, but you need to customize it. I think that it's not very aligned with the framework for enterprise architecture. MEGA is focused on these enterprise architectures, but it's only for that. With Evolve, you can do everything you want with professional services."
"Evolve is scalable with multi-user ability, so multiple designers and engineers can work on the same data model simultaneously."
"The initial setup was really straightforward and the deployment was done within one day."
"We use erwin Evolve to publish to the website. This allows us to enable publishing our website using parameterisation features. In a very fast, quick way, we can publish a table or chart onto a website."
"There is a model behind it. It's really nice that the Evolve front-end, as it builds a website, keeps those relationships in mind. You can even go to a procedure and see all the applications that are related to it. Then you can go into that application and see all the standard operating procedures that that application is a part of. It's just very connected."
"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."
 

Cons

"This tool is something of a beast - it takes a long time to learn, and it isn't possible for casual users and most architects. Unless a person spends 500 or 1,000 hours on the tool or does very concentrated sessions using all its functionalities, it's very difficult to master."
"To improve BiZZdesign HoriZZon, I would say performance is crucial. We have had very bad experiences with performance over the years."
"The users of BiZZdesign should be able to enter their data or make modeling changes via HoriZZon."
"The repository of duplicate objects is bad."
"BiZZdesign HoriZZon's technical support has presented challenges, as extra fees are required and the process is not straightforward."
"I have seen table charts where, if the chart is a little too big, it does not fit in HoriZZon and it is not at all visible... There have been several times where we could not publish a chart properly and we had to break the chart into small tables and create multiple artifacts, creating a complete mess. This should be seriously taken up by BiZZdesign because there is a lot of scope for improvement in terms of usability. It's not at all good, unfortunately."
"It lacks capabilities with regard to infrastructure modeling."
"In HoriZZon, there are different matrices. In some of the cases, there is an option to aggregate them, but in other cases, we have not done this, e.g., to see the proper costs. For example, if I have 10 different matrices, then I need to create an aggregate view out of those 10 matrices somewhere. That is where we have been struggling a bit. We have a counterpart from the HoriZZon product team with whom we have bi-weekly discussions. We have suggested to him that this can be improved."
"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."
"erwin Evolve by Quest could have additional features to manage the architecture of enterprises and businesses."
"They have improved the search engine a little bit but it can always be improved more. The more data you put inside it, the more you want to use it."
"The implementation process is too complicated."
"The solution's integration capabilities with other tools in our system has not been all that well done."
"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."
"On upgrade– if the older models in the Workgroup Repository need to be upgraded, allow for a cascade update to newest version through the libraries."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"[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."
"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."
"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..."
"Yearly, our cost is €100,000."
"Unless you are a one person shop – always go with the Workgroup edition and Concurrent licensing."
"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 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."
"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."
"On a yearly basis, our licensing costs are 50,000 euro. There are no additional costs because we are on a SaaS model."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Performing Arts
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
BiZZdesign could improve BiZZdesign HoriZZon in several areas. There are potential areas of improvement that should be addressed to make the product better.
What is your primary use case for BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
BiZZdesign HoriZZon is primarily used for enterprise architecture processes. My clients mostly use it for architecture modeling and planning.
What advice do you have for others considering BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
I last worked with BiZZdesign HoriZZon recently. BiZZdesign HoriZZon is deployed on Amazon Web Services. I was not involved in the purchase process, as it is totally on the client side. I would rat...
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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: June 2026.
903,807 professionals have used our research since 2012.