BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs IBM Rational System Architect comparison

BiZZdesign and IBM are both solutions in the Enterprise Architecture Management category. BiZZdesign is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.3, while IBM is ranked #19. BiZZdesign holds a 5.3% mindshare in AM, compared to IBM’s 1.8% mindshare. Additionally, 78% of BiZZdesign users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of IBM users who would recommend it.

BiZZdesign HoriZZon

Read 18 BiZZdesign HoriZZon reviews

2,863 Views
1,746 Comparison Views

78% willing to recommend

IBM Rational System Architect

Read 5 IBM Rational System Architect reviews

739 Views
702 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

BiZZdesign HoriZZon

IBM Rational System Architect

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

IBM Rational System Architect and BiZZdesign HoriZZon are key players in the enterprise architecture domain. BiZZdesign HoriZZon has the upper hand due to its modern design and flexibility, making it a compelling choice.

Features: IBM Rational System Architect offers strong modeling capabilities and extensive integration options, beneficial for managing complex system architectures. Meanwhile, BiZZdesign HoriZZon is valued for its intuitive design, advanced analytics, and flexible frameworks, suitable for enhancing decision-making and process efficiency.

Room for Improvement: IBM Rational System Architect could improve by enhancing its user interface for a smoother learning curve and developing more agile deployment options. BiZZdesign HoriZZon might focus on expanding its modeling languages and further streamlining its import/export capabilities for better integration, along with enhancing broader industry-standard compliance.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: BiZZdesign HoriZZon provides cloud-based deployment with efficient onboarding and comprehensive customer support, enabling rapid implementation. In contrast, IBM Rational System Architect often requires more intensive setup and technical guidance due to its on-premise focus.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Rational System Architect demands higher upfront costs, leading to a longer ROI period due to its complexity. BiZZdesign HoriZZon offers competitive prices with potentially quicker ROI, facilitated by scalable subscription models and efficient resource utilization.

To learn more, read our detailed BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs. IBM Rational System Architect Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs. IBM Rational System Architect

July 2025

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Helped 865,164 peers since 2012

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

6th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Design (9th)

IBM Rational System Architect

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

19th

Average Rating

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of BiZZdesign HoriZZon is 5.3%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Rational System Architect is 1.8%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Architecture Management

Featured Reviews

BijoyTalukder

Enterprise Architect at Tata Consultancy

Helps to get a clear overview of our enterprise architecture, especially when dealing with multiple departments

One area where BiZZdesign HoriZZon could use some improvement is in its REST APIs. While the platform offers REST APIs, they have limitations when it comes to retrieving and exporting data. Obtaining detailed information at the individual application or component level, including IDs, costs, and deployment-related data, can be challenging through these APIs. This limitation makes it difficult to smoothly export such granular data. I have raised this issue with the BiZZdesign team, and they expressed interest in addressing it, but I'm not aware of the current status of this improvement effort. Nonetheless, improving the usability and flexibility of the REST APIs for data extraction is an area that could enhance the platform's capabilities.

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Guy Meyongo

IT/Business Architect at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees

Lots of valuable features, especially the metamodel customization

In terms of what could be improved, we did not take the whole package with all the modules, and I think that the integration with other platforms like Office could be better. The reverse engineering of the database is already there, but in the next release I would like to see some pilot supplied with the solution in order to address any database.

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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."

"The powerful editing function in teamwork project-based, common or shared modeling, based on a powerful repository and knowledge sharing in a portal are the most valuable features. These are the most important features for me. I can add the integration of individual modeling notations like Archimate plus BPMN and DMN, and so on. We travel from one location to another and the tool allows us to keep track."

"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."

"The feature I find most valuable is that the start times and loading times are short. It takes only a few seconds to load the repository and whenever I want to open diagrams, they are there almost immediately."

"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."

"t's a good tool. My colleagues that are making use of it for application, business processes, or data modeling, are very satisfied with it. They find it easy to use. The graphical representation is simple but therefore efficient, so I know that they are planning a very good commencement on the use of these tools."

"The tool's most valuable feature is that its collaboration part is very good."

"The most valuable features of BiZZdesign HoriZZon, from my experience, include its out-of-the-box connectors, such as integration with ServiceNow, Excel, and SQL databases, making data repository management more efficient."

More BiZZdesign HoriZZon pros

"We have seen ROI with this solution over the years that we have used it."

"The user interface is good. It's both clear and comprehensible. It's easy to work with."

"There are a lot of features I find valuable, but I think that the metamodel customization is one of the best features that the solution offers."

"The solution is pretty stable."

Cons

"It should be more open to integrating with other existing tools. Although there has been progress in the past."

"Scalability is a bit of a problem for BiZZdesign. There is always a possibility it will failover."

"There is room for improvement in making it more seamless between the modeling and the analysis pieces. Sometimes you have to do some work in the backend to ensure that the HoriZZon portal really gets all of the information the way you want it. They are working on the seamlessness between what they call Enterprise Studio and HoriZZon."

"The repository of duplicate objects is bad."

"It takes a long time to learn and understand, which is a learning curve you have to go through, but once you know how it works, it's very nice to work with."

"We tested it, and we had support from BiZZdesign, including patches, but it just didn't do what we wanted."

"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."

"There could be simpler modelling."

More BiZZdesign HoriZZon cons

"The reverse engineering of the database is already there, but in the next release I would like to see some pilot supplied with the solution in order to address any database."

"This solution can be more user-friendly and easier to use, with better dashboards."

"There needs to be more information at the outset about how to use the solution and how to deploy it. The deployment process needs improvement."

"The solution needs to better integrate with other products, like Microsoft."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In terms of this particular product usage, my clients currently only use per-user licenses."

"I haven't found any issues with the scalability and licensing parts that are access-related."

"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 price is reasonable."

"The pricing model is slightly on the high side and could be more competitive for long-term partnerships."

"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."

"If one is very cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the product price as a seven out of ten."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Energy/Utilities Company

Manufacturing Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

10%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BiZZdesign HoriZZon?

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.

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What needs improvement with BiZZdesign HoriZZon?

There is room for improvement in BiZZdesign HoriZZon. It's quite robust and has good online forums where people discuss it, though maybe the interface can improve, but I don't want to criticize it ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for BiZZdesign HoriZZon?

The typical use case with BiZZdesign HoriZZon is basically for enterprise architecture and also for business process modeling.

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

BiZZdesign HoriZZon

August 2025

Download BiZZdesign HoriZZon product report

Buyer's Guide

Enterprise Architecture Management

August 2025

Download IBM Rational System Architect product report

Also Known As

HoriZZon

Rational System Architect

Overview

Make smarter decisions and optimize outcomes by unifying all your strategy, capabilities, operating models and change portfolios in a single platform.

With all the data about your business in one place you can see the big picture and make properly informed strategic decisions to drive growth. Bizzdesign Horizzon brings together strategy, IT architecture, operating models, data, capabilities, change portfolios and ideas into a single, intuitive collaborative business design platform. Real-time visibility of key metrics and trends allows you to take action more quickly. Accelerating the speed and accuracy of your operations now – and into the future.

Core Platform Capabilities:

Multi-discipline collaboration
Data Integration
Advanced analytics
Models and Roadmaps
Governance & Security
Business Insight Graph

BiZZdesign

IBM Rational System Architect is an enterprise architecture solution for visualizing, analyzing, and communicating enterprise architecture and business process analysis. This solution provides decision support, process optimization, and integration into solution delivery. Rational System Architect addresses all aspects of your organization's enterprise architecture, including modeling, publishing, analysis, and execution.

IBM

Sample Customers

T-Mobile, Shell, HSBC, Erasmus University, VIVAT Insurance

Wuxi Lake Cloud, Nationwide, ETI, IDS Scheer

Buyer's Guide

BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs. IBM Rational System Architect

July 2025

Free Report: BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs. IBM Rational System Architect

Find out what your peers are saying about BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs. IBM Rational System Architect and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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