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BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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
Ranking in Business Process Design
10th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
4th
Ranking in Business Process Design
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of BiZZdesign HoriZZon is 5.4%, up from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is 8.2%, down from 14.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect8.2%
BiZZdesign HoriZZon5.4%
Other86.4%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

Maamoun Hasuneh - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Enterprise Architect at EVC
Architecture repository has strengthened data‑driven decisions and supported risk‑aware planning
BiZZdesign HoriZZon needs to publish its integration scenarios and integration points with other digital transformation tools such as IT service management, risk management, asset management, customer service, and ERP. The company should first build the scenario and define its integration points in business and technology to make customers more confident about having a complete solution. Currently, there is a challenge with the company to offer transparent and documented integration. They offer five integration points at a fixed price, but other things come at additional costs. However, specific information about what those additional items are, what the scenarios entail, what the schemas are, what the workflows include, and what the application integration involves is not provided. The learning portal does not include integration documentation at a high level or in detail. The portal does have comprehensive resources explaining how to make their website, how to create dashboards, and how to publish EA content, which are clear. The high-end tool on the laptop is also explained in detail, covering elements, relations, and everything as standard.
Milan Sterba - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Enterprise Architect at Deepview S.r.o.
Efficient documentation generation through organized model structure with a good price-performance ratio
Whenever I begin a new project with Sparx, I have to spend time training people on how to use it since it is not straightforward. Although it's a powerful product with plenty of features, it's not easy for even experienced users to find their way without guidance. This is not the most user-friendly solution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"BiZZdesign HoriZZon stands out from other solutions on the market due to its uniqueness in conformance with the standard."
"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 most valuable features are the application, portfolio, data, architectures, and modeling things."
"One of the main advantages of this solution is that they have representation in the Open Group Forum, which means that any changes in ArchiMate are immediately implemented in BiZZdesign."
"It'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, and the graphical representation is simple but therefore efficient."
"The initial setup of this solution was very straightforward."
"The most valuable features are the application, portfolio, data, architectures, and modeling things."
"The enterprise studio where the modelling happens is valuable."
"The Business Process Modeling or BPM part is the most valuable. Its ability to simulate scenarios is also very useful. It can also create descriptions of the workflows. It has a feature in which if you create some BPMN process, a workflow diagram, and the description inside, you can actually simulate the whole scenario, and you get the description. That's very handy."
"Support for different modeling standards in one package allows to have one tool for many roles."
"It's a very practical solution; you don't need to do an advanced course to start using this tool and it offers great intricacy so you can really do many kinds of models."
"Ability to maintain cross-references for all models in all levels - great tractability."
"It has led some teams to do better code reviews - to be less focussed on coding conventions (syntax) and more focussed on the semantics because of the abstraction level clear design affords."
"With Sparx EA, models became a maintainable and reusable asset of the corporation."
"There are a lot of features in Enterprise Architect; it allows us to take on a lot of tasks."
"It is a handy tool for visual modeling that provides opportunities for analysis, design, and support of models using ArchiMate, UML."
 

Cons

"It lacks capabilities with regard to infrastructure modeling."
"The ability to generate charts and deal with a use case involving Kibana was quite difficult."
"The automatic data collection and interface need improvement."
"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."
"We tested it, and we had support from BiZZdesign, including patches, but it just didn't do what we wanted."
"It should be more open to integrating with other existing tools. Although there has been progress in the past."
"One area where BiZZdesign HoriZZon could use some improvement is in its REST APIs."
"There is room for improvement in making it more seamless between the modeling and the analysis pieces."
"I think the product is good. When I'm trying to do something specific for some part of project documentation, it's hard to get it figured out if you don't use it all the time. It's such a massive tool, it's hard to figure out how to dig in and get to the documentation where you have to be to get some idea of what to do. There are not a lot of examples that I'm aware of to be able to do that."
"The reporting needs improvement."
"The templates for documentation should be enhanced to include complex documents such as template RFP, or Non functional requirements template."
"There was some sort of glitch within the last version."
"Personally, I had a hard time learning how business modeling works, and simultaneously learning a new tool."
"It lacks some collaborative functions like sending emails when a status changed."
"In a future release, they should improve portfolio planning."
"It would be nice to have it supported on the Linux operating system."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I haven't found any issues with the scalability and licensing parts that are access-related."
"If one is very cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the product price as a seven out of ten."
"[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."
"In terms of this particular product usage, my clients currently only use per-user licenses."
"The pricing model is slightly on the high side and could be more competitive for long-term partnerships."
"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."
"First and foremost within the scope of improvement for the solution would be the cost. It's very costly..."
"The pricing for ultimate version is steeply high."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The license I use is on-premise. We haven't gone to the cloud where we have to pay monthly or something like that. Sparx is cheaper than most similar tools."
"In terms of cost, Sparx EA is probably one of the cheapest tools I have ever used."
"Its price is very good for the value that you get with it."
"The licensing is not as expensive as some of the other data modeling tools such as Erwin."
"The Corporate Edition, or one of the bundles, is the way to go."
"Pricing and licensing is very attractive, simple, and straightforward."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
4%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise58
 

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.
What needs improvement with BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
BiZZdesign HoriZZon needs to publish its integration scenarios and integration points with other digital transformation tools such as IT service management, risk management, asset management, custo...
What is your primary use case for BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
BiZZdesign HoriZZon is primarily used as a repository for Enterprise Architecture and is also utilized in broad portfolio management including project management and other applications, but the mai...
What do you like most about Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
The stability has been good and satisfactory. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
One of the reasons many public sector institutions in the Czech Republic use it is that it provides a very good price-performance ratio. While it might be cumbersome to learn, it still delivers exc...
What needs improvement with Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
Whenever I begin a new project with Sparx, I have to spend time training people on how to use it since it is not straightforward. Although it's a powerful product with plenty of features, it's not ...
 

Also Known As

HoriZZon
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

T-Mobile, Shell, HSBC, Erasmus University, VIVAT Insurance
OmniLink
Find out what your peers are saying about BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.