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CA Datacom vs IDERA ER/Studio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

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

CA Datacom
Ranking in Database Development and Management
25th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.6
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IDERA ER/Studio
Ranking in Database Development and Management
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Database Development and Management category, the mindshare of CA Datacom is 1.2%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IDERA ER/Studio is 3.1%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Development and Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IDERA ER/Studio3.1%
CA Datacom1.2%
Other95.7%
Database Development and Management
 

Featured Reviews

it_user489183 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Admin at a logistics company with 10,001+ employees
Scalability and the online maintainability of definitions are definite advantages for us
We've had it for so long, so it's status quo. But we've added all sorts of functionality to our applications and there are no issues with databases. Anything developers request, we're able to accomplish. Also, we deal a lot with government regulation - and not to talk about what the company does - but anything that they require of us, because we transmit data back and forth with them, we're able to do that with no problems. And there have been a lot of changes over the past five years that our government dictated regarding what we actually end up doing. So, we're able to be extremely flexible with that.
reviewer2796111 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Improved data modeling has reduced system footprint and strengthened finance workflows
I assess the benefits of IDERA ER_Studio's metadata management for my organization as not as good as Erwin's. Erwin's metadata management is better in how it handles data. There is a lot more user involvement in managing the metadata, primarily because in IDERA ER_Studio, the logical and physical models are separately defined in the same file, so you have to map them every single time. In Erwin, it has a unified structure, so if you make a change in the logical model, it automatically shows up in the physical model. You have to go through a couple of steps in the IDERA model to make sure everything has moved over. While that is not that inconvenient when you are actually doing development, as far as metadata management, that is prone to things getting dropped and missed. The collaboration tools in IDERA ER_Studio are adequate, but I think with Erwin, there is more of an opportunity for things to crash. Changes can be merged in IDERA more fluidly; however, the locking and sharing are a little bit more defined in Erwin. I think the learning curve for Erwin might be easier than IDERA ER_Studio, especially with connecting to different models and systems.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This product is very stable, compared to a lot of other DBMSs that run in our shop."
"The initial setup is fairly straightforward for a mainframe product."
"It is a solid product."
"Nowadays, CA is doing a lot of improving as far as online maintainability of definitions, which is a huge improvement over the past. I'm able to do a lot of changes without any outage."
"It does its job very well."
"It has cut down on our support, especially after hours, and it is a solid product that just works most of the time."
"It definitely ​cuts down on our support costs. I do not get woken up in the middle of the night very often for a problem with Datacom."
"The technical support staff with whom I have dealt are truly top notch; they understand whatever issue or question we might have and are able to supply quick and valid answers much of the time, or they fully engage in developing solutions when that is required."
"I would 100% recommend the product."
"Modeling with Data Architect: We can quickly reverse-engineer a database from an existing database or create a model from scratch."
"Straightforward setup."
"Valuable features include the ability to visually represent what the database tables are going to look like and their relationships. Also, the ability to document the definitions of the tables and the columns that are in a table so that we can communicate what the data is and how it should be used."
"Using this product has improved the way we maintain our models because they have a place where we can keep all of them, and they can be viewed using the web interface."
"I am able to create (and publish) logical data models, apply naming standards using macro, generate the physical models and DDL."
"The most important features are logical and physical models that we can compare and develop. Also, the Data Dictionary can be created out of your studio. Finally, database schemas help understand the logic that's behind the scene, behind the SQL tables. Especially when there are a lot of them, the schemas help everyone understand the business processes."
"It has a wealth of time-savers and features that are extremely useful."
 

Cons

"There are still some things - and I know they are working on some of them - but for the "no-outage maintainability" of things, they are making improvements as we speak, but there is definitely still room for more of that."
"There are a lot of features that come out with each upgrade, but our application that runs on it has been around for a long time; they sort of decommissioned this application."
"I had trouble with an upgrade once but, when I have trouble with the upgrade there's always someone there to support me and get me through it really quickly."
"The only minor issue that we have had with Datacom is in the installation guide: Some of the sizings for the databases have not really worked out for us, so we had to go in and resize them."
"Something that we would like to see is for them to develop integration with open distribution systems."
"when there are some links to the external databases, if this database is not structured it is not uploaded. It gives me errors and I cannot see the view that was created on this structure and I cannot change those views, even manually. It skips the views. I have to ignore those views. I cannot re-upload them because it gives me an error."
"I would like to see better documentation/help for the Data Architect tool. Creation of tutorials would be nice, as there are some features which are not as clearly defined as they should be."
"There was no specific mention of areas needing improvement."
"The only thing I had an issue with was licensing, and the support was very good."
"I would like to upload, a database with about 3,000 tables. It takes so much time and, finally, it freezes the whole solution so that I actually cannot work with that environment. For the data warehouse, it's fine because I have 20 or 30 tables. It works fine. But, when I reverse-engineer the database with 3,000 tables, it freezes and it's hard to upload and reverse-engineer such environments in ER/Studio."
"The solution is not so strong at creating modeling views and database views."
"The repository causes continuous problems, as it's slow and sometimes crashes."
"The visual presentation is a little too colorful and seems that it is dumbed down."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"As an individual user, the renewal is a little costly."
"I feel the product's pricing is a good value."
"Pricing is expensive and on the higher-end."
"I use the product's trial version."
"The price of this product is okay."
"I'm a firm believer that all software is overpriced these days but, comparatively speaking, I think ER/Studio is worth the money."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"The process of licensing could be much simpler, from our experience."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
14%
Energy/Utilities Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IDERA ER Studio?
In terms of pricing, ER/Studio is slightly more expensive compared to Erwin, by about five to ten percent.
What is your primary use case for IDERA ER Studio?
I work in the finance industry, and the use cases for this product are very similar to what I mentioned previously when I discussed being in industrial management. It is simply a different product.
What advice do you have for others considering IDERA ER Studio?
I have not used IDERA ER_Studio's impact analysis tools, so I really could not judge that regarding mitigating database risks for security. I am not on the end as far as the pricing, as this is wha...
 

Also Known As

DATACOM
IDERA ER Studio, ER/Studio, ER/Studio Enterprise Team Edition
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blue Hill Data Services Inc.
Newmont Mining, Entrust, Accolade, TalkTalk, Catalina, Protective Life, NTT Data, dir systèmes, Microsoft; American Express, Astellas Pharma, AstraZeneca, Coriant, Fedex, GlaxoSmithKline, PepsiCo, Prudential, Wells Fargo
Find out what your peers are saying about CA Datacom vs. IDERA ER/Studio and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.