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

CA IDMS vs IDERA ER/Studio comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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 IDMS
Ranking in Database Development and Management
29th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
5
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 (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Database Development and Management category, the mindshare of CA IDMS is 1.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IDERA ER/Studio is 3.4%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Development and Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IDERA ER/Studio3.4%
CA IDMS1.3%
Other95.3%
Database Development and Management
 

Featured Reviews

AS
ALiBS Solutions at ALiBS Solutions
Helps us to manage user profiles very quickly and in an assertive way
I would rate this solution 9 out of 10. I would advise that they should evaluate other possibilities because this is a very quickly changing environment and there are other possible providers that have good solutions. I would do some kind of test. I would test other possible solutions too and compare them.
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

"The most valuable feature is the performance of the database; it's very efficient at what it does, quite reliable, and provides us with a very stable platform that we've been running for many years."
"We've been able to fine tune it over the years to get really good performance out of it, and maintain some database network support."
"The most useful feature is the governance feature, because it can show us and help us to manage user profiles very quickly and using it in assertive way."
"The solution is the community - a tightly knit group of experts who have been working on the product set for many years."
"Stability is perfect! It is a really stable platform; it has been around for many years, and we trust it implicitly."
"Technical support is very good. They are very knowledgeable, very quick to respond, and very nice people, too.​"
"Customer Service: It's good."
"You will save time, switching from whatever product you're using."
"It does the job."
"IDERA ER_Studio does a lot more and performs model comparison much better than Erwin."
"We can track changes to our data models and tie those changes back to specific tasks or efforts that we identify."
"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."
"With both onshore and offshore development teams working 18x5 days, it is an easy way to control check-in's while also maintaining schema views."
"This has helped the new application development team in cross-verifying, and understanding, the current setup, proposing and architecting new solutions for the organisation."
 

Cons

"I'd like to see some of the installation, maintenance, and support functions simplified so that some of our younger, newer members can take advantage of the product and maintain it to the same standard that the older members have in the past."
"We need to make it much easier to support and maintain, because the skills required are quite specialized and we're not going to have people in the future who've got the necessary experience and knowledge."
"Right now, it's not easy to start using this solution. You have to take long course and train people. It's not an easy path."
"We have to use DB2 when we need more relational constructs, expanded inquiry and reporting; so it's not perfect in that regards."
"​I would like to see it made simpler to operate and maintain."
"Overall, I don't like any of the features and I think that it's a poor system."
"The solution could be sped up, as it is a little slow (e.g., when it's doing its database compare)."
"We receive these new functionalities, and sometimes we start to test them and we find errors that we need to correct by talking with tech support."
"The solution is not so strong at creating modeling views and database views."
"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."
"There have been some issues with performance, and there are some issues with inconsistencies."
"The number of options can be overwhelming at times. That is not necessarily a bad thing but for a newbie, it can be daunting."
"We would always like to see Repository performance improve, checking in and checking out."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Do not hold back on asking questions about the maintenance and continued support of the product."
"The process of licensing could be much simpler, from our experience."
"I'm a firm believer that all software is overpriced these days but, comparatively speaking, I think ER/Studio is worth the money."
"At my previous company using ER/Studio, a database compare took four hours before using the product and 15 minutes after using the product."
"I am currently using the trial version, but this solution is definitely worth considering for the price point."
"As an individual user, the renewal is a little costly."
"The price of this product is okay."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is bad and ten is good, I would rate the licensing cost as a seven or eight. It's not too expensive for us."
"The product is pricey."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Database Development and Management solutions are best for your needs.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Energy/Utilities Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

IDMS
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 IDMS vs. IDERA ER/Studio and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.