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erwin Data Modeler by Quest vs iServer 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

erwin Data Modeler by Quest
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
4th
Ranking in Business Process Design
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
iServer
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
9th
Ranking in Business Process Design
17th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler by Quest is 10.0%, down from 10.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of iServer is 4.5%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

JorgeSanz - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamline data modeling and automate network changes for increased efficiency
The initial setup depends on the tool if you are using the data model environment. Stopping the server could be complex and require strong expertise. If you have everything set up and configured, Erwin is straightforward. You can deploy it in a few hours. In our case, it took a couple of months to address internal conditions, assign machines, and set up everything for the services. I rate the initial setup a six out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.
Antonios Lazanakis - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexible, easy to use, and easy to import data
We use iServer to establish an enterprise architecture function in our organization iServer is a very flexible platform for defining your own enterprise architecture model. It is very easy to import data, and we also have good integration with Visual Drawing Tools and SharePoint. The solution is…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Being able to point it to a database and then pull the metadata is a valuable feature. Another valuable feature is being able to rearrange the model so that we can display it to users. We are able to divide the information into subject areas, and we can divide the data landscape into smaller chunks, which makes it easier to understand. If you had 14 subject areas, 1,000 entities, and 6,000 columns, you can't quite understand it all at once. So, being able to have the same underlying model but only display portions of it at a time is extremely useful."
"I have worked with erwin Data Modeler for quite some time and familiarity is its most valuable feature."
"The ability to collaborate between different members across the organization is the most valuable feature. It gives us the ability to work on the same model, regardless of where we are physically."
"When you're getting down to the database level, where you're building a design and you're creating DDL out of it, or you're going in the other direction where you're reaching into system catalogs and bringing things back, that starts to really require specialization. Visio isn't going to reverse-engineer that for you. Those features in erwin are valuable."
"What has been useful, I have been able to reverse engineer our existing data models to document explicitly referential integrity relationships, primary/foreign keys in the model, and create ERDs that are subject area-based which our clients can use when working with our databases. The reality is that our databases are not explicitly documented in the DDL with primary/foreign key relationships. You can't look at the DDL and explicitly understand the primary/foreign key relationships that exist between our tables, so the referential integrity is not easily understood. erwin has allowed me to explicitly document that and create ERDs. This has made it easier for our clients to consume our databases for their own purposes."
"The solution is good for organizing the data and the scripting part is very powerful. It's easy to create technical scripts for models."
"The most valuable feature is the physical or visual representation of the database, showing the tables, the columns, the foreign keys, and the ability to generate DDL, so you can physically implement databases."
"We can create mappings in erwin and possibly data dictionaries."
"iServer is a very flexible platform for defining your own enterprise architecture model."
"There were lots of different requirements, and collaboration and review is one of the biggest things. There is also Office 360 integration, and there's flexibility to use it as a database as well."
"We like the governance."
"The initial setup is easy."
"iServer is a solution that helps catalog enterprise architect solutions and catalog information."
"The most valuable features of iServer are the integration with Microsoft Office and the interface is similar to Microsoft applications making them easy to use."
"Good and effective reporting features, which help in decision making."
"Integrating the Microsoft documents to the product and visualization matrix where we can see the end-to-end relationship of the network is of great importance to our company."
 

Cons

"The navigation is a little bit of a challenge. It's painful. For example, if you've got a view open and you want to try to move from side to side, the standard today is being able to drag and drop left and right. You can't really do that in the model. Moving around the model is painful because it doesn't follow the Windows model today."
"Some Source official systems give us DDLs to work with and they have contents not required to be part of the DDL before we reverse engineer in the erwin DM. Therefore, we manually make changes to those scripts and edit them, then reverse-engineer within the tool. So, it does take some time to edit these DDL scripts generated by the source operational systems. What I would suggest: It would be helpful if there were a place within the erwin tool to import the file and automatically eliminate all the unnecessary lines of code, and just have the clean code built-in to generate the table/data model."
"I would like to see improved reporting and, potentially, dashboards built on top of that. Right now, it's a little manual. More automated reporting and dashboard views would help because currently you have to push things out to a spreadsheet, or to HTML, and there aren't many other options that I know of. I would like to be able to produce graphs and additional things right in the tool, instead of having to export the data somewhere else."
"It does not have a cloud application."
"The erwin ETL functionality has room for improvement when it comes to mapping databases with a classic entity-relationship model to a data warehouse model."
"Although Quest Software has made tremendous strides in recent years, they need to evolve more in the big data arena; erwin Data Modeler could use a little more work when it comes to big database designs."
"erwin is not as robust as a data warehousing project I've been on in the past."
"I'd really like to see the PDF function become available. It would make my life much easier than what it is at the moment because whenever I need to collaborate with people that do not have erwin, I have to go through the wonkiness of going to Word and then save it from Word into PDF. There's a lot of differences between erwin 4.4 and 2020."
"More visualization techniques and ways to report the data might be helpful."
"We could allocate permissions to use only specific components to the users rather than the entire instance."
"Cannot see which activities are control activities."
"There are other solutions out there that have a better user interface."
"It definitely needs help to improve the visual aspect of the solution."
"The performance is slow, which is something that should be improved."
"There can be some performance issues using the solution that should be improved. When you make modifications modify to files there are embedded data within that can take a while to process."
"Enhancing integration options with ERP or ITSM-related solutions for triggering automated requests for process definitions, changes, and tracking them in the iServer."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Though the solution is not cheap, it's worth the money."
"The price of erwin Data Modeler is very expensive, in particular for this part of the world."
"The solution is expensive."
"The price should be lower in order to be on the same level as its competitors."
"We've continued to use the product for many years and compared it with others on the market. The pricing is reasonable considering what the solution offers and what we pay. There are cheaper tools, but they may not be as robust and easy to use, so it's worth the money."
"There is either a one-year or three-year license. It is not a pay-as-you-go license like a SaaS solution. It’s more of a traditional licensing. They are a little bit on the pricier side."
"This company had bought the license for three years, and it's not an individual license. While you can buy a license for each individual, that would be very expensive. There is something called concurrent licenses where you can purchase licenses in bulk and 15 to 20 people can access the license and model. Concurrent licenses are scalable to the number of users and are proportional to the cost."
"Likewise, the solution is a little pricey."
"The product has a moderate pricing."
"It's about 13K to set up and 9K for the license for three months. I think it's about 20K a year, but we haven't firmed up on pricing yet because the price depends on how long we commit to the solution."
"Aim for the exact number of people who shall define/review approve and view the processes, as it will impact the cost."
"They offer annual subscriptions for developing countries, which are not affordable for small or medium businesses."
"The price of iServer is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"The solution is cheaper than its competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Government
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
Forward engineering, DDL generation, reverse engineering, and reporting are the most valuable features of the solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
The product is expensive. I rate the product’s pricing a nine out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
As a documenting tool, it's solid, though its reporting could be more robust. The reporting mechanisms could be more intuitive regarding report creation. It can generate reports in CSV files, displ...
What do you like most about iServer?
iServer has valuable features for workflow and document management.
What needs improvement with iServer?
iServer should invest in enhancing the capabilities of the embedded drawing tool, draw.io. draw.io is a drawing tool used to draw architectural diagrams, flow diagrams, etc. It is an alternative to...
What is your primary use case for iServer?
We use iServer to establish an enterprise architecture function in our organization.
 

Also Known As

erwin DM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

 Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples
Barclays, Cathay Pacific, Deloitte, British Gas, MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about erwin Data Modeler by Quest vs. iServer and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.