UNICOM System Architect vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest comparison

erwin by Quest and Unicom Systems are both solutions in the Enterprise Architecture Management category. erwin by Quest is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.1, while Unicom Systems is ranked #26. erwin by Quest holds a 10.7% mindshare in AM, compared to Unicom Systems’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of erwin by Quest users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 50% of Unicom Systems users who would recommend it.

erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Read 39 erwin Data Modeler by Quest reviews

4,005 Views
2,220 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

UNICOM System Architect

Read 2 UNICOM System Architect reviews

286 Views
114 Comparison Views

50% willing to recommend

erwin Data Modeler by Quest

UNICOM System Architect

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

UNICOM System Architect and erwin Data Modeler by Quest are key players in enterprise architecture and data modeling. While UNICOM has advantages in pricing and support, erwin is favored for its comprehensive feature set, indicating a justified investment.

Features: UNICOM System Architect offers comprehensive enterprise architecture modeling, visualization capabilities supporting complex frameworks, and adaptive integration. erwin Data Modeler by Quest provides strong data modeling, metadata management, and collaboration functionalities, supporting complex database environments efficiently.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: UNICOM System Architect provides a flexible deployment model with satisfactory customer support, allowing for adaptive integration. erwin Data Modeler by Quest delivers an intuitive deployment process and superior customer service for smooth transitions, emphasizing its user-friendly setup.

Pricing and ROI: UNICOM System Architect is known for a lower initial setup cost and satisfactory ROI, thanks to efficient licensing options. erwin Data Modeler by Quest, despite a higher potential cost, offers better ROI through extensive scalability and sophisticated functionalities, highlighting its long-term value.

To learn more, read our detailed UNICOM System Architect vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

UNICOM System Architect vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest

April 2025

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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

3rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Design (9th)

UNICOM System Architect

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

26th

Average Rating

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler by Quest is 10.7%, up from 9.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of UNICOM System Architect is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Architecture Management

Featured Reviews

JorgeSanz

Data Governance Senior Advisor at Abu Dhabi National Oil Company

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.

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reviewer1261290

Project Manager at a government with 10,001+ employees

Useful for creating build-outs and architecture views, but requires a publisher add-on for some detailed reports

I don't use the tool or know a lot. It is going to have some shortcomings. When it comes down to publishing, we just found out this week that they actually have a publisher add-on. So, what we were trying to publish was not giving a detailed report about the architecture, views, etc. I just wish they had sent these to UNICOM and contacted them about add-on features for the publishing part of the tool.

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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

"We use the macros with naming standards patterns, domains, datatypes, and some common attributes. As far as other automations, a feature of the Bulk Editor is mass updates. When it sees something is nonstandard or inaccurate, it will export the better data out. Then, I can easily see which entities and attributes are not inline or standard. I can easily make changes to what was uploaded to the Bulk Editor. When taking on a new project, it can save you about a half a day on a big project across an entire team."

"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."

"It reduces monthly savings by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Think about a company like Costco and all of the points of sale systems in Costco, all of the systems, the applications, but if all the applications in Costco all had their own data model, trying to integrate those, upgrade them and manage their different versions of the same model throughout the store, is an absolute nightmare. It's phenomenally expensive. This helps reduce that cost significantly. I'm talking on the orders of hundreds of thousands of dollars."

"Any tool will do diagramming but I think the ability to put the stuff up in a graphical fashion, then think about it, and keep things consistent is what's valuable about it. It's too easy when you're using other methods to not have naming consistent standards and column consistent definitions, et cetera."

"There is absolutely no problem with the stability."

"It's a safeguard for me because I'm always concerned that somebody is free handing it and will forget a key coming from the parent. The migrating keys are a great feature. Identifying relationships, non-identifying relationships, and being visually right there to understand the differences are great features. erwin is key to being able to visually understand whatever the customer is requesting. They'll give you words on a paper, but once they can actually view it as a picture, it really comes to life. The data comes to life to where they understand exactly what they're asking for."

"The visual data models for helping to overcome data source complexity and enabling understanding and collaboration around maintenance and usage are excellent. A picture speaks 1,000 words. Seeing a picture that shows you how the data relates to each other helps you better understand what the data is and how to use it. Pairing that information with a dictionary, which has the definitions of the tables and columns or the entities and attributes, ensures that the users understand what the data is so that they can use it best and most successfully."

"The modeling portion of the tool is the most valuable. There are some notes, naming standards, and other functions that we use as well. There's a whole boatload of functionality in this thing and we use maybe 10% of it. It seems to be pretty common that not all the functionality is fully utilized. But it's just got gobs and gobs of stuff that you can implement if you so choose to."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest pros

"It is useful for creating build-outs and architecture views and for publishing reports and stuff like that for different programs."

"It has good end-to-end metamodel interrelationships."

Cons

"The reverse engineering in Oracle Databases needs improvement, as there are issues."

"This is a very complex product."

"The only real complaint I have is the time it takes to do a database comparison on a large model. If they could speed that up, that would be the only thing I can think of that needs improvement."

"I am not so happy with its speed. Sometimes, it can have problems with connections."

"I would like to see the reporting capabilities be more dynamic and more inclusive of information. The API is very sparsely understood by people across the user community."

"I would like to have more data sources from other, different vendors. In recent years, the vendor has reduced the number of data sources, and I would like to have more data sources for every brand. For example, with Oracle, I would like to have compatibility for many versions, including old ones, not just the most recent."

"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."

"The modeling product itself is far and above anything else that I've seen on the market. There are certain inconsistencies when it comes to keeping up with other platforms' databases in the reverse-engineering process. It should also support more database platforms."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest cons

"They need to add reports that show the enterprise architecture perspectives, and the dashboards should be comfortable for the senior enterprise architects so that they can view the complete landscape."

"I don't use the tool or know a lot. It is going to have some shortcomings. When it comes down to publishing, we just found out this week that they actually have a publisher add-on. So, what we were trying to publish was not giving a detailed report about the architecture, views, etc. I just wish they had sent these to UNICOM and contacted them about add-on features for the publishing part of the tool."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The primary reasons that erwin was selected were that it was much more affordable for us [than Embarcadero] and it was easily maintainable."

"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."

"It is not a very expensive solution. Only the licensing and maintenance fee needs to be paid."

"An issue right now would be that erwin doesn't have a freely available browser (that I am aware of) for people who are not data modelers or data engineers that a consumer could use to look at the data models and play with it. This would not be to make any changes, but just to visually look at what exists. There are other products out there which do have end user browsers available and allow them to access data models via the data modeling tool."

"erwin has this option where you pay a one-time fee and you have the license for six years, which makes sense because I don't upgrade my database engine every other year. I have an application that depends on it. This is something weird about PowerDesigner. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."

"The pricing of the solution is cheap. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."

"erwin Data Modeler by Quest is an expensive solution."

"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."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest pricing and cost advice

"I don't remember the price. It is a different cost for just buying it, and then you have a maintenance cost, which you need to renew every year."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

Government

20%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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.

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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.

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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...

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Product Reports

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erwin Data Modeler by Quest

April 2025

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Enterprise Architecture Management

March 2025

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Also Known As

erwin DM

No data available

Overview

erwin pioneered data modeling, and erwin Data Modeler (erwin DM) remains trusted, award-winning software for data modeling and database design, automating complex and time-consuming tasks. Use it to discover and document any data from anywhere for consistency, clarity and artifact reuse across large-scale data integration, master data management, metadata management, Big Data, business intelligence and analytics initiatives – all while supporting data governance and intelligence efforts.

erwin by Quest

Information not available

Unicom Systems

Sample Customers

Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples

Apple, Facebook, Google, HSBC, PayPal

Buyer's Guide

UNICOM System Architect vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest

April 2025

Free Report: UNICOM System Architect vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Find out what your peers are saying about UNICOM System Architect vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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