LeanIX vs erwin Data Modeler comparison

Quest Software and SAP LeanIX are both solutions in the Enterprise Architecture Management category. Quest Software is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.5, while SAP LeanIX is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.9. Quest Software holds a 8.8% mindshare in AM, compared to SAP LeanIX’s 13.1% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Quest Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of SAP LeanIX users who would recommend it.

erwin Data Modeler

Read 40 erwin Data Modeler reviews

4,967 Views
3,427 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

LeanIX

Read 24 LeanIX reviews

5,958 Views
4,707 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

erwin Data Modeler

LeanIX

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 19, 2025

LeanIX and Erwin Data Modeler are prominent tools in the enterprise architecture and data modeling category. LeanIX seems to have the upper hand in user-friendly interfaces and integration capabilities, while Erwin stands out for its robust data modeling and engineering features.

Features: LeanIX offers customizable solutions for non-technical users, with outstanding reporting and tagging capabilities, integrations with tools like ServiceNow, and comprehensive application portfolio management. Erwin Data Modeler shines with features like versioning, data synchronization, detailed diagrams, and strong forward and reverse engineering abilities supporting comprehensive data modeling needs.

Room for Improvement: LeanIX could improve its diagramming capabilities and address connector costs and API customizations. Users note support issues and inflexible pricing as concerns. Erwin faces criticism on its interface usability and integration with big data platforms, with calls for better reporting and collaboration features, as well as enhancements in reverse engineering and cloud database support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: LeanIX, being cloud-based, allows quick deployment with active customer support, though users face time zone challenges and slower SAP-related support responses. Erwin’s on-premises model offers stability, but longer deployment times, with potential for improved real-time assistance and customer engagement.

Pricing and ROI: LeanIX’s application-based pricing can be high for large organizations, though it offers significant ROI through optimized management and reporting. Flexible licensing supports strategic adjustments. Erwin is seen as expensive, but its comprehensive capabilities justify the expense, despite less competitive pricing in some markets. Both tools promise considerable ROI at different paces.

To learn more, read our detailed LeanIX vs. erwin Data Modeler Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

LeanIX vs. erwin Data Modeler

September 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

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Design (9th), Data Governance (14th)

LeanIX

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 8.8%, down from 10.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of LeanIX is 13.1%, down from 15.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Architecture Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
LeanIX	13.1%
erwin Data Modeler	8.8%
Other	78.1%

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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Umit Sengul

Enterprise Architect at E.ON

A platform that facilitates efficient IT architecture management and integration, improving organizational coordination and decision-making

LeanIX is primarily used to create and manage architectural models, link capabilities, activities, and products and generate comprehensive reports. It serves as a central platform for overseeing the IT landscape within EON, a large organization, streamlining operations and enhancing governance…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution’s code generation ensures accurate engineering of data sources, as there is no development time. Code doesn't even have to be reviewed. We have been using this solution for so long and all the code which has been generated is accurate with the requirements. Once we generate the DDLs out of the erwin tools, the development team does a quick review of the script line by line. They will just be running the script on the database and looking into other requirements, such as the index. So, there is less effort from development side to create tables or build a database."

"The solution is good for organizing the data and the scripting part is very powerful. It's easy to create technical scripts for models."

"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."

"I have worked with erwin Data Modeler for quite some time and familiarity is its most valuable feature."

"The solution is excellent in providing a visual representation of a database and can generate DDL for implementing changes. We use DDL for logical purposes to review with business people, ensuring they have the required fields for processing. We also use it as a data dictionary for the physical data model to understand all the purposes of the terms. This helps us map the logical and physical terms with the business definition to understand our data."

"The logical model gives developers, as well as the data modelers, an understanding of exactly how each object interacts with the others, whether a one-to-many, many-to-many, many-to-one, etc."

"It supports a wide variety of databases, including the latest ones. We have chosen to go for a cloud-based database, and it supports that, which is very useful."

"It allows us to create logical data models. We can represent a database model in business terms, which is very useful for us."

More erwin Data Modeler pros

"Among the most valuable features are the easy-to-use interface and the ability to get quick results... Many tools that I have seen are great for technical people and for giving technical and business information as well, but they're not as friendly and easy as LeanIX... It works well for both technical and business users. It provides a good combination, enabling you to quickly put valuable information in for both technical and non-technical people and derive results."

"The solution has a very useful assessment tool that automatically populates from input data to produce a detailed analysis of customer's environments."

"My favorite feature of LeanIX is its ability to induct attribute-driven surveys."

"The most valuable features include the reporting capabilities and the LeanIX Academy's educational resources."

"I like the tool’s integration and maps."

"For the reporting capabilities, LeanIX provides dashboards for different levels, including CXO dashboards. There are plenty of dashboards for reporting."

"LeanIX has good usability and stability. This SaaS is intuitive, easy to use, and comes with a nice reporting feature."

"The ability to import data and generate reports from it. That's where its power lies."

More LeanIX pros

Cons

"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."

"We are planning to move, in 2021, into their server version, where multiple data modelers can work at the same time and share their models. It has become a pain point to merge the models from individual desktops and get them into a single data model, when multiple data modelers are working on a particular project. It becomes a nightmare for the senior data modeler to bring them together, especially when it comes to recreating them when you want to merge them."

"As someone who has used it for a long time, I have seen stability vary from version to version."

"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."

"The erwin Data Modeler is quite complex to use."

"There is a lack of local support in the China region."

"I still use Visio for conceptual modeling, and that's mainly because it is easier to change things, and you can relax some of the rules. DM's eventual target is a database, which means you actually have to dot all the Is and cross all the Ts, but in a conceptual model, you don't often know what you're working with. So, that's probably a constraint with erwin. They have made it a lot easier, and they've done a lot, but there is probably still room for improvement in terms of the ease of presentation back to the business. I'm comparing it with something like Visio where you can change colors on a box, change the text color and that sort of stuff, and change the lines. Such things are a whole lot easier in Visio, but once you get a theme organized in erwin, you can apply that theme to all of the objects. So, it becomes easier, but you do have to set up that theme."

More erwin Data Modeler cons

"They're probably positioned pretty well. I hope that they would not focus that much on the business architecture, and they would focus more on the overall cloud strategy and how we can leverage multi-cloud and transition back and forth from other cloud providers. With a lot of current vendors, you get locked in with one cloud, and then you try to migrate to someone else, and it becomes very problematic. What they need to do is to look at the overall data strategy, and they probably need to amplify their data strategy, especially around multi-cloud."

"Improvements in user interface simplicity could be made, particularly with the reporting and filtering capabilities."

"LeanIX should improve its support services."

"The solution uses Gartner's time-based framework for application rationalization. One more thing that you can consider is having some add-on frameworks for the same, not just Gartner."

"LeanIX has limited in-build diagramming capabilities, requiring the purchase of another tool. That is the main drawback of LeanIX because they don't have a built-in add-on product for diagramming."

"They should improve the out of the box connectors that they provide. They should see if clients are really ready to adapt them."

"I find LeanIX's pricing expensive for the functionality it offers. However, with the acquisition by SAP, the pricing might become more affordable due to scale and tiered application pricing. Currently, it offers different tiers for the first 400 applications: 400 to 600 and 600 to 1,000, making it expensive from a pricing standpoint."

"What would make LeanIX better is more variety in terms of reporting, and more flexibility with its data importing feature."

More LeanIX cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't specifically know what we're paying now. About three years ago, in another organization, I have this memory of 6,000 AUD a seat or something like that, but I am not sure. In the mid-2000s, it was something like 1,200 AUD a seat. I get the impression that there was a price jump when it was spun off from CA as a separate company, which is understandable, but it could sometimes be a barrier in some organizations picking it up. I haven't talked to erwin people yet, but I'm going to suggest to them that they could perhaps think of having an entry-level product that is priced a bit lower, and then, you can buy the extra suite."

"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"The solution is expensive."

"The tool is expensive."

"Pricing is very high compared to any other product."

"The price should be lower in order to be on the same level as its competitors."

"I wish it wasn't so expensive. I would love to personally buy a copy of my own and have it at home, because the next job that I'm looking at is probably project management and I might not have access to the tool. I would like to keep my ability to use the tool. Therefore, they should probably have a pricing for people like me who want to just use the solution as an independent consultant, trying to get started. $3,000 is a big hit."

"Price-wise, erwin Data Modeler is okay. You can purchase a single license and it is not very expensive."

More erwin Data Modeler pricing and cost advice

"LeanIX uses application-based account licensing, where the cost is multiplied by the number of applications in the software implementation."

"It cost me $91,000 a year for 300 applications. For any enterprise, 300 applications are minimal, as many have well over 1,000 applications."

"The pricing is very good. We definitely get good value for the money."

"As the tool is cloud-based, its cost is more affordable."

"There is a sweet spot of where they need to be on pricing right now. They could go up a little bit in pricing, but it has to do with the cost savings, and it has to do with the practitioners using it. I use it where I get cost savings and I can justify it, but they probably have the ability to flex a 10% up channel on their sales on that. So, they could increase their settle price, not their offering price, when they sell. They can probably hold that up a little bit higher than it is because there are cost savings that we can drive from it."

"I would rate the pricing a one out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."

"The solution's pricing is based on a licensing model that is competitive and in line with other products."

"The tool needs to include more flexible licensing options. We do not use the tool all the time. So pricing should be considered only when we use the tool."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	14
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	29

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	12

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

I do not recall the pricing from about a year and a half ago, but it seems reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

erwin Data Modeler could improve its UI as it still feels old school and not very modern. There are many features, and I would expect good documentation detailing each feature, including when and h...

See all answers

Any experience with Strategic Project Portfolio Management Solutions?

Hi @Cheryl Joseph Looking at the crossover between Project and Portfolio management with EA, then Planview could be a good choice. If looking at Portfolio Management from an EA perspective then Le...

See all answers

What do you like most about LeanIX?

The ability to import data and generate reports from it. That's where its power lies.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for LeanIX?

LeanIX pricing ranges from moderate to high. Our usage and costs depend on the number of applications, and as the number of applications grows, so does the cost. We have aligned our usage with appl...

See all answers

Comparisons

SAP PowerDesigner vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 39% of the time

IDERA ER/Studio vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 19% of the time

Lucidchart vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 12% of the time

Visio vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 6% of the time

AWS Well-Architected Tool vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 3% of the time

More erwin Data Modeler Competitors

ServiceNow vs LeanIX

Compared 21% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs LeanIX

Compared 12% of the time

MEGA HOPEX vs LeanIX

Compared 8% of the time

SAP PowerDesigner vs LeanIX

Compared 7% of the time

Planview Portfolios vs LeanIX

Compared 2% of the time

More LeanIX Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

erwin Data Modeler

September 2025

Download erwin Data Modeler product report

Buyer's Guide

LeanIX

September 2025

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Also Known As

erwin DM

No data available

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Quest Software

SAP LeanIX

Overview

Erwin Data Modeler provides an effective approach to visualizing and managing data models. It assists in creating, reversing, and synchronizing data models with ease, supporting logical and physical transitions while enhancing understanding across teams.

Erwin Data Modeler is a comprehensive tool designed for professional database management. It offers capabilities to organize and enforce standards, automating script generation with robust reverse engineering and DDL output. Users can manage complex data environments, capitalize on integration with data intelligence, and maintain large-scale databases smoothly. Despite its strengths, improvements in multi-language support, database integration, and reporting features are needed. Users benefit from extensive support for conceptual, logical, and physical database modeling, enhancing architectural design and data governance for platforms like SQL Server, Oracle, and Teradata.

What are the key features of Erwin Data Modeler?

Visual Representation: Facilitates clear visualization of data models, aiding comprehension.
Versioning and Editing: Enhance usability with versioning and bulk editing capabilities.
Reverse Engineering: Offers powerful tools for reverse engineering and DDL generation.
Integration: Aligns with data intelligence to streamline database management.
Naming Standards: Enforces consistency with automated script creation.

What benefits should users consider in Erwin Data Modeler reviews?

Collaboration: Promotes team understanding and collaboration through visual tools.
Automation: Reduces manual effort through automated processes and integration.
Scalability: Handles large database management efficiently, crucial for enterprise settings.
Data Governance: Facilitates effective data governance with structured modeling.

Erwin Data Modeler finds application in industries focused on robust data management, implementing it for enterprise data warehouses, business domain models, and operational systems. It supports architectural design and governance, aligning with business applications demanding precise data representation and visualization.

Quest Software

SAP LeanIX provides enterprise architecture solutions that modernize IT and transform businesses, integrating AI-enriched, SaaS tools to enhance architecture visualization and evolution.

Embracing a comprehensive approach, SAP LeanIX supports organizations globally with tools that foster IT landscape optimization and forward-looking architecture creation. It offers solutions for real-time IT overviews, risk management, and architectural planning. These capabilities ensure that enterprises have the flexibility and insights needed to maximize their business impact and align their IT strategies with their organizational goals. SAP LeanIX is recognized for its ease of use, flexible reporting, and the ability to seamlessly integrate various data sources.

What features define SAP LeanIX?

Flexible Reporting: Enables personalized data views.
Ease of Use: A user-friendly interface similar to social networks.
Integration Capabilities: Extensive out-of-the-box options.
Real-Time Feedback: Facilitates instant data integration.
Application Portfolio Management: Comprehensive IT analysis.
Seamless ServiceNow Integration: Smooth data flow integration.

What benefits and ROI can users expect from SAP LeanIX?

Data Management: Efficient data capture and tagging.
Cost Optimization: Streamlines operations cost-effectively.
Dashboard Presentation: Enhances strategic decision-making.
Business Alignment: Aligns technology with business strategies.
Educational Resources: Provides valuable learning materials.

SAP LeanIX is implemented across industries to enhance enterprise architecture, application portfolio management, and business capability mapping. Its use extends into cloud governance, data flow analysis, and integration architecture, allowing multiple organizations to improve operational visibility and strategic planning. It also enables cataloging systems and app rationalization while linking capabilities for improved lifecycle management.

SAP LeanIX

Sample Customers

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

Bosch Rexroth, NSW Department of Education, Yamaha Motor Corporation, Tetra Pak, Deutsche Bahn, Flynn, SKF AB, NTT Group, Travis Perkins, SEEK, Haworth, Asahi Beverages, MediaMarktSaturn, KAO USA, Ørsted, The Mark Anthony Group of Companies, AmTrust, Banco Itaú Unibanco, SHL Medical,...

Buyer's Guide

LeanIX vs. erwin Data Modeler

September 2025

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