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Lucidchart vs erwin Data Modeler comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (3rd), Business Process Design (9th), Data Governance (14th)
Lucidchart
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Mind Mapping Software (2nd), Visual Collaboration Platforms (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

erwin Data Modeler and Lucidchart aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. erwin Data Modeler is designed for Enterprise Architecture Management and holds a mindshare of 8.8%, down 10.7% compared to last year.
Lucidchart, on the other hand, focuses on Mind Mapping Software, holds 24.8% mindshare, up 21.6% since last year.
Enterprise Architecture Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
erwin Data Modeler8.8%
LeanIX13.1%
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect11.3%
Other66.8%
Enterprise Architecture Management
Mind Mapping Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Lucidchart24.8%
Visio29.6%
draw.io16.0%
Other29.599999999999994%
Mind Mapping Software
 

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.
Michael Verruto - PeerSpot reviewer
Visual approach facilitates clarity and process efficiency in complex real estate tasks
I haven't done much with Lucidchart's integration with other popular apps such as Teams, though one of my colleagues mentioned it can be added. This has sparked my interest to look into integration with Excel and Word, though we haven't implemented these features yet in our less than a year of operation. I access Lucidchart from multiple devices, including iPhone, iPad, and PC desktop. Our PCs are all laptops, so we can work remotely. I've collaborated with people from home on my iPad while they were on their laptop, though this isn't our routine behavior. I would recommend Lucidchart to others, but I'd also recommend exploring other options. It depends on what your fit and feel is for what you're trying to accomplish. For heavy users or technical users, Lucidchart might be very appealing. It has more capabilities than I'm currently using. The Highway Bridge Maintenance group, who are familiar with Agile processes, speak positively about it. For average users, they might find similar functionality in Miro or other less expensive alternatives. Overall Rating: 9 out of 10

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."
"One of the best aspects of the tool is its reverse engineering capability."
"We use the Forward and Reverse Engineering tools to help us speed things up and create things that would have to be done otherwise by hand. E.g., getting a database into a data model format or vice versa."
"It provides flexibility with the code. You can change the code as you want. Basically, you can change SQL based on what's best for your project."
"The solution's ability to compare and synchronize data sources with data models is fantastic. We use it for that on a regular basis to make sure that changes haven't been made to the database outside of the modeling process. I can take existing databases and reverse engineer them and understand their structure within 15 minutes. If I didn't have Data Modeler it would take hours. It increases our productivity and helps in understanding our legacy application."
"It allows us to create logical data models. We can represent a database model in business terms, which is very useful for us."
"They have a lot of features and the most up-to-date technology integration, which I haven't seen in other products."
"The most valuable features are being able to visualize the data in the diagrams and transform those diagrams into physical database deployments. These features help, specifically, to integrate the data. When the source data is accumulated and modeled, the target model is in erwin and it helps resolve the data integration patterns that are required to map the data to accommodate a model."
"The interface is really good and it is very easy to use."
"I love the simplicity and how clean all the different boxes, arrows, and charts can be. Especially with something complicated like our sales flow, it could be really easy to be all cluttered and everything like that, but my favorite feature is how clean it is, how straightforward it makes our flow look, and how easy it is to understand. Lucidchart accommodates both Mac and PC users which is important to us because at my company right now, our sales floor and then every other computer we have as a company is a Mac, but a lot of our employees actually have PCs and Android as well. So it's really beneficial because if we're ever on the go or we need to make a change, it's versatile and is open for both Mac and PC."
"The ability for Lucidchart to create database schemas or modify existing data structures is strong. That's what I initially introduced it for in our organization. The script that Lucidchart provides works with other systems like Oracle, SQL Server, and Postgres that I can copy-paste, and get a quick dump of metadata and import into has saved me a ton of steps that I didn't have to manually create these tables. I had a lot of things where I still had to put in the linkages between tables, but I didn't have to type in every field name, every data type, and everything else that came in. That saved me tons of time."
"I like how all the contacts in my chart are linked to LinkedIn. That's what makes it really easy for outreach and for making sure we have all the contacts right there in front of us when we need to."
"In general, the usability is great. You have a ton of customization options with different colors, different borders, different thicknesses of lines, different types of arrows, et cetera. There's so much variety. You can really make a chart with all sorts of color-coding, and color charts in different colors, link them together, for example, or use different types of arrows for different types of links between the chart elements. That variety, while not a specific feature, is really useful. If you want to make a chart, you can basically do anything."
"The collaboration, hands-down, is the top feature. It is valuable because our company doesn't believe in working in silos... While I may be the one leading the efforts, it's very important that my team gets buy-in on decisions being made when we're designing. It's critical, especially in this virtual environment, when we're not in an office to have a team meeting and able to whiteboard something. Lucidchart is an extremely useful tool for our team."
"Lucidchart's ability to create a visualization that people prefer to look at, over reading written documents, has definitely saved me a lot of time. Moreover, it has helped to make my code bug-free because I no longer have broken endpoints."
"It gives information about the roles and responsibilities of any architecture system and the exact system flow, business flow, or process flow. It also gives information about how the development team should take it forward. It shows the gap analysis in the flow charts and makes it easy to define the actor and his roles and responsibilities in the organization."
 

Cons

"This is a very complex product."
"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."
"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 can only get licenses through partners."
"I would like the solution to be less rigid in terms of its theory."
"As someone who has used it for a long time, I have seen stability vary from version to version."
"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 really like to be able to set default appearance settings for new documents because I have a set of appearance settings that I always use. I end up setting that manually every time. There may be a way to do that, and maybe I am not able to find it. This is my only major point of feedback for improvement. There are other little nitpicky things, such as being able to lock layers without them looking like a big red line around them would be nice, but every graphic design software does that, so I understand why they have that. All my concerns are nitpicks. They're not big."
"When you want to add text to a connector arrow, I have not figured out how to position the text vertically. It always wants the text to stay horizontal."
"They could provide more documentation or tutorials of ERDs or DDD on the Lucidchart site. That could be better."
"I wish there were a lot more automations. For instance, if I'm using a project management software to list out all my WBS [work breakdown structure] I wish Lucidchart had the functionality where it would take all the numbering and generate a tree diagram. Something like that would help so much, but right now it's still a manual task..."
"There is a premium for the use of certain elements in Lucidchart... It becomes very annoying, especially if you are a first-time user of Lucidchart and you don't have a premium plan. It feels a little too restrictive, in terms of using very basic shapes and icons. It asks you to sign-up for the premium account, which I think shouldn't be the case."
"It would be nice to be able to import not just contacts from Salesforce but also leads. In the beginning, when I was still learning the ropes and my way around it, I couldn't find such an option. There might be an option, but I just don't know about it."
"One downside is that you can only modify things online, but when you download work, you download it as an image. It would be useful to have an option to modify it locally."
"They should make it more user-friendly. The only option is either to use the existing template with already existing colors and gradients. If you want to do custom colors and gradients, then it's too complicated to use and should be simplified."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of the solution is cheap. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"Though the solution is not cheap, it's worth the money."
"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."
"erwin Data Modeler by Quest is an expensive solution."
"Pricing is very high compared to any other product."
"erwin is expensive compared to other solutions. We are paying almost $6,000 per seat a month."
"I'm happy with the pricing of Lucidchart but I can't say I'm completely happy with it. It could be cheaper for what it offers, about $5 cheaper, or Lucid could charge $5 more and add more features, like automation. Right now, it's $15 per user per month... On the other hand, they have made their billing super-easy for users, such as for people who have to do expense reports. It is probably the easiest platform I'm using when it comes to billing for software as a service."
"The price and licensing are good."
"I was using the paid version, but at $12 USD per month, I canceled the plan because it was a little bit too expensive for me."
"The licensing is pretty cost-effective but I haven't considered it on an enterprise level."
"Pricing-wise, it is pretty fair. I don't really know what group pricing looks like, but right now, I pay $10 a month for my Lucid subscription. One thing I would say is that I do worry about my bosses being okay with paying $10 a month for every single employee because we would have around 20 people. It makes me a little nervous about whether they are going to pay $200 a month for people to be able to use this software. At the same time, from where I'm sitting, it's totally worth it. We save a thousand dollars from using this software. It's still a no-brainer."
"I was using the free version of Lucidchart, which was very helpful."
"I have a subscription as an individual user for one year, and it is not expensive."
"We chose Lucid based on the price comparison between it and draw.io... Lucidchart was about 15 percent cheaper per user... I was surprised to learn that it came with a separate subscription model and was not included in my existing Lucidchart subscription."
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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
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise21
 

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?
I do not recall the pricing from about a year and a half ago, but it seems reasonable.
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...
LucidChart vs LucidSpark for brainstorming sessions over Zoom
Hi @Krista Thompson ​ - Yes, LucidSpark is a much more nimble and, in some ways, user-friendly tool than LucidChart. LucidSpark is designed to do a better job managing multiple users participating ...
Do you recommend Lucidchart?
I definitely recommend Lucidchart. I feel it is one of the top visual collaboration platforms that’s available on the market. Out of all the solutions I have tried, it is by far the best for diagra...
What needs improvement with Lucidchart?
The system is a bit clumsy when it comes to stylizing to match corporate imaging styles. In real estate, we need everything to have the same look and feel as our materials. Beyond dropping a logo i...
 

Also Known As

erwin DM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

 Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples
Google, Salesforce, Adobe, Whirlpool, Uber, Wal Mart, Pearson, Twitch, Riot Games, Western Union, Trimble, Starbucks
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP LeanIX, Sparx Systems, Quest Software and others in Enterprise Architecture Management. Updated: September 2025.
868,759 professionals have used our research since 2012.