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OpenText ProVision vs erwin Data Modeler comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (4th), Data Governance (10th)
OpenText ProVision
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
25th
Average Rating
6.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (44th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 8.7%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText ProVision is 1.6%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
erwin Data Modeler8.7%
OpenText ProVision1.6%
Other89.7%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

Sushree Panigrahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Snowflake Data Engineer| Senior PLSQL Developer |Data Modeler|Assitant Vice Pre at Jp Morgan Chase & Co.
Data modeling has transformed regulatory reporting and collaboration across cloud environments
In erwin Data Modeler, areas that have room for improvement include performance improvements. I see that large models sometimes cause it to be slow when opening. Impact analysis can lag as well. Version control is another aspect. If we have developed a current version, it is not integrated with Git where we can easily compare different versions. UI modernization is also something we cannot utilize as it is primarily for development. Additionally, cloud-specific optimizations are needed when it comes to Snowflake or Databricks. When it comes to AI aspects, auto-suggestions for normalization or identifying primary, foreign, or surrogate keys are areas that can be improved.
reviewer1944672 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Director, Head of Process & Functional Architecture, Intelligent Automation at a real estate/law firm with 10,001+ employees
Good attribute attachment but problems with collaboration
I primarily use OpenText ProVision to create our end-to-end process repository and library for different parts of the organization, capturing the collaboration process to get the right inputs OpenText ProVision's best feature is the capability to attach a variety of attributes and extract and…

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 ability to compare and synchronize data sources with data models is fantastic."
"The accuracy and speed of the solution in transforming complex designs into well-aligned data sources make the cost of the tool worth it."
"Quest can create conceptual and physical data models to facilitate effective communication between business and IT. It can also integrate expertise from various engineering and database systems within your organization to enhance data management and administration."
"Sometimes you have an initial idea for a data model and when you try to design it in Erwin you realize that you were wrong in how you approached it."
"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."
"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 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 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."
"The stability of the product is very good."
"OpenText ProVision's best feature is the capability to attach a variety of attributes and extract and analyze that information."
"I like that all the features come as part of a standard license and that one license covers everything."
 

Cons

"Right now a person with erwin and Excel/VBA has the ability to make changes to models with the API if they also have rights to make changes to the model from erwin. It's a risk."
"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."
"We find erwin DM less valuable creating initial drafts and reverse-engineering databases and there are still a lot of extensions to the scripting language that are not included with the erwin product."
"Complete Compare is set up only to compare properties that are of interest to us, but some of the differences cannot be brought over from one version of the model to another."
"I would rate the visualization feature in erwin Data Modeler a six out of ten because the visualization is somewhat poor and some of the features are not user-friendly."
"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."
"As someone who has used it for a long time, I have seen stability vary from version to version."
"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."
"OpenText ProVision's collaboration management is quite complicated and difficult to use."
"There are a number of drawbacks. Mainly, the collaboration is lacking to some extent - at least when it comes to how we are using it."
"Integrating with or interfacing with other tools like data management tools would be very helpful."
"Lacks the ability to have your own in-house developments."
"My main complaint is that the solution is not open source in the sense that you can't have your own in-house developments."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is expensive."
"The price should be lower in order to be on the same level as its competitors."
"The primary reasons that erwin was selected were that it was much more affordable for us [than Embarcadero] and it was easily maintainable."
"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."
"Likewise, the solution is a little pricey."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"erwin is expensive compared to other solutions. We are paying almost $6,000 per seat a month."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Construction Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise45
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
The experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that the licensing process is painful and quite onerous. The setup is okay, but there is room for improvement.
What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
Regarding improvements, the first thing I would mention is that every release has some issues, some of which are related to current functionalities, which means they often seem not very well tested...
What is your primary use case for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
My main use case for erwin Data Modeler is to implement a single data architecture design department so everyone is using erwin Data Modeler for their data models to be a transactional application ...
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Also Known As

erwin DM
Metastorm ProVision
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

 Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples
Delta Technology, Export Development Canada, Rompetrol, Salt River Project, AMEC, U.S. Air Force, HP Consulting & Integration
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText ProVision vs. erwin Data Modeler and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.