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OvalEdge 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
Ranking in Data Governance
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (1st), Business Process Design (5th)
OvalEdge
Ranking in Data Governance
26th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 0.4%. The mindshare of OvalEdge is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
erwin Data Modeler0.4%
OvalEdge0.7%
Other98.9%
Data Governance
 

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.
AzhagarasanAnnadorai - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder at Kaizentric Technologies Private Limited
Enables comprehensive data governance with role-based access and directory integration
The UI is straightforward for technical users with organized features under different modules like data catalog and business glossary. The role-based access control and integration with the directory system allow strict governance and limited user access. The APIs are comprehensive, enabling integration with other systems even for creating virtual data catalogs.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The biggest lesson I have learned from erwin is the old cliche, that a picture is worth a thousand words, and when a person asks for a set of tables and they actually see that diagram visually, it really assists in any meeting that you will have."
"Overall, erwin DM's support for Snowflake is very good."
"If you want to have good data architecture, you need to have database design done."
"This tool is beneficial to any organization as it is foundational; there is no better way than this, and it is a must-have for every organization, whether large or small."
"erwin has versioning so you can keep versions, over time, of those models and you can compare any version to any version. If you're looking at a specific database and you want to see what changed over time, that's really useful. You can go back to a different version or connect that to your change-control processes so you can see what was released when."
"It improved the way we were able to manage our models."
"The principal feature that I liked is that the solution has a very graphic interface."
"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."
"Over time, OvalEdge has improved significantly."
"The UI is straightforward for technical users with organized features under different modules like data catalog and business glossary."
 

Cons

"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."
"One of the best aspects of the tool is its reverse engineering capability."
"As erwin Data Modeler files get larger, the response time really slows down, and when I have multiple files open I sometimes get a glitch where a lot of the text fields get solid black and the first eight characters of column names might be blacked out with a rectangle."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"The lack of connectivity to mainframe systems and the complexity of integration are areas needing improvement."
"The lack of connectivity to mainframe systems and the complexity of integration are areas needing improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is expensive."
"There are two license options and the pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"Price-wise, erwin Data Modeler is okay. You can purchase a single license and it is not very expensive."
"erwin is expensive compared to other solutions. We are paying almost $6,000 per seat a month."
"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 primary reasons that erwin was selected were that it was much more affordable for us [than Embarcadero] and it was easily maintainable."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Performing Arts
5%
Construction Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise38
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
I have no idea about the setup cost because I did not buy the license.
What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
The UI in erwin Data Modeler can be improved significantly because when any new person opens the tool, all the toolbars are kept open with many tools in view, making it appear chunky. If possible, ...
What is your primary use case for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
I primarly use erwin Data Modeler for modeling purposes. Once we have the business requirement, we create the models in erwin Data Modeler, and then we perform forward engineering to get the query ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OvalEdge?
The pricing is affordable compared to other tools, and we opted for 500 user license.
What needs improvement with OvalEdge?
The lack of connectivity to mainframe systems and the complexity of integration with legacy data systems are areas needing improvement. Advanced jobs require extra training and fine-tuning, making ...
What is your primary use case for OvalEdge?
GDPR compliance and enabling users to understand the transformation of data from one database to another. It is used mainly as a data catalog for data discovery, allowing users to understand the da...
 

Also Known As

erwin DM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

 Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples
Beaumont CHKD, UpWork, Pon, Rakuten, Verbund, Globe, Naranja
Find out what your peers are saying about OvalEdge vs. erwin Data Modeler and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.