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SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer vs erwin Data Modeler comparison

 

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
50
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (7th), Data Governance (10th)
SAP Enterprise Architecture...
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
23rd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 8.0%, down from 10.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer is 1.5%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
erwin Data Modeler8.0%
SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer1.5%
Other90.5%
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.
Artur Chyziewicz - PeerSpot reviewer
Co-Owner at Edusolution s.c.
Great training available with traceability a key feature
I use this solution to model enterprise software architecture. We are customers of SAP and an educational organization in Poland.  Traceability is a fantastic feature.  They should upgrade the algorithm. The solution currently has an old algorithm and there are now free tools on the market that…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best features of erwin Data Modeler include the forward engineering tool, which gives you the schema according to the data model that you generate."
"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."
"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."
"They have a lot of features and the most up-to-date technology integration, which I haven't seen in other products."
"The tool is also very intuitive and easy to use."
"The ability to collaborate between different members across the organization is the most valuable feature. It gives us the ability to work on the same model, regardless of where we are physically."
"There is absolutely no problem with the stability."
"The most valuable features are the ability to reverse engineer and do model comparison. With the reverse engineering, I can understand the databases from third-party products. With the model comparison, I can track the differences between two versions of the same database."
"Traceability is a fantastic feature."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"There are some bugs here and there. The default code that comes with the customizable packages is a bit buggy on some platforms such as PostgreSQL."
"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 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."
"What I did not like was that sometimes while I was creating relations, I was not getting errors. The errors only appeared when I tried to upload the model into a new database, which took a lot of time because I was creating a model, reproducing XML, and then trying to add the XML in the database."
"The interface must be improved."
"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 algorithm is outdated and should be upgraded."
"The solution currently has an old algorithm and there are now free tools on the market that offer better options for drawing algorithms."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is very high compared to any other product."
"Though the solution is not cheap, it's worth the money."
"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."
"The tool is expensive."
"The primary reasons that erwin was selected were that it was much more affordable for us [than Embarcadero] and it was easily maintainable."
"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 are two license options and the pricing is reasonable."
"erwin is expensive compared to other solutions. We are paying almost $6,000 per seat a month."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise40
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 ...
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Also Known As

erwin DM
SAP EA Designer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

 Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples
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Find out what your peers are saying about Quest Software, SAP, SAP LeanIX and others in Enterprise Architecture Management. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.