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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
48
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (6th), Data Governance (9th)
SAP Enterprise Architecture...
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 8.3%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer is 1.5%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
erwin Data Modeler8.3%
SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer1.5%
Other90.2%
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 fitting model is very intuitive."
"The product allows us to reuse entities and attributes."
"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."
"They have a lot of features and the most up-to-date technology integration, which I haven't seen in other products."
"Currently in the market, there is no competitor to erwin Data Modeler; everything is very powerful, such as performing reverse engineering from an existing database and deploying that on Databricks or Snowflake."
"The generation of DDL saved us having to write the steps by hand. You still had to go in and make some minor modifications to make it deployable to the database system. However, for the data lineage, it is very valuable for tracing our use of data, especially personal confidential data through different systems."
"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."
"One of the best aspects of the tool is its reverse engineering capability."
"Traceability is a fantastic feature."
 

Cons

"I would like the solution to be more user-friendly to deploy."
"The erwin Data Modeler is quite complex to use."
"There is a lack of local support in the China region."
"I would like to see the ability to support more NoSQL platforms more quickly. In addition, enhancing the graphics to render more quickly would be beneficial for any user."
"Erwin Data Modeler is a good product, but I recently experienced a problem where I was not able to open an erwin Data Modeler file because its version had automatically changed."
"I am not so happy with its speed. Sometimes, it can have problems with connections."
"erwin generally fails to successfully reverse engineer our Oracle Databases into erwin data models. The way that they are engineered on our side, the syntax is correct from an Oracle perspective, but it seems to be very difficult for erwin to interpret. What I end up doing is using Oracle Data Modeler to reverse engineer into the Oracle data model, then forward engineer the DDL into an Oracle syntax, and importing that DDL into erwin in order to successfully bring in most of the information from our physical data models. That is a bit of a challenge."
"While I do not have knowledge about pricing for erwin Data Modeler, I think it could improve by having a feature that allows the publishing of models, similar to how Power BI allows for dashboard publishing for different users within an organization, not just data modelers."
"The algorithm is outdated and should be upgraded."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"erwin is expensive compared to other solutions. We are paying almost $6,000 per seat a month."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"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 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."
"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."
"The price of erwin Data Modeler is very expensive, in particular for this part of the world."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Performing Arts
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise35
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?
As we all know, AI is taking up a majority of things. I felt that erwin Data Modeler is a bit of an outdated tool. It needs a new look and integrating AI into it would be much better for learning. ...
What is your primary use case for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
For erwin Data Modeler, the use case was to create a data model for the organization. It articulates how data flows throughout the organization. For example, we have an employee table with two type...
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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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