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Sparx Pro Cloud Server vs erwin Data Modeler comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 19, 2025

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
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (10th)
Sparx Pro Cloud Server
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
14th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 10.0%, down from 10.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sparx Pro Cloud Server is 0.5%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

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.
Pawel-Gawronski - PeerSpot reviewer
A cloud SaaS solution for collaboration with customer support
There could be improvement in connecting to and securing this connection. Spark is not up to date on its Insight dashboard compared to competitors, but this impacts the digital experience. It is important for the team to continue working on this tool without disruption. So maybe this is an area for improvement to have a better Insight.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"I have worked with erwin Data Modeler for quite some time and familiarity is its most valuable feature."
"The product allows us to reuse entities and attributes."
"It is a scalable solution...The technical support team is fine."
"What has been useful, I have been able to reverse engineer our existing data models to document explicitly referential integrity relationships, primary/foreign keys in the model, and create ERDs that are subject area-based which our clients can use when working with our databases. The reality is that our databases are not explicitly documented in the DDL with primary/foreign key relationships. You can't look at the DDL and explicitly understand the primary/foreign key relationships that exist between our tables, so the referential integrity is not easily understood. erwin has allowed me to explicitly document that and create ERDs. This has made it easier for our clients to consume our databases for their own purposes."
"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."
"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."
"The solution's most valuable feature is ArchiMate which I use daily."
"We have found the technical support to be helpful."
 

Cons

"The erwin Data Modeler is quite complex to use."
"The modeling product itself is far and above anything else that I've seen on the market. There are certain inconsistencies when it comes to keeping up with other platforms' databases in the reverse-engineering process. It should also support more database platforms."
"One of the best aspects of the tool is its reverse engineering capability."
"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."
"Although Quest Software has made tremendous strides in recent years, they need to evolve more in the big data arena; erwin Data Modeler could use a little more work when it comes to big database designs."
"The solution's reporting side needs to be improved."
"The solution's model mark could be better because it crashes sometimes."
"The reverse engineering in Oracle Databases needs improvement, as there are issues."
"The solution should allow easier access with enhanced customization options for web page DHTML."
"The user-friendliness could be even better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"erwin Data Modeler by Quest is an expensive solution."
"It is not a very expensive solution. Only the licensing and maintenance fee needs to be paid."
"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."
"Price-wise, erwin Data Modeler is okay. You can purchase a single license and it is not very expensive."
"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 has this option where you pay a one-time fee and you have the license for six years, which makes sense because I don't upgrade my database engine every other year. I have an application that depends on it. This is something weird about PowerDesigner. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"Though the solution is not cheap, it's worth the money."
"The solution's Ultimate Plan costs $399 per year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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?
The product is expensive. I rate the product’s pricing a nine out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
As a documenting tool, it's solid, though its reporting could be more robust. The reporting mechanisms could be more intuitive regarding report creation. It can generate reports in CSV files, displ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sparx Pro Cloud Server?
We're paying 15 dollars per user per month for large teams, which is more expensive than the competition, but it has more features, such as cloud VPN and testing. There is no other cost apart from ...
What needs improvement with Sparx Pro Cloud Server?
There could be improvement in connecting to and securing this connection. Spark is not up to date on its Insight dashboard compared to competitors, but this impacts the digital experience. It is im...
What is your primary use case for Sparx Pro Cloud Server?
Firstly, we use this solution to enable collaboration among our international teams. Our applications are in the cloud, and most issues are on AWS. We have a central place to store and work on our ...
 

Also Known As

erwin DM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

 Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Sparx Pro Cloud Server vs. erwin Data Modeler and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.