Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs erwin Data Modeler comparison

Quest Software and Sparx Systems are both solutions in the Enterprise Architecture Management category. Quest Software is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.3, while Sparx Systems is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.2. Quest Software holds a 10.0% mindshare in AM, compared to Sparx Systems’s 12.7% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Quest Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Sparx Systems users who would recommend it.

erwin Data Modeler

Read 39 erwin Data Modeler reviews

5,179 Views
3,574 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...

Read 99 Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect reviews

9,216 Views
3,779 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

erwin Data Modeler

Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 19, 2025

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and erwin Data Modeler are leading tools in the enterprise modeling and data modeling sectors. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect holds a slight advantage with its wide range of modeling capabilities and affordability, while erwin Data Modeler excels in data model management and visualization.

Features: Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is known for its UML 2 support, Archimate, and TOGAF capabilities, offering a comprehensive environment for business process modeling while supporting a collaborative relational database back-end. erwin Data Modeler specializes in logical data modeling, visualization, and robust versioning functionalities, capable of managing complex data integrations and generating detailed models.

Room for Improvement: Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect faces challenges with its user interface, alongside limited support for Archimate and collaborative functionalities, making customization and model element locking complex. erwin Data Modeler is criticized for UI limitations and cumbersome workflows, with difficulties adapting to newer databases and some inefficiencies in connectivity and reporting.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is adaptable across on-premises, public, and private clouds but receives mixed reviews on customer support speed. erwin Data Modeler predominantly serves on-premises users, with overall satisfaction in support responsiveness, although some mention issues with licensing management and lack of browser tools for non-engineers.

Pricing and ROI: Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is lauded for its cost-effectiveness and flexible licensing, offering significant ROI through productivity improvements. erwin Data Modeler is perceived as expensive but justifies its cost with a competitive feature set, though pricing can be prohibitive for smaller projects or individuals.

To learn more, read our detailed Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs. erwin Data Modeler Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs. erwin Data Modeler

July 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 865,295 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in Business Process Design

10th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

2nd

Ranking in Business Process Design

5th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

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 Systems Enterprise Architect is 12.7%, down from 17.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Architecture Management

Featured Reviews

JorgeSanz

Data Governance Senior Advisor at Abu Dhabi National Oil Company

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.

Read full review

Milan Sterba

Senior Enterprise Architect at Deepview S.r.o.

Efficient documentation generation through organized model structure with a good price-performance ratio

Whenever I begin a new project with Sparx, I have to spend time training people on how to use it since it is not straightforward. Although it's a powerful product with plenty of features, it's not easy for even experienced users to find their way without guidance. This is not the most user-friendly solution.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"The product lets us import different types of models from various databases."

"It is a scalable solution...The technical support team is fine."

"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."

"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."

"Forward engineering, DDL generation, reverse engineering, and reporting are the most valuable features of the solution."

"The product allows us to reuse entities and attributes."

"The logical model gives developers, as well as the data modelers, an understanding of exactly how each object interacts with the others, whether a one-to-many, many-to-many, many-to-one, etc."

More erwin Data Modeler pros

"Automated document generation is a real time saver, no more cut and paste, no more keeping track of which diagrams are in which reports, no more last minute update panics. Just click a mouse and you've got an up to date report."

"The solution saved a lot of time, about 30%."

"Sparx offers good flexibility."

"Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect supports multiple modeling languages like ArchiMate for database design, software lifecycle visualization, and team management."

"The platform is stable and reliable."

"The most valuable feature is the integrated data model, so if I change the name of an item, all models using that object are automatically updated."

"Ability to keep inventory of reusable blocks, and use in different diagrams with views of various templates."

"It's easy to search within the solution."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect pros

Cons

"The reverse engineering in Oracle Databases needs improvement, as there are issues."

"There is a lack of local support in the China region."

"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. This is despite the fact that we are clicking to bring objects from one place to another. Therefore, it's hard to tell at times if Complete Compare is working as intended without having to manually go into the details and check everything. If it could be redesigned to a degree where it is easier to use when we bring things over from one site to another and be sure that it's been done correctly, that would be nice to have. We would probably use the tool more often if the Complete Compare were easier to use."

"The erwin Data Modeler is quite complex to use."

"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."

"We can only get licenses through partners."

"The erwin ETL functionality has room for improvement when it comes to mapping databases with a classic entity-relationship model to a data warehouse model."

"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."

More erwin Data Modeler cons

"This solution is quite complex to use. It would be nice if the learning curve wasn't so steep."

"From a practical point of view, we need speed and reliability for creating a model and doing some really meaningful tasks such as application landscape, refactoring, etc. These are two primary criteria. Sometimes, when you import something, it creates the object duplicates, or it allows you to do something that you're not supposed to do. For example, validation is missing. This could be frustrating because when you work at a high speed, you need to come back and start fixing things that the tool allowed you to go with, which is not quite good. So, there should probably be some internal mechanisms to advise you about what you're doing and what is probably not the best idea."

"The window froze for five or ten seconds. You can click and click again and it takes a second to come up. It might have been specific to a version."

"I think the product is good. When I'm trying to do something specific for some part of project documentation, it's hard to get it figured out if you don't use it all the time. It's such a massive tool, it's hard to figure out how to dig in and get to the documentation where you have to be to get some idea of what to do. There are not a lot of examples that I'm aware of to be able to do that."

"The Business Process Modeling or BPM feature can be improved to make it more interactive and user friendly because it is a tool for technical people. My current use is only for business process modeling notation and putting in the icons etc. You need to take them in as a class, which makes things very complex. Because of this complexity, it is not an easy-to-handle solution. Enterprise Architect is not very good for mockups. We cannot create user screens and other similar kinds of stuff, which is bad. For these things, we prefer to use Axure RP and other similar solutions. They should either remove this feature from this product or provide some kind of connectivity with Axure RP so that people can do better mockups of screens and import them. They need to augment and strengthen the BPM feature, which is the main feature. They need to put in some elements like artificial intelligence and augmented reality. They should look into such features because these things are coming up."

"More challenging than other tools to maintain documents and document versions for an architecture board review."

"Because its easy to create diagrams one needs to be vigilant on the housekeeping of orphaned fragments - I have written my own scripts to do this, maybe they are available now."

"The product could be improved in terms of its ease of use and documentation. While it offers a lot of functionality, it can be difficult to grasp how to utilize these features effectively."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not a very expensive solution. Only the licensing and maintenance fee needs to be paid."

"The price should be lower in order to be on the same level as its competitors."

"The pricing of the solution is cheap. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."

"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."

"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 tool is expensive."

"There are two license options and the pricing is reasonable."

More erwin Data Modeler pricing and cost advice

"It's affordable. The only additional cost that we haven't yet figured out is the floating license. If you buy a floating license, you have to have a license management server, which comes at an additional cost that's not discussed. So, we haven't yet used the floating license. That’s because I haven't had a chance to figure that out."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"It is very economical and low cost. You have to pay for a one-time license, and it is active forever."

"The license I use is on-premise. We haven't gone to the cloud where we have to pay monthly or something like that. Sparx is cheaper than most similar tools."

"It's reasonably priced for large organizations."

"I use my own license. So, I just bought the professional version, which costs $800 or something like that. In the company where I am working, we have floating licenses. They are probably more expensive. Its licensing is affordable, but we are talking about a large organization, and there could be modelers or viewers of the models. We don't know how much that would cost us."

"It is cheaper than other solutions. Its cost is around $686 per year. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"Pricing and licensing are suitable even for small companies."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Architecture Management solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?

The stability has been good and satisfactory. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?

One of the reasons many public sector institutions in the Czech Republic use it is that it provides a very good price-performance ratio. While it might be cumbersome to learn, it still delivers exc...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?

See all answers

Comparisons

SAP PowerDesigner vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 36% of the time

IDERA ER/Studio vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 18% of the time

Lucidchart vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 12% of the time

Visio vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 6% of the time

AWS Well-Architected Tool vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 3% of the time

More erwin Data Modeler Competitors

Visual Paradigm vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 14% of the time

Visio vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 10% of the time

No Magic MagicDraw vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 9% of the time

Lucidchart vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 8% of the time

ARIS BPA vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 3% of the time

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

erwin Data Modeler

August 2025

Download erwin Data Modeler product report

Buyer's Guide

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

July 2025

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect report

Download Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect product report

Also Known As

erwin DM

No data available

Overview

Erwin Data Modeler provides an effective approach to visualizing and managing data models. It assists in creating, reversing, and synchronizing data models with ease, supporting logical and physical transitions while enhancing understanding across teams.

Erwin Data Modeler is a comprehensive tool designed for professional database management. It offers capabilities to organize and enforce standards, automating script generation with robust reverse engineering and DDL output. Users can manage complex data environments, capitalize on integration with data intelligence, and maintain large-scale databases smoothly. Despite its strengths, improvements in multi-language support, database integration, and reporting features are needed. Users benefit from extensive support for conceptual, logical, and physical database modeling, enhancing architectural design and data governance for platforms like SQL Server, Oracle, and Teradata.

What are the key features of Erwin Data Modeler?

Visual Representation: Facilitates clear visualization of data models, aiding comprehension.
Versioning and Editing: Enhance usability with versioning and bulk editing capabilities.
Reverse Engineering: Offers powerful tools for reverse engineering and DDL generation.
Integration: Aligns with data intelligence to streamline database management.
Naming Standards: Enforces consistency with automated script creation.

What benefits should users consider in Erwin Data Modeler reviews?

Collaboration: Promotes team understanding and collaboration through visual tools.
Automation: Reduces manual effort through automated processes and integration.
Scalability: Handles large database management efficiently, crucial for enterprise settings.
Data Governance: Facilitates effective data governance with structured modeling.

Erwin Data Modeler finds application in industries focused on robust data management, implementing it for enterprise data warehouses, business domain models, and operational systems. It supports architectural design and governance, aligning with business applications demanding precise data representation and visualization.

Quest Software

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is an enterprise solution that helps streamline, accelerate, and integrate software, system, and business development. With this intuitive modeling and design solution, enterprises can stay in control of their workplaces, enable collaboration, support their teams and colleagues, and manage complex projects. Software architects, business analysts, project managers, developers, support staff, and testers can unite under a single repository. Through numerous view points and potential sub-systems, users are offered a unified view in a complex environment.

With Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, users are also offered a shared model option which can be accessed quickly and securely by in-office and remote team members through the Enterprise Architect’s Pro Cloud Server. Building a coherent, verifiable model can be done by connecting and integrating a variety of behavioral and structural information in visual form. As a result, Enterprise Architect offers high performance, flexibility, and the ability to model, manage, and trace every stage of the business development and modeling process.

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Features

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect assists in creating a unified and accessible vision in business development by offering a flexible platform with a unique set of rich features. These features include:

Test and debug - Streamline software development and visualize software with the simulation process. Users can test and confirm correct behavior, set and oversee test points, and debug and examine software.

Track tasks - Track, prioritize, and assign individual and group tasks to assist in the model’s development. Users can visually monitor their progress through the Gantt chart.

Open standards - Users can visualize and analyze running software with integrated custom tools. They can also run advanced simulations, team-based repositories, testing tools, and version control. In addition, the solution supports enterprise architecture frameworks such as UPDM and TOGAF.

Simulation - Create and debug embedded solutions by simulating behaviors and state models. Users can specify events, triggers, constraints, and more. Users can also specify extensive and complex structural systems and create custom domain-specific solutions.

Reviews from Real Users

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect merges high-end tools, online availability, a dedication to open standards, and accessible pricing so enterprises can stay in control of their workplaces, whether remote or in-office. Users particularly like the architectural frameworks and the scalability.

Marc L., a principal architecture enterprise solution adviser at Cronomagic Canada, notes, "The product offers very good support for all mainstream modeling notations and architectural frameworks."

An enterprise architect at a manufacturing company writes, "Scalable solution for modeling, project sharing, and collaboration. Support for it is good."

Sparx Systems

Sample Customers

Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples

OmniLink

Buyer's Guide

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs. erwin Data Modeler

July 2025

Free Report: Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs. erwin Data Modeler

Find out what your peers are saying about Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs. erwin Data Modeler and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs. erwin Data Modeler report.

See our list of best Enterprise Architecture Management vendors and best Business Process Design vendors.

We monitor all Enterprise Architecture Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.