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Unifi 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
5.9
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (1st), Business Process Design (7th)
Unifi
Ranking in Data Governance
40th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (61st), Data Preparation Tools (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 0.5%. The mindshare of Unifi is 0.9%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
erwin Data Modeler0.5%
Unifi0.9%
Other98.6%
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.
Doug Isabelle - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at Doc-IT
Good management and pricing but not great for enterprise environments
In a high-density location, we're running into connectivity drops. There may be too many rouge devices broadcasting, and the devices is getting interference from another channel. The only to fix this is to reboot and we need something that reboots on the fly. We also need better security for VLANs and VPNs. There are issues with certain Apple devices. Technical support is not very helpful. The initial setup, which seemed straightforward at first, had to be redone. This may not have been the fault of the product. We're not sure what went wrong.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The most valuable features are being able to visualize the data in the diagrams and transform those diagrams into physical database deployments. These features help, specifically, to integrate the data. When the source data is accumulated and modeled, the target model is in erwin and it helps resolve the data integration patterns that are required to map the data to accommodate a model."
"It supports a wide variety of databases, including the latest ones. We have chosen to go for a cloud-based database, and it supports that, which is very useful."
"The solution is good for organizing the data and the scripting part is very powerful. It's easy to create technical scripts for models."
"If you want to have good data architecture, you need to have database design done."
"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."
"I have worked with erwin Data Modeler for quite some time and familiarity is its most valuable feature."
"Overall, erwin DM's support for Snowflake is very good."
"The controller makes it easy to control everything from one platform. The management is easy."
"It's easy to manage and supports the user, our guests, and our customers if they have a problem."
 

Cons

"In terms of new features, it would be great to have a cloud base. We should be able to put it on the cloud for better collaboration and data models sharing."
"The experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that the licensing process is painful and quite onerous."
"I find the UI very clunky and very difficult to use. If I add columns to a table the whole workflow could be so much easier. I get frustrated using it. I've tried other tools. I've tried to get off of erwin a few times. I always come back to it because every tool has its own set of problems, and it seems like if I have to pick my poison, I stay with erwin. But so many things that are clunky with it."
"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."
"We are planning to move, in 2021, into their server version, where multiple data modelers can work at the same time and share their models. It has become a pain point to merge the models from individual desktops and get them into a single data model, when multiple data modelers are working on a particular project. It becomes a nightmare for the senior data modeler to bring them together, especially when it comes to recreating them when you want to merge them."
"I would rate the visualization feature in erwin Data Modeler a six out of ten because the visualization is somewhat poor and some of the features are not user-friendly."
"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 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."
"There are issues with certain Apple devices."
"It's stable, but it depends on the office and location."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"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."
"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 tool is expensive."
"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."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"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."
"There is no license. The solution is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
Construction Company
20%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise42
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
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

 Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples
Big Incites, Cloudera, Flywheel Data, Hortonworks, MapR, Platfora, Qlik, Tableau Software, zData Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Unifi vs. erwin Data Modeler and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.