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Zaloni Data Platform 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
5.7
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (1st), Business Process Design (4th)
Zaloni Data Platform
Ranking in Data Governance
41st
Average Rating
6.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Data Preparation Tools (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 0.4%. The mindshare of Zaloni Data Platform is 0.8%, 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 Modeler0.4%
Zaloni Data Platform0.8%
Other98.8%
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.
reviewer1476264 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Solid multi-ingestion tool but with poor exception handling
The major pain point with Zaloni is that their exception handling is not good. If any event happens (an event is when the job stops in the middle of the process), it doesn't tell you at which point it failed and it doesn't tell the operations team how they should take corrective actions unless you call Zaloni and then identify the issues. That is one issue. Another issue is that sometimes your jobs fail and if you run it a second time, it will go through. A third area it could be improved is the deployment process. When you want to deploy anything, it has a lot of manual processes. For example, you have to create your password in an encrypted format, and then you have to use a lot of manual deployment process. They should actually be building something else, like using Jenkins or automating their process. I have suggested to them that they have to improve their deployment process because they want everyone to run a manual deployment. It takes a lot of time, about half a day, for any single deployment. Then test it, then it might not work, and then reverting back is not easy because of the manual deployment process. I think in recent versions they added a lot of upgrades and additional features including a lot of integrations. Before it was just AWS, later they extended it to Azure. I'm not sure how they have extended it to GCP. It has some built-in features and a lot of improvements now because the UI and the features were not easy to navigate. Regarding showing the metrics, it's okay. I will say it's neither easy nor hard, there is whatever is required. Lastly, on the governance side, it's not very good. We faced some issues with the Ranger version. Ranger was an authentication tool on big data and Zaloni had some compatibility issues with the Ranger at that time. Later they said those are all going to be resolved, but at that time it had some issues. I'm not sure whether it was working with the Sentry or not.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The modeling product itself is far and above anything else that I've seen on the market."
"I have used most of the modeling tools available, but I found that erwin Data Modeler is the most suitable data modeling tool in our current industry."
"The solution’s ability to generate database code from a model for a wide array of data sources cuts development time from two weeks to one day or even hours."
"There is absolutely no problem with the stability."
"The product allows us to reuse entities and attributes."
"Erwin is by far the best tool I've ever used."
"The fitting model is very intuitive."
"We use the Forward and Reverse Engineering tools to help us speed things up and create things that would have to be done otherwise by hand. E.g., getting a database into a data model format or vice versa."
"You can create a lot of ingestions based on the file levels or based on the time."
"The entire need was to ingest it into big data and Zaloni was the fastest product to test and implement into production."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to map data and write workflows with logic inside them."
 

Cons

"I would like the solution to be more user-friendly to deploy."
"We find erwin DM less valuable creating initial drafts and reverse-engineering databases and there are still a lot of extensions to the scripting language that are not included with the erwin product."
"I would like to see improved reporting and, potentially, dashboards built on top of that."
"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 find the UI very clunky and very difficult to use."
"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."
"The Bulk Editor needs improvement."
"It has a very steep learning curve, limited support for NoSQL or streaming systems, and potentially a high licensing cost."
"The major pain point with Zaloni is that their exception handling is not good."
"When we have gone to the support team because something is wrong with the product, I would say that it has not been easy for them to sort things out and quickly give us a patch."
"The major pain point with Zaloni is that their exception handling is not good. If any event happens, it doesn't tell you at which point it failed and it doesn't tell the operations team how they should take corrective actions unless you call Zaloni and then identify the issues. That is one issue."
"Technical support is in need of improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The primary reasons that erwin was selected were that it was much more affordable for us [than Embarcadero] and it was easily maintainable."
"The solution is expensive."
"Price-wise, erwin Data Modeler is okay. You can purchase a single license and it is not very expensive."
"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 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."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
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 Enterprise38
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
ZDP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

 Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples
CDS Global, AIG,
Find out what your peers are saying about Zaloni Data Platform vs. erwin Data Modeler and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.