We performed a comparison between erwin Evolve by Quest, IBM Rational System Architect, and Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about LeanIX, Sparx Systems, erwin by Quest and others in Enterprise Architecture Management."The initial setup was really straightforward and the deployment was done within one day."
"The ability to share and collaborate on the solution is its most valuable feature."
"I can send images in the PDF form, along with the relationships and the associations that are a very important part of what we do. It can show what is affected and what is impacted by a certain change in one area of the system architecture or enterprise architecture. I can very quickly draw those issues and topics to the fore."
"Evolve is like a tank. You can do whatever you want with the solution, but you need to customize it. I think that it's not very aligned with the framework for enterprise architecture. MEGA is focused on these enterprise architectures, but it's only for that. With Evolve, you can do everything you want with professional services."
"You can use different kinds of diagrams to represent the architecture setting."
"I have not seen capabilities for web-sharing and interaction with the architecture from any other supplier. It's a great capability..."
"One of the most valuable features is the website that sits on top of the database. There's a database of objects and how they are related, and you can make views and diagrams and visual elements out of that information on the website. The website is the part that is called Evolve and we use the Evolve Designer and publish the website out to our employees. They can click around and navigate and search, etc."
"We can efficiently deploy business models into the databases and generate SQL scripts."
"The solution is pretty stable."
"The user interface is good. It's both clear and comprehensible. It's easy to work with."
"There are a lot of features I find valuable, but I think that the metamodel customization is one of the best features that the solution offers."
"We have seen ROI with this solution over the years that we have used it."
"The system provides powerful tools for obtaining reports and documentation."
"Its ease of use and the breadth of the toolkit are most valuable. It has an incredible repository of artifacts to work with, and they're all cross-referenced. It works with a whole bunch of different standards. It works with BPMN, which is Business Process Modeling Notation, and it also works with something called TOGAF, which is the Open Group Architecture Foundation. There are different layers when you're dealing with architecture. There is the user interface, application, data, data servers, and all that kind of stuff. You have the infrastructure, hardware, and software layers, and then you have the application and business capability layers. You can model a business process and decompose it into all of the applications, data, and hardware to support it."
"We could capture the process models around 24 countries with all their local variations."
"We have found the stability to be very reliable."
"It is simple to build the first model for the solution."
"The profiles and ready-made templates are an extremely helpful feature. This is one of the biggest features that I find very useful in Sparx."
"We can easily use it with our new customers."
"We use it to develop and maintain the Enterprise Conceptual Model, migrated from erwin a couple of years ago."
"I would like to see an improvement in the output of the solution."
"The solution's integration capabilities with other tools in our system has not been all that well done. We have people who use ARIS, who use System Architect and, of course, Visio. erwin has very limited ways to import and export from those kinds of tools. It's not a very easy thing to do."
"What they need to do is to consolidate more of their products. For example, I was just looking and I couldn't figure out what erwin DT is. It's on the website but it would help if they could put information together and make it more clear as to what products they have and how they work with other things."
"Add some ability to do conditional Visualization on the models and in reports (some ideas) – maybe as a specialized Theme or Diagram or Display."
"With the Excel importing, the "up to date" part is the challenge. If we had a real-time integration, we could keep things up to date for whatever kinds of change points we had. With Excel, it is more that you have to export from one system then import it to another, so it's better for data that doesn't change that often."
"They have improved the search engine a little bit but it can always be improved more. The more data you put inside it, the more you want to use it."
"erwin Evolve by Quest could have additional features to manage the architecture of enterprises and businesses."
"If it had fewer features to model all kinds of architecture, it would be less complicated."
"There needs to be more information at the outset about how to use the solution and how to deploy it. The deployment process needs improvement."
"The solution needs to better integrate with other products, like Microsoft."
"The reverse engineering of the database is already there, but in the next release I would like to see some pilot supplied with the solution in order to address any database."
"This solution can be more user-friendly and easier to use, with better dashboards."
"The stability and performance of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect could still be improved. Setup for it is also slightly complicated and could be improved."
"There should be a MATLAB-specific toolbox added to the solution with better compatibility. The connections currently are good but in the future, it needs a huge improvement."
"The reporting needs improvement."
"It can be improved in the area of shared documentation. The idea is that the architecture tool can call back to an enterprise asset, pull that information, and link that as a sub-artifact."
"It could be more user-friendly. The tools could be more simple to use. It's a very complex solution. Because I am a business analyst, I use these tools to manage requirements, and I make models in UML, BPMN, and ArchiMate, and it's complex. In the next release, I would like to see more integrations."
"This solution has some limitations from a business perspective."
"Even if there are web-based tools in the Enterprise Architecture tool ecosystem (like Prolaborate), the main modeling application is still a fat client application."
"When many users are accessing the system at the same time, Sparx slows down. It can't easily support a large team."
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