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Sparx Prolaborate vs erwin Evolve by Quest comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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 Evolve by Quest
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (19th)
Sparx Prolaborate
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
16th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Evolve by Quest is 2.7%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sparx Prolaborate is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

Asish Sahu - PeerSpot reviewer
The reverse engineering capabilities are quite useful.
Evolve is primarily focused on the entity's licenses diagrams, but it would be nice if erwin could integrate case development, so that it shows the ER diagram plus certain inputs on the use cases and how the data is used. That deviates somewhat from the overall scope, so maybe they could call it a different product.
Sastry Dhara - PeerSpot reviewer
Good extensibility, but there should be more cloud capabilities
Its extensibility is most valuable. There should be more cloud capabilities. We worked with this solution for two or three years. There are no stability issues. It is scalable. Their support is good. It was straightforward. I would rate it a seven out of ten. On-premises

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have not seen capabilities for web-sharing and interaction with the architecture from any other supplier. It's a great capability..."
"You can use different kinds of diagrams to represent the architecture setting."
"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."
"The feature that stands out for me is the ease of configuring objects and the screens to show them. It's really easy to add a new type of object in this reference. Creating a new type of object, using it, and evolving it a little bit in terms of what we can document about it are the main features that made us decide to use this provider."
"We use erwin Evolve to publish to the website. This allows us to enable publishing our website using parameterisation features. In a very fast, quick way, we can publish a table or chart onto a website."
"Forward and reverse engineering were valuable features."
"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."
"Sparx Prolaborate is user-friendly, easy to use, and has good documentation."
"What is really powerful in Sparx is the way in which you can model business processes. You can link business processes to organizational objectives. You can also take those business processes and link them to specific product features that you want to deliver."
"Its extensibility is most valuable."
"It allows us to give a better description of our project than using the written word."
"It is valuable to have diagrams available in real time."
 

Cons

"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."
"Evolve is primarily focused on the entity's licenses diagrams, but it would be nice if erwin could integrate case development, so that it shows the ER diagram plus certain inputs on the use cases and how the data is used. That deviates somewhat from the overall scope, so maybe they could call it a different product."
"They need to develop Evolve's user experience. For example, MEGA has a useful client view that helps with impact analysis. MEGA provides information about the processes, services, infrastructure, and portfolio of applications in one central view. It lets you see the periphery and relationships among components. This view is impressive, and Evolve doesn't have it."
"Add some ability to do conditional Visualization on the models and in reports (some ideas) – maybe as a specialized Theme or Diagram or Display."
"The way that we are using it for application management, we have several KPIs. We want to follow and monitor them regarding a number of solutions. We cannot calculate this today. We would like real-time calculations along with the KPIs in order to improve the user experience. We would like the tool to be able to display this, not only as signals, but as charts."
"I feel that the UML drawing capability needs to be improved."
"I would like it to be easier to make changes and then deploy them into production, especially when you have multiple web servers or front-ends. It would be nice to make a change and then have it propagate to the production servers in a more automated fashion."
"It could have had a more streamlined navigation. It seemed that when you went to the explorer panel, there were just so many different ways of doing the work that I could not remember, "How did I do this? How did I get to that point in that model to get back to it?" If I wanted to build a new one, where do I start? It just seemed like there was such a smorgasbord of ways of doing it that it was just overwhelming."
"In the next release, there should be more editable objects. We find Sparx Prolaborate very user-friendly, and having more features that are in the Enterprise Architect would be great, such as managing different versions of diagrams."
"The solution could offer different sources for design."
"The product is not very user-friendly."
"There should be more cloud capabilities."
"A lot of product teams use a lot of visualizations for mapping out the product roadmap, brainstorming, or understanding the vision of the product, but Sparx is not a great visualization tool. Sparx has to improve the way for visualizing processes, journeys, software designs, etc. It would really benefit the product management teams or even enterprise architects."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I estimate that we pay between $40,000 and $50,000 a year for the solution, not including the upfront costs to buy things the first time."
"The licensing enables you to differentiate between people who edit the content and the people who consume it. We are able to keep the licensing costs down by keeping the "contributor" licenses to a minimum, and we then just roll out the content in a read-only version for the rest of our users."
"The cost is something like $15,000, per license. But I haven't looked at those numbers in three years. It was over $100,000 to initially set everything up and get it all configured."
"Yearly, our cost is €100,000."
"On a yearly basis, our licensing costs are 50,000 euro. There are no additional costs because we are on a SaaS model."
"Unless you are a one person shop – always go with the Workgroup edition and Concurrent licensing."
"I think erwin is quite expensive. I have difficulty selling the portal, in fact."
"The price of Sparx Prolaborate is good."
"The product is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Real Estate/Law Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about erwin Evolve by Quest?
We can efficiently deploy business models into the databases and generate SQL scripts.
What needs improvement with erwin Evolve by Quest?
erwin Evolve by Quest could have additional features to manage the architecture of enterprises and businesses.
What do you like most about Sparx Prolaborate?
It allows us to give a better description of our project than using the written word.
What needs improvement with Sparx Prolaborate?
The product is not very user-friendly. It takes time to learn the concept. The user-friendliness and the learning curve must be improved. It takes quite a lot of time for experienced engineers to use.
What is your primary use case for Sparx Prolaborate?
We use the product primarily for model-based engineering.
 

Also Known As

erwin EA, erwin Business Process, erwin Enterprise Architecture
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AT&T, Bank of America, Chevron, Duke University, ESPN, Fidelity, GE, JP Morgan Chase, KPMG, McGraw Hill, NASA, Pfizer, Royal Bank of Scotland, Teradata, Union Pacific, Vodafone, Wells Fargo.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Sparx Prolaborate vs. erwin Evolve by Quest and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.