Visual Paradigm vs erwin Evolve by Quest comparison

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erwin Evolve by Quest

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

Erwin Evolve by Quest and Visual Paradigm compete in enterprise architecture and business process modeling. Data prefers erwin Evolve for pricing and customer support, while Visual Paradigm leads in feature richness.

Features: Erwin Evolve offers strong data governance tools and enterprise collaboration. It supports seamless architecture management. Visual Paradigm provides extensive modeling features, supports multiple standards, includes powerful simulation tools, and excels in UML support for broad modeling needs.

Room for Improvement: Erwin Evolve can enhance features related to documentation and visualization flexibility. An improvement in collaboration tools could enhance team interactions. Some users also desire more frequent updates for alignment with evolving standards. Visual Paradigm could improve its initial learning curve for new users. Enhancements to customer support responsiveness are suggested. Pricing transparency could be improved to offer clearer initial cost insights.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Erwin Evolve integrates well with existing IT environments, simplifying deployment, and is praised for responsive customer service. Visual Paradigm's flexible cloud-based model offers scalable solutions, though its customer service, while adequate, falls short in keeping pace with erwin Evolve.

Pricing and ROI: Erwin Evolve is noted for competitive pricing with good ROI. Its core functionalities provide value. Visual Paradigm appears costly upfront but offers broad features that give good returns, especially for companies requiring comprehensive modeling tools. The choice depends on specific business needs and budget.

To learn more, read our detailed Visual Paradigm vs. erwin Evolve by Quest Report (Updated: June 2025).

Visual Paradigm vs. erwin Evolve by Quest

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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 Business Process Design

19th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Architecture Management (12th)

Visual Paradigm

Ranking in Business Process Design

8th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of erwin Evolve by Quest is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Visual Paradigm is 5.8%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Process Design

Featured Reviews

Asish Sahu

SPM at Infosys

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.

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Angie Ibrahim Eissa

Founder & Managing Partner at BBL

A software application designed for software development teams to model business information systems and manage development processes

Setting up Visual Paradigm is easy. There's hardly any configuration needed, unlike some other tools. You just choose your method and diagram type, and you're good to go. As for improvements, integrating project management features with diagrams could be better. Viewing outputs could also be smoother, especially when working with multiple files.Deployment is quick and painless. It practically takes no time at all to set up. And because I also teach at the university, I use Visual Paradigm for my classes and case studies. It's easy to switch between products, and my students have no trouble using it on their own.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

"By placing the data and the metadata into a model, which is what the tool does, you gain the abilities for linkages between different objects in the model, linkages that you cannot get on paper or with Visio or PowerPoint. That is a huge discriminator."

"You can use different kinds of diagrams to represent the architecture setting."

More erwin Evolve by Quest pros

"The Visual Paradigm business process forms for designing we good. There was not a lot of configuration for the process diagram."

"Visual Paradigm allowed me to create UML diagrams efficiently."

"The pricing model is attractive."

"What I found most valuable in Visual Paradigm is diagramming. I had a great user experience as diagramming in the tool is easy and convenient, even for complex diagrams or models. Visual Paradigm is the perfect tool for me, and I prefer it over Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect. Visual Paradigm is better for collaboration if you consider, for example, versioning, so this is another valuable tool feature that's simple and embedded in the solution. In Visual Paradigm, it's also easy to set up the project with team members and collaborate, and it's also a pro of the tool."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"Visual Paradigm is simple and easy to use."

"It is easy and intuitive to use, not excessively rigid, and quite flexible."

"The initial setup is extremely straightforward."

More Visual Paradigm pros

Cons

"erwin Evolve by Quest could have additional features to manage the architecture of enterprises and businesses."

"Business process modelling could be improved."

"There might be improvement required to better support some of the MPP databases for non-relational data structures and NoSQL databases."

"I feel that the UML drawing capability needs to be improved."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More erwin Evolve by Quest cons

"Visual Paradigm is much better now. But each project has its own challenges, which is why I'm exploring different tools for my new projects. For instance, designing reports can be tough, especially with the costly intervention of professional services from vendors."

"Visual Paradigm's initial deployment was difficult since we did it for the first time. It is challenging to learn to use the product."

"In terms of room for improvement in Visual Paradigm, I tried looking for one. I'm pleased with the tool, but it would be great if you could integrate Visual Paradigm with more tools. For example, when moving from Visual Paradigm to another tool, such as Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, the process could be improved a bit. Still, I wonder if it's not limited by the standards Visual Paradigm follows, such as XMI files. It could be connected to limitations related to the standards rather than a tool limitation. When you move projects from Visual Paradigm into Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect via XMI files, you lose all your notes from the elements, so this is an area for improvement in Visual Paradigm. TOGAF support is an additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of Visual Paradigm. I'd also like the tool to have ArchiMate support. If both TOGAF and ArchiMate could be supported in Visual Paradigm and made part of a lower level of licensing or cheaper licensing models, that would be best for me."

"I would like to see the ability to easily export to groupware, such as Atlassian Confluence."

"There is a certain inherent complexity when creating UML diagrams."

"For me, what needs improvement in Visual Paradigm is the limited features included in the $99 license, which is the cheapest option. If more features could be included in the cheapest licensing package, Visual Paradigm would be better, especially for businesses that have a limited budget for buying software."

"The solution's technical support can be improved and accessible for our company location since Visual Paradigm follows a remote support model with some challenges."

"The solution is not user-friendly. It uses a lot of memory and CPU. You have to have a good computer to use it."

More Visual Paradigm cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Yearly, our cost is €100,000."

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

"On a yearly basis, our licensing costs are 50,000 euro. There are no additional costs because we are on a SaaS model."

"I rate the pricing a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."

"Visual Paradigm's pricing is not expensive."

"This product is fairly cheap, but if you want more complex features, e.g. integration with other products, it does require an additional cost."

"Pricing for Visual Paradigm is a four out of five for me. I'm happy with its pricing."

"Compared to other solutions such as IBM Rational which is expensive, This solution is priced low."

"Over the years I've seen an increase in price, and it makes it difficult for a single person company, like me, to decide whether to extend the license."

"I rate Visual Paradigm's pricing a five out of ten."

"The pricing of Visual Paradigm is very appropriate and affordable. There are no hidden costs involved."

More Visual Paradigm pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business Process Design solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What advice do you have for others considering erwin Evolve?

I rate erwin Evolve by Quest a nine out of ten.

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 Visual Paradigm?

The solution is the best application for data modeling. It helps to architect business processes. Its best features are pricing and functionality.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Visual Paradigm?

I purchased Visual Paradigm on my own, and it was competitively priced, so I was fine with the pricing.

What needs improvement with Visual Paradigm?

The product can always get better as the industry changes, however, I didn't necessarily feel it was lacking for what I did with it.

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Product Reports

erwin Evolve by Quest

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Download Visual Paradigm product report

Also Known As

erwin EA, erwin Business Process, erwin Enterprise Architecture

No data available

Overview

erwin is used by more than 50,000 professionals in 60+ countries to get big results from their enterprise data initiatives. erwin is the #1 choice in virtually every industry, from government and healthcare to retail and finance.

erwin Modeling provides a collaborative environment to manage enterprise data through an intuitive, graphical interface. With a centralized view of key data definitions, you can leverage information as a strategic asset and more efficiently manage your data resources to save time and money.

erwin by Quest

Visual Paradigm is a UML tool. The tool is designed for a wide range of users including software engineers, system analysts, business analysts and system architects, or for anyone who is interested in reliably building large-scale software systems using an object-oriented approach. In addition, Visual Paradigm supports the latest standards of UML notation.

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.

Adobe, Apple, at&t, Caterpillar, Intel, NASA, Nokia, Toyota

Visual Paradigm vs. erwin Evolve by Quest