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Lucidchart vs erwin Evolve 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 Evolve
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (11th), Business Process Design (19th)
Lucidchart
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Mind Mapping Software (2nd), Visual Collaboration Platforms (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

erwin Evolve and Lucidchart aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. erwin Evolve is designed for Enterprise Architecture Management and holds a mindshare of 2.8%, down 2.9% compared to last year.
Lucidchart, on the other hand, focuses on Mind Mapping Software, holds 24.8% mindshare, up 21.6% since last year.
Enterprise Architecture Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
erwin Evolve2.8%
LeanIX13.1%
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect11.3%
Other72.8%
Enterprise Architecture Management
Mind Mapping Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Lucidchart24.8%
Visio29.6%
draw.io16.0%
Other29.599999999999994%
Mind Mapping Software
 

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.
Michael Verruto - PeerSpot reviewer
Visual approach facilitates clarity and process efficiency in complex real estate tasks
I haven't done much with Lucidchart's integration with other popular apps such as Teams, though one of my colleagues mentioned it can be added. This has sparked my interest to look into integration with Excel and Word, though we haven't implemented these features yet in our less than a year of operation. I access Lucidchart from multiple devices, including iPhone, iPad, and PC desktop. Our PCs are all laptops, so we can work remotely. I've collaborated with people from home on my iPad while they were on their laptop, though this isn't our routine behavior. I would recommend Lucidchart to others, but I'd also recommend exploring other options. It depends on what your fit and feel is for what you're trying to accomplish. For heavy users or technical users, Lucidchart might be very appealing. It has more capabilities than I'm currently using. The Highway Bridge Maintenance group, who are familiar with Agile processes, speak positively about it. For average users, they might find similar functionality in Miro or other less expensive alternatives. Overall Rating: 9 out of 10

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"You can use different kinds of diagrams to represent the architecture setting."
"The most valuable features for us are impact analysis, where I can easily visualize the impact of change."
"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."
"The initial setup was really straightforward and the deployment was done within one day."
"We can efficiently deploy business models into the databases and generate SQL scripts."
"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."
"Evolve's reverse engineering ability is quite useful."
"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."
"The swimlanes feature is one that I use a lot. I have used swimlane diagrams to create business process flows and I think that it does the job pretty well."
"The organizational charts for visualizing and understanding team hierarchies and relationships are the reason why we purchased the package that would allow me to do more with it. I tried to find all the cheap ways to do things but the ease of access and the already preset structure that Lucidchart had in place made it easier. Out of all the choices that I saw come across my desk, Lucidchart was the best and easiest choice."
"The ability to have more than one person editing at the same time is the most valuable feature. You can have one diagram and have multiple users on it at the same time. We haven't been able to do that on other software. So that's the main reason we moved to Lucidchart."
"I love the simplicity and how clean all the different boxes, arrows, and charts can be. Especially with something complicated like our sales flow, it could be really easy to be all cluttered and everything like that, but my favorite feature is how clean it is, how straightforward it makes our flow look, and how easy it is to understand. Lucidchart accommodates both Mac and PC users which is important to us because at my company right now, our sales floor and then every other computer we have as a company is a Mac, but a lot of our employees actually have PCs and Android as well. So it's really beneficial because if we're ever on the go or we need to make a change, it's versatile and is open for both Mac and PC."
"Lucidchart's capabilities for visualizing and understanding process flows or workflows is excellent. The way that you put together the parts of charts and edit the chart are all very intuitive and easy to use."
"In general, this product has improved our organization because it makes accessing up-to-date processes and planning a lot easier."
"The wireframe and mock-up features have been the most useful so far. It's easy to create the mock-ups and then communicate to our development team what they need to look like. Lucidchart's capabilities for visualizing and understanding process flows or workflows is very good as well. I'm able to easily use any style of box that I need to create on a flowchart, to effectively communicate to our development team."
"The ease of creating some of the maps and diagrams is most valuable. Lucidchart is just simpler and works more intuitively than other solutions that I have used in the past, such as Microsoft Visio. I am not in a creative role, but I know how to use Adobe Illustrator and other solutions like that. If I need to map out something that I've never mapped out before, and it is going to need a totally custom graphic, eight times out of 10, I'm going to go to Lucidchart rather than trying to build it in Illustrator. Its intuition and flexibility are really big features for me."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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."
"There might be improvement required to better support some of the MPP databases for non-relational data structures and NoSQL databases."
"I would like to see an improvement in the output of the solution."
"Business process modelling could be improved."
"erwin Evolve by Quest could have additional features to manage the architecture of enterprises and businesses."
"I feel that the UML drawing capability needs to be improved."
"As far as I know, LucidChart can’t be automated with Visual Basic .Net like Visio."
"They could provide more documentation or tutorials of ERDs or DDD on the Lucidchart site. That could be better."
"In terms of improvement, there can be more templates. There are good templates but there could still be more."
"It would be nice to have more features that help me visually present information. Since I use it as a canvas, my use case for it is probably very specific. I use it as a way to present information to people visually on a large mind map. So, it would be nice to be able to have more graphical things to clean it up, like a header, banners, or something to help draw attention to certain areas. I would also like more infographic-like features, because I am kind of limited to float chart shapes. This makes the solution a little cumbersome."
"When you want to add text to a connector arrow, I have not figured out how to position the text vertically. It always wants the text to stay horizontal."
"The flowcharting feature would be improved if it had some kind of prediction capability that helped to create the diagrams, such as the ability to automatically join components with my database."
"They should make it more user-friendly. The only option is either to use the existing template with already existing colors and gradients. If you want to do custom colors and gradients, then it's too complicated to use and should be simplified."
"One of the things that I find frustrating is that all of our Tableau information is on a server, so when I send that out people can't open it and use it. I then have to go back and do extra work to convert everything into an Excel format that everybody can use. It would be really important to me, if I send something out to somebody who doesn't have a Lucid account, that they can just click and see it, instead of having to log in and create an account."
 

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."
"I think erwin is quite expensive. I have difficulty selling the portal, in fact."
"On a yearly basis, our licensing costs are 50,000 euro. There are no additional costs because we are on a SaaS model."
"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."
"Unless you are a one person shop – always go with the Workgroup edition and Concurrent licensing."
"Yearly, our cost is €100,000."
"The pricing and licensing are fine, though I wish they didn't require you to buy the licenses in batches of five."
"At €167 per user per year, the pricing is slightly higher than Visio, but it's worth it."
"We chose Lucid based on the price comparison between it and draw.io... Lucidchart was about 15 percent cheaper per user... I was surprised to learn that it came with a separate subscription model and was not included in my existing Lucidchart subscription."
"Lucidchart's pricing model is not excessive, as compared to similar products. It is pretty much in line with everyone else."
"Pricing comes in at about $100 for a year's subscription, which is very reasonable if this is a tool that you will use more than once."
"I pay $95 a year for it. It seems like a reasonable price."
"I have only used the trial version and have not yet paid for it, or explored the pricing options."
"I had a quick glimpse of it. It was about 100 Canadian Dollars a year for just me. I don't know if there are any additional costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Performing Arts
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

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LucidChart vs LucidSpark for brainstorming sessions over Zoom
Hi @Krista Thompson ​ - Yes, LucidSpark is a much more nimble and, in some ways, user-friendly tool than LucidChart. LucidSpark is designed to do a better job managing multiple users participating ...
Do you recommend Lucidchart?
I definitely recommend Lucidchart. I feel it is one of the top visual collaboration platforms that’s available on the market. Out of all the solutions I have tried, it is by far the best for diagra...
What needs improvement with Lucidchart?
The system is a bit clumsy when it comes to stylizing to match corporate imaging styles. In real estate, we need everything to have the same look and feel as our materials. Beyond dropping a logo i...
 

Comparisons

 

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.
Google, Salesforce, Adobe, Whirlpool, Uber, Wal Mart, Pearson, Twitch, Riot Games, Western Union, Trimble, Starbucks
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP LeanIX, Sparx Systems, Quest Software and others in Enterprise Architecture Management. Updated: October 2025.
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