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Sparx Prolaborate vs erwin Evolve comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 23, 2025

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
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (21st)
Sparx Prolaborate
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
20th
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 January 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Evolve is 3.4%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sparx Prolaborate is 1.6%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
erwin Evolve3.4%
Sparx Prolaborate1.6%
Other95.0%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

Asish Sahu - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
PG
Group IT Manager at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees
Diagram are available in real time but edits sometimes require a manual refresh
Diagram edits take a few minutes to update or require a manual refresh. If we make a change in an enterprise architect diagram, then we want to assume everything is up to date on the documentation side. That isn't always the case after many minutes, so a manual step is required to refresh the link. The solution could offer different sources for design. We currently use Lucidchart but would like additional options. Some vendors provide support on the back end for things like verification of the reference architecture so you don't have to design it yourself.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Evolve's reverse engineering ability is quite useful."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable features for us are impact analysis, where I can easily visualize the impact of change."
"There is a model behind it. It's really nice that the Evolve front-end, as it builds a website, keeps those relationships in mind. You can even go to a procedure and see all the applications that are related to it. Then you can go into that application and see all the standard operating procedures that that application is a part of. It's just very connected."
"The ability to share and collaborate on the solution is its most valuable feature."
"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."
"It allows us to give a better description of our project than using the written word."
"Sparx Prolaborate is user-friendly, easy to use, and has good documentation."
"Its extensibility is most valuable."
"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."
"It is valuable to have diagrams available in real time."
 

Cons

"I would like to see an improvement in the output of the solution."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Add some ability to do conditional Visualization on the models and in reports (some ideas) – maybe as a specialized Theme or Diagram or Display."
"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."
"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."
"The product is not very user-friendly."
"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."
"The solution could offer different sources for design."
"There should be more cloud capabilities."
"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."
 

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."
"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."
"On a yearly basis, our licensing costs are 50,000 euro. There are no additional costs because we are on a SaaS model."
"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 price of Sparx Prolaborate is good."
"The product is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Performing Arts
11%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Real Estate/Law Firm
11%
Energy/Utilities Company
9%
Insurance Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise12
No data available
 

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 and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.