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Visio vs erwin Evolve comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 19, 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 Business Process Design
19th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (12th)
Visio
Ranking in Business Process Design
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
Mind Mapping Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of erwin Evolve is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Visio is 12.5%, down from 13.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design
 

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.
Tugrul TASCI - PeerSpot reviewer
We have seen return on investment in the form of time savings but should have more design tools
I am generally using Visio to create some diagrams Visio should implement more complex tools or graphics to facilitate processing and use flexible templates. It should allow users to easily drag and drop some previously created diagrams. The tools supplied or provided are very basic, and there…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The initial setup was really straightforward and the deployment was done within one day."
"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."
"Support for a broad range of data sources from relational to big data to the Cloud."
"Workgroup Repository collection of data models allows research across models without worry about platform incompatibilities and provides easy KPIs about corporate data assets."
"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..."
"Process modeling is a good feature."
"The ability to visualize a workflow is certainly an advantage over just tracking a process in something like Excel."
"The most valuable feature of this product is its versatility."
"The most valuable feature is that it is integrated with other tools in the Microsoft Office suite, as well as at the backend with products like SharePoint and Microsoft Teams."
"The most valuable features are process mapping and identifying responsibilities."
"It has a lot of great features."
"Very interactive with an intuitive interface."
"I enjoy the fact that I can go into detail with Visio. In shared communications, I can inspect for any fault in my processes."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"There might be improvement required to better support some of the MPP databases for non-relational data structures and NoSQL databases."
"The visual icons and shapes for different vendors like Cisco network could be improved. Often, I have to contact vendors to get specific icons to use in Visio diagrams, which makes the process cumbersome."
"The price could be better."
"The control flow feature needs to be improved. I compared Visio to Bizagi and found that control flow is better with Bizagi. The improvements that can be made to the solution depends on the user."
"It would be nice if there is a database behind it. We have looked into this functionality, but all of the other solutions that have a database are very locked down, and you have to use them their way. You can't define your own stuff. For example, we have a system X, and I want to define system X myself and have it available. If I am ever going to make a change to system X, I want to pull up all the drawings that are associated with system X. I want to be able to search and pull all those drawings. Visio should have the ability to capture metrics associated with each step in the process. For example, based on a specific time, I should be able to link the data to a spreadsheet, which is kind of like the data analysis on the process."
"Visio's scalability could be improved. I had a license through my school and it would have been great to be able to collaborate with more people."
"I would like to see Visio become some kind of enterprise architecture, which it is not."
"The price could be better."
"Visio could improve by simplifying the application to allow the business user more understanding. This will allow us to bring the solution deeper into the organization for use. It can be difficult to navigate and some users tend to rely on third-party applications for auditing, compliance, and policy configuration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think erwin is quite expensive. I have difficulty selling the portal, in fact."
"Yearly, our cost is €100,000."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Visio is the cheapest solution because it has the basics. Everyone starts with Visio for designing processes because doing it in PowerPoint is a mess. I'm still a student, so I don't pay for licensing."
"It's not the cheapest product, but it's extremely valuable."
"My company does pay toward the licensing costs of Visio. It is a cheap product based on my experience, and since I purchased Visio for my own use."
"Visio is included with our Microsoft enterprise license."
"There are some cheaper as well as free solutions."
"The solution is expensive. The solution does come bundled in other packages."
"Visio is expensive."
"The product is expensive, but it is cheaper if you buy it as a part of a bundle or an enterprise-level agreement."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Government
10%
Performing Arts
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
How easy is it to migrate process flow charts (modeled using tools like Visio) into Bizagi?
I have been using Bizagi with a major project for a state government agency for about four years now. It is pretty straightforward to load in files that are BPMN 2.0 compliant. The option to load V...
What do you like most about Visio?
The diagrams Visio creates are quite impressive in the sense that we can cooperate with more colleagues in one task and see the flow of the process.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Visio?
One of the main problems with Visio is its licensing options and associated issues, which lead to discussions about the price with a Microsoft representative. If asked to rate the price, I would gi...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

erwin EA, erwin Business Process, erwin Enterprise Architecture
Microsoft Visio
 

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.
Thomas College, Hamburg Port Authority, Portigon AG, Conseil G_n_ral du d_partement des Hautes-Alpes, AAA Auto a. s., Commonwealth Financial Network, ICA, Abu Dhabi National Energy Company
Find out what your peers are saying about Visio vs. erwin Evolve and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.