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Visio vs erwin Evolve comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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
21st
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
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Mind Mapping Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of erwin Evolve is 2.3%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Visio is 6.7%, down from 11.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Visio6.7%
erwin Evolve2.3%
Other91.0%
Business Process Design
 

Featured Reviews

ScottLawson - PeerSpot reviewer
Director IT Architecture at QAD
Enables us to present data and objects visually, in diagrams, and to make them available via the web. Also enables web-based editing of data.
We tried their collaborative web modeling and we used it with a few people but we tend to not use that piece. We tend to collaborate with the people and then my team of architects draws up the diagram using the modeling tool. We then iterate through those. I would like to use it, but it was a little clunky when they first rolled it out. Overall, it's more about the company having room for improvement. 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. I hear them talking in the support forums and, when I talk to the representative, they say they're going to do a bunch of stuff but it seems the progress is slow. The changes they need to make are to take their old, legacy product, which we use, and focus a lot on it so they can transform it into a modern cloud tool so that we have fewer little pieces to deal with. They could also fix their security model. It's very confusing to get new people onto the tool and to make sure that your content isn't being exposed to the wrong people.
NitinSharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Specialist at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Created detailed rack and network diagrams that streamline documentation and collaboration
For creating diagrams, I definitely use Visio for HLD, LLD, and traffic flow diagrams. Apart from Visio, I use Jira only if the customer specifically requests it; otherwise, I do not use an in-house version of Jira in my organization. One of the good features of using the Microsoft umbrella product is that if I create a big diagram and then work on the HLD or LLD in Word, I can select everything from Visio and paste it as an image without needing to resize it, which streamlines the process of creating documentation for customers. The main benefits Visio provides me include simplifying processes, saving time on manual work with diagram creation, and delivering a clean architecture, whether it is network architecture or application flow. I have created diagrams for AWS, Azure, GCP, and on-premises data centers, including rack elevation diagrams and organization charts. Modifications can be made easily and reflected immediately, and I can create PNG images to share with the executive team.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Evolve is scalable with multi-user ability, so multiple designers and engineers can work on the same data model simultaneously."
"The ERwin tool helped to reduce the rate of design and deployment errors and increased the ease of validation."
"I have not seen capabilities for web-sharing and interaction with the architecture from any other supplier. It's a great capability..."
"Customer Service: Outstanding Technical Support: Outstanding"
"Without this tool, we couldn't have made and defined all the new processes."
"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."
"This product is a cross platform database designer, data inventory control and metadata library, and supports soft link integration."
"Enterprise Architecture improved our organization by giving clarity over the data that is available."
"One of the most valuable features of Visio is its extreme flexibility."
"It's easy to embed Visio in a Word document."
"The solution is user-friendly."
"It has improved the way my organization functions because diagramming is almost similar to mind-mapping, and it is a good way to get the message across for people to understand at all levels."
"Visio makes it easier than with other tools to do such tasks as changing things or coming up with one's own visual style for presentation purposes."
"What I like best about Visio is that it's flexible. Sometimes, if I need to draw quickly, I use Microsoft PowerPoint, but if I need icons, which Visio has, I use Visio. I also like that the solution gives me a much more powerful range of options."
"The solution has helped us get our life cycle diagrams right and show the accountability across groups."
"Microsoft Visio is a robust tool for quick mapping."
 

Cons

"I would like to see an improvement in the output of the solution."
"I feel that the UML drawing capability needs to be improved."
"For what it says it can do, it does a good job, but using it is too difficult."
"The solution needs to focus on allowing for more integrations."
"If it had fewer features to model all kinds of architecture, it would be less complicated."
"You can integrate it with almost everything, but you have to watch what you are doing because when too much is integrated it's really hard to manage your errors."
"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 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."
"In terms of features, it could provide more automation to display data flowing through architecture."
"As a user, it, unfortunately, lacks recognition by Microsoft products."
"Its support team could be well-equipped with the required information."
"I would like to be able to present diagrams in multiple ways, such as a Swimlane diagram."
"It can export to AutoCAD, however it doesn't do so very effectively."
"Visio requires a lot of memory, and it is not good for a small design."
"The only problem I tend to have is that sometimes when I am moving objects around within the interface I lose the formatting or it changes type or linking."
"The performance sometimes lags and has room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Unless you are a one person shop – always go with the Workgroup edition and Concurrent licensing."
"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."
"Yearly, our cost is €100,000."
"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."
"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."
"I think erwin is quite expensive. I have difficulty selling the portal, in fact."
"Now we pay about $200, which is maybe $10 per user per month."
"You can purchase a corporate license for more users to use the solution. We have purchased a stand-alone license and which could be cheaper."
"There is a licensing fee, but it is fairly priced."
"The cost of the software is reasonably priced."
"I don't have any issue with the pricing. It has a subscription-based model, and the subscription is done on a yearly basis. Of course, we need internal approvals in place."
"Cloud-based tools are always cheaper since they are subscription-based. I use the on-premises version of Visio hence the price is quite expensive. However, I believe that the cloud version of Visio may not be as expensive as the on-premises version."
"Personally, I think the price of this solution is too high."
"You have to purchase a license to use the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
14%
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Performing Arts
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
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 Business36
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise61
 

Questions from the Community

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Earn 20 points
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Visio?
The pricing is reasonable now. Whereas before, I had used it when it was paid for by my work, but then as I moved to different projects, I wasn't paying $2,000 to have it. Visio is supplied by the ...
What needs improvement with Visio?
I would have said the pricing, but the pricing is fine now, so it's a good tool and a powerful one. When you know how to use it, it's very intuitive. People who don't know how to use it might want ...
 

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: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.