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LeanIX vs SAP PowerDesigner comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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

LeanIX
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP PowerDesigner
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Metadata Management (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of LeanIX is 15.8%, up from 14.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP PowerDesigner is 8.8%, up from 8.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

Umit Sengul - PeerSpot reviewer
A platform that facilitates efficient IT architecture management and integration, improving organizational coordination and decision-making
LeanIX is primarily used to create and manage architectural models, link capabilities, activities, and products and generate comprehensive reports. It serves as a central platform for overseeing the IT landscape within EON, a large organization, streamlining operations and enhancing governance…
JorgeSanz - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective in terms of validating everything, but sometimes they don't allow us some flexibility and GUI could improve
I would recommend SAP PowerDesigner to others for data architecture management. It provides all the functionalities in terms of data modeling, so it's also a good tool for that. I see trends in terms of data classification, but I don't see this tool with the intelligence to do that automatically. So, like, with artificial intelligence. Overall, I would rate the solution a six out of ten because there are too many validations. Also, I found some gaps in terms of relationships; they didn't appear when you do reverse engineering. Also, this tool lacks artificial intelligence that should be very good in terms of automatically identifying the classification of elements and maybe also to incorporate some artificial intelligence in providing descriptions for each data element included in the solution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We've been able to develop some nice looking reports, and the dashboard's capability to map is very easy compared to Enterprise Architect."
"One of the product's most valuable features is its ability to configure hardware devices."
"I can develop a report and then do a presentation, or develop a report and some other diagrams and then put them all in one presentation, and from there, I can present things directly, so there is no need to move images."
"LeanIX has a great application information architecture."
"Among the most valuable features are the easy-to-use interface and the ability to get quick results... Many tools that I have seen are great for technical people and for giving technical and business information as well, but they're not as friendly and easy as LeanIX... It works well for both technical and business users. It provides a good combination, enabling you to quickly put valuable information in for both technical and non-technical people and derive results."
"The most valuable feature would be application portfolio management, which is where they came from, but over time, they have got artificial intelligence. They built up a very good repository. If I identify a system by name, from historical information, oftentimes, they can tell me that this is deployed with this number of CPUs and they can give me a really good profile of the application for me to put it into a change management database with very little effort."
"I like the tool’s integration and maps."
"LeanIX has good usability and stability. This SaaS is intuitive, easy to use, and comes with a nice reporting feature."
"SAP PowerDesigner is an excellent tool that does what I need it to do. What I like most about it is that it's stable, fast, and easy to understand."
"It's a great tool for documentation."
"SAP PowerDesigner is fairly stable."
"I've used the reverse engineering feature a lot. I can take a look at the structure of the database and what relationships it has."
"It can automate many routine tasks and save human resources to focus on real problems."
"The physical database model is definitely the most valuable feature because it describes normalization exactly the way you understand the data, and it deploys it perfectly with open source systems."
"The most valuable features of the solution are it's built very well, easy to use, and simple to describe freely what is needed in logical and physical data models."
"It has helped me to develop the as-is state, design its to-be state, and track the capital investment according to gap analysis."
 

Cons

"Another area for improvement is that when you're starting to look into more advanced information, using the solution's APIs and its customizations, documentation for that specific aspect is not very good. There is not too much support built into the offering for that aspect, for a developer."
"They should improve the out of the box connectors that they provide. They should see if clients are really ready to adapt them."
"Improvements in user interface simplicity could be made, particularly with the reporting and filtering capabilities."
"Adjustments related to specific organizational requirements are complex."
"LeanIX should improve its support services."
"What would make LeanIX better is more variety in terms of reporting, and more flexibility with its data importing feature."
"The solution needs to incorporate a data patch tool that moves within and irons data."
"The whole integration architecture view of interfaces/data exchange could be improved."
"The solution itself does not need to be improved. However, they could add support for different languages."
"The user interface could be more user-friendly."
"Pricing for small consultancies needs improvement. They sustain prices to competing tools. The competing tools tend to do special offers. PowerDesigner SAP doesn't pay much attention to the pricing of it and there are no special offers."
"You have the possibility to complete a connection for abbreviations if you are creating columns or names of the tables. In the Citrix environment, this has been lagging to the point where the PowerDesigner was not usable."
"Checking-in models to the repository, especially when working remotely, is a slow process than can sometimes have problems with models being corrupted."
"One disadvantage of SAP PowerDesigner is that you cannot reverse engineer the ALTER statements, so that's an enhancement or area for improvement I'm looking forward to seeing from the SAP team in the future. That should directly reflect on the physical data models my company builds."
"The solution is very, very expensive. It would be ideal if it was a more affordable product."
"The tool lags in the area of customer service."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is based on a licensing model that is competitive and in line with other products."
"LeanIX uses application-based account licensing, where the cost is multiplied by the number of applications in the software implementation."
"It cost me $91,000 a year for 300 applications. For any enterprise, 300 applications are minimal, as many have well over 1,000 applications."
"There is a sweet spot of where they need to be on pricing right now. They could go up a little bit in pricing, but it has to do with the cost savings, and it has to do with the practitioners using it. I use it where I get cost savings and I can justify it, but they probably have the ability to flex a 10% up channel on their sales on that. So, they could increase their settle price, not their offering price, when they sell. They can probably hold that up a little bit higher than it is because there are cost savings that we can drive from it."
"I would rate the pricing a one out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"The pricing is very good. We definitely get good value for the money."
"As the tool is cloud-based, its cost is more affordable."
"The tool needs to include more flexible licensing options. We do not use the tool all the time. So pricing should be considered only when we use the tool."
"SAP PowerDesigner is cheaper than eriwin."
"When you purchase the license for SAP PowerDesigner, you have to buy one year of support. The tool is worth the money."
"The pricing varies based on functionality and users."
"I would like SAP to prove free licenses to professionals that are using the solution. The free version is limited."
"The price of the solution is too expensive. When we asked for certain licenses in different countries it was unattainable."
"PowerDesigner is not the cheapest solution on the market, so make sure that you are using it to its full potential."
"The ROI has been 43%."
"The price of the solution is low."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Any experience with Strategic Project Portfolio Management Solutions?
Hi @Cheryl Joseph ​Looking at the crossover between Project and Portfolio management with EA, then Planview could be a good choice. If looking at Portfolio Management from an EA perspective then Le...
What do you like most about LeanIX?
The ability to import data and generate reports from it. That's where its power lies.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for LeanIX?
LeanIX pricing ranges from moderate to high. Our usage and costs depend on the number of applications, and as the number of applications grows, so does the cost. We have aligned our usage with appl...
What do you like most about SAP PowerDesigner?
It allows us to have proper documentation in terms of the databases.
What needs improvement with SAP PowerDesigner?
Based on my experience with SAP PowerDesigner, I'd like to see improvements in the DMM feature. Even if I have an ETL tool, I'd like the DMM options to directly connect to ETL tool repositories lik...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Sybase PowerDesigner
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

adidas, Bosch, Chico's, Haworth, Helvetia, KuKa, Osram, Telekom, TUI, Santander, Swarovski, Vaillant, 7Eleven, and Zalando.
Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
Find out what your peers are saying about LeanIX vs. SAP PowerDesigner and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.