Planview Portfolios vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect comparison

Planview Portfolios vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Download the complete report

Helped 892,487 peers since 2012

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

Planview Portfolios

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Project Portfolio Management (4th)

Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

4th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Design (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of Planview Portfolios is 2.8%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is 8.9%, down from 13.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect	8.9%
Planview Portfolios	2.8%
Other	88.3%

Enterprise Architecture Management

Featured Reviews

Monabi Kingsley

Project Manager at 3M

Centralized planning has improved resource visibility and supports data‑driven financial decisions

The best features Planview Portfolios offers are visibility enhancement, robust system performance, and comprehensive resource management. This enhanced visibility in Planview Portfolios ensures that all users can easily track progress, identify bottlenecks, and make informed decisions to optimize workflow efficiency. When discussing robust system performance, the system's robust performance in meeting our various work requirements effectively and efficiently stands out. It is very stable and reliable, contributing to a seamless user experience, which enables users to focus on their tasks without disruptions. I also love the financial breakdown, planning and prioritization, and attribute collection on projects in Planview Portfolios. Planview Portfolios has positively impacted my organization since I started using it. It has enabled me to gain insights into the full scope of work consuming resources. I am able to know where the resources are being consumed more, especially which resources are consuming the most. I have been able to leverage resources management and resource time reporting, which enabled the generation of $90 million in annual revenue through labor billing to customers.

Read full review

Milan Sterba

Senior Enterprise Architect at Deepview S.r.o.

Efficient documentation generation through organized model structure with a good price-performance ratio

Whenever I begin a new project with Sparx, I have to spend time training people on how to use it since it is not straightforward. Although it's a powerful product with plenty of features, it's not easy for even experienced users to find their way without guidance. This is not the most user-friendly solution.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Planview has helped connect funding and strategic outcomes with work execution. That is the key use that we have for it. We use it to validate the work that we're doing and the funding that we need. The difference between the previous version and current version for us would be the ICPM and the way it gives us different scenarios. We can go in and build that out."

"The tool does have the potential to impact our organizational delivery."

"Enterprise One helps with the prioritization of projects through alignment with strategic objectives."

"The portfolio and technology management are well built."

"Planview has helped connect funding and strategic outcomes with work execution."

"The financial planning capabilities are very useful. We have integration for an SAP system, and so we load financial data from SAP into Planview for prior months. And then we use the forecasting capabilities to get a complete picture of the cost of a specific project. The financial management is very useful."

"The look and feel of it is pretty clean."

"A lot of of the value is around the project metrics so far but as I get more plugged into the strategic management, it's strategic planning and programs and then tying that into outcomes. I work with executive leadership and that's really what they're looking for, to say, "Okay, what outcomes do we want to achieve and how are we going to get there, plan that out, sequence that out, and then get the work to do that? And then track the work back to where we're headed with our outcomes.""

More Planview Portfolios pros

"Large variety of profiles and frameworks available out-of-the-box without the need for customization."

"It is an excellent way for a company to start or an organization to start using an enterprise architecture discipline."

"From an architectural point of view it is easy to define the application landscape and maintain the relationships between components, which helps when the current state application architecture is considered especially by architects new to an organisation and also assists the embedded architects to design the future state architecture more effectively."

"It has led some teams to do better code reviews - to be less focussed on coding conventions (syntax) and more focussed on the semantics because of the abstraction level clear design affords."

"Its most valuable feature is the Zachman Framework."

"The most valuable features are the flexibility and adaptability of Sparx Enterprise Architect."

"It's a very practical solution. You don't need to do an advanced course to start using this tool."

"The most valuable feature of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is the value streams."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect pros

Cons

"I would suggest for the request module that they open up the fields and columns so it's like we are doing our work in the work module. You can't do that with today. We also have to make sure that the fields can go both ways with the request and work modules. Including fields in the column sets would be helpful, because today they only use attributes."

"We do have some significant issues with our integrations that we're working through. Those are not as stable or reliable as what we would like."

"Their off-shore support is something new that they're laying out and the team just needed some development in terms of skill and experience."

"We have some data exports. They're not even live app integrations. They're just data exports that run with our SAP instance. They either fail, hang up, or aren't configured correctly to operate."

"The reporting capability and access to the fields for our system administrators to have access to the data without having to pay Enterprise One to get the data that's needed to create custom reports for management to create reports need improvement."

"The solution needs to be better at accepting new ideas for upcoming releases."

"The technical people are very competent, but there is so much turnover in the people that we talk to, and that's frustrating."

"We had issues with the data rephrasing."

More Planview Portfolios cons

"Using EA involves a steep learning curve if you want to understand its capabilities and functionality."

"Stability is sometimes an issue when it comes up with synchronization errors and does not give any specific message as to the reason behind it."

"I think that collaboration can be better."

"The documentation could be better. Where I work, we speak French and we don't speak English, so we don't have anything in French."

"The elements of the modeling sets can have better customization and visual representation. It would be great to have a mobile version."

"I'd like Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect to be more stable, and have a more improved performance."

"Because it's easy to create diagrams one needs to be vigilant on the housekeeping of orphaned fragments - I have written my own scripts to do this, maybe they are available now."

"More challenging than other tools to maintain documents and document versions for an architecture board review."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In the time that I've used it, we've doubled up the amount of dollars on our intended projects."

"Our licensing costs are probably $150,000 to $180,000 a year with 270 licenses total."

"With the costs, they were very understanding. Knowing that we were an existing customer, they were very much willing to work with us to make sure that we were able to transition to Enterprise One from PPM Pro."

"I don't think we have necessarily purchased everything that I would have liked to have seen."

"I think all in we are at $33,000 a year and that includes Projectplace and Planview. We used to have the integration to JIRA, but we don't pay for that anymore."

"When we went through that process, I believe it is competitive with others on the market. However, there are less expensive options available. It's a more premium offering at a higher price."

"We have unlimited licenses for all of our functionalities. Since we went global, we went with that model."

"Planview is a little pricey. From a licensing perspective, for just a simple timesheet user who does nothing in the system but reports time, the licensing is a little pricey, but you have to look at it from what it is that you get. We have 6,000 users, and I don't manage the system at all. I just have to do add them to the system. The servers, maintenance, OS levels, security patching for the OS, and all other things are not something that we maintain. So, you have to look at it from an operational perspective. It is not just the product itself. A holistic view has to be taken when you look at the product and how you're going to support it. I would have to hire an entire operation staff to bring it in-house, and at the end of the day, that might cost me more."

More Planview Portfolios pricing and cost advice

"We had a yearly license."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"It is cheap."

"It is very economical and low cost. You have to pay for a one-time license, and it is active forever."

"The Corporate Edition, or one of the bundles, is the way to go."

"I think our license costs roughly $1,000 a year, but I could be wrong."

"The pricing for ultimate version is steeply high."

"Licenses are pretty low cost compared to, for example, ARIS."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Architecture Management solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

892,487 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Construction Company

Marketing Services Firm

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	66

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	39
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	58

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Planview Portfolios?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been that Planview Portfolios is one of the best and a very cost-effective tool.

What needs improvement with Planview Portfolios?

Planview Portfolios can be improved as the user interface defaults to the last opened portfolio, which can waste a lot of time loading a large portfolio if that is not what I need at that moment. J...

What is your primary use case for Planview Portfolios?

My main use case for Planview Portfolios is to ensure governance and decision auditability by incorporating embedded workflows, approval management, and key document retention supporting a single c...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?

One of the reasons many public sector institutions in the Czech Republic use it is that it provides a very good price-performance ratio. While it might be cumbersome to learn, it still delivers exc...

What needs improvement with Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?

What is your primary use case for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?

We are mostly using the ArchiMate language to describe enterprise or solution architecture, along with a bit of use cases. We are producing quite large models, with over 10,000 elements and relatio...

Broadcom Clarity vs Planview Portfolios

Comparisons

Compared 9% of the time

Planview PPM Pro vs Planview Portfolios

Compared 5% of the time

OpenText Project and Portfolio Management vs Planview Portfolios

Compared 4% of the time

Planisware vs Planview Portfolios

Compared 4% of the time

LeanIX vs Planview Portfolios

Compared 3% of the time

More Planview Portfolios Competitors

Visual Paradigm vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 7% of the time

Visio vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 5% of the time

No Magic MagicDraw vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 5% of the time

MEGA HOPEX vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 5% of the time

Lucidchart vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 4% of the time

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Competitors

Product Reports

Planview Portfolios

Download Planview Portfolios product report

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Download Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect product report

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect report

Also Known As

Planview Enterprise One, Troux

No data available

Overview

Planview Portfolios empowers executives, finance, and portfolio leaders by enhancing strategic investments, improving market responsiveness, and connecting strategy and execution for optimal visibility.

Planview Portfolios offers comprehensive strategic and project portfolio management to organizations. Automating and scaling these processes, it enhances speed-to-value, aligns strategic objectives with execution, and connects business and technology planning for optimal funding and resource capacity. Users gain end-to-end visibility, track progress, and improve decision-making by utilizing integrated financial and capacity planning.

What key features does Planview Portfolios offer?

Strategic Alignment: Aligns objectives and OKRs with execution to ensure strategic goals are met.
End-to-End Visibility: Tracks performance across the organization to support timely decision-making.
Dynamic Planning and Funding: Utilizes scenario modeling for flexible strategic investment funding.
Flexible Capacity Planning: Balances programs and staffing levels against available capacity.
Connected Technology Strategy: Aligns technology investments with strategic digital initiatives.
Adaptive Program Management: Manages dependencies, risk, and progress through integrated planning.

What benefits can users find in reviews of Planview Portfolios?

Workflow Efficiency: Enhances efficiency by minimizing bottlenecks and optimizing execution.
Improved Decision-Making: Provides comprehensive insights for better informed strategic decisions.
Financial Insights: Offers detailed financial tracking across projects for greater transparency.
Organizational Agility: Increases productivity and adaptability through a unified platform.

Planview Portfolios is implemented across projects in industries requiring strategic planning, resource allocation, and financial tracking. Organizations manage project lifecycle and integration with ERP systems on a centralized platform, utilizing customizable workflows and reporting tools to enhance efficiency and streamline team processes.

Planview

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect supports modeling standards like UML, ArchiMate, and TOGAF. Its strengths include collaboration, scalability, and affordability, making it adaptable to enterprise architecture tasks.

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect provides a robust and versatile platform for enterprises by offering comprehensive modeling capabilities and integration with diverse tools. It supports diagram creation, automatic documentation, and reverse engineering, making tasks efficient. Though user interface improvements are needed for intuitiveness, its overall framework support and affordability remain attractive. Users typically integrate it with other solutions for enhanced functionality, benefiting from its version control and adaptability in IT landscapes.

What are the most important features?

Support for Multiple Standards: Offers UML, ArchiMate, TOGAF compatibility.
Collaboration Capabilities: Encourages effective teamwork and data sharing.
Scalable Solutions: Grows with enterprise demands.
Extensive Framework Support: Provides diverse modeling options.
Automatic Documentation: Generates essential documents efficiently.
Reverse Engineering and Code Generation: Supports software development processes.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Affordability: Cost-effective compared to competitors.
User-Friendliness: Easy to navigate for experienced users.
Integration: Works well with existing systems and tools.
User Flexibility: Adapts to specific needs without significant cost.

In specific industries, Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is often implemented for developing detailed architecture frameworks and business process models. Organizations leverage its capabilities in establishing application inventories and managing projects. Its use in data modeling and solution design is particularly valued in sectors requiring comprehensive IT landscape mapping.

Sparx Systems

Sample Customers

UPS, NatWest, Ingram Micro, Canadian Tire, Viessmann, Volvo, NASCO, UNESCO

OmniLink

Planview Portfolios vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect