Planview Portfolios vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect comparison

Planview Portfolios vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

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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.

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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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Enterprise One improves our monthly portfolio and resource capacity planning and forecasting and improves the visibility of the resource capacity and the team's capacity to take on new work."

"The solution view into resource capacity and availability helps us to manage work."

"Our ability to do strategic portfolio reporting has gotten much better."

"Having Enterprise One has increased our on-time completion rate by 40%."

"It has been effective for our delivery; it has given us much better visibility into what is being delivered and when, and our finance/accounting department has been able to get more information than what they had before."

"It gives us the vast ability to churn out-of-the-box reports and have an overview about approach rates and resource utilization."

"Its ability to create summary reports across multiple projects is one of the best features. They have very good data warehousing. You can put that out. You can tell that data warehousing from Planview Enterprise One is excellent."

"I like that it's an enterprise environment. I can look across everything that's going on and have a sense of what is going on within the organization."

More Planview Portfolios pros

"We gained 10 - 20 percent improvement to productivity (measured by time to complete solution) and improved quality (measured by reviews)."

"Support for different modeling standards in one package allows to have one tool for many roles."

"EA is a good, cheap, flexible, and capable tool."

"Sparx EA beats all of these hands down on a cost/benefit analysis."

"It's a stable and scalable solution. I like that it's similar to Rational Rose."

"Depending on what items enter in the computation of ‘return’ the ROI can be estimated from high to very high, with productivity gains measured in either shorter lifecycles or headcounts of personnel required to build effective models."

"Amazing solution for its price, but has its flaws."

"Scalability is not a problem; you can always increase the footprint of what the thing can do because it is so powerful."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect pros

Cons

"One of the reasons why we've upgraded so many times is because of performance standards. We've just run into issues where we've had performance problems. Maybe they are not upgrading, but they're adding more horsepower. Then, we do go upgrade and lose that horsepower, which is frustrating from my perspective as an admin to lose that horsepower. Hopefully, that'll change."

"I would rate the technical support just slightly below poor."

"One big issue we have been having during our annual planning is that only the creator of a portfolio can edit it. This means that only the creator of a portfolio can edit which projects are included or excluded in it."

"I think the capabilities are there, but it seems difficult for me to even create a report as I am not a Planview technical expert. It is not particularly intuitive."

"There are some issues with how long it takes to load the data to Planview, It just depends on what your setup is. If there was a way Planview could maybe make the loading faster, in case you do have a lot of things going on with your setup."

"Planview Portfolios integration with Power Apps is an area where there is still opportunity for improvement."

"It would be great to see Planview incorporate agile interfacing/methods in it. Like CA Clarity and other leading PPM tools – Planview should enhance or develop the interfaces to ingrate with other market leading Agile tools."

"Although Enterprise One is easy and user-friendly, currently the learnings have been more via trial and error, I think if Planview could provide better consistent training like a tool demo, structured training, how-tos that would help tremendously."

More Planview Portfolios cons

"One of the drawbacks is that it is oriented on architecture and not user-presented."

"Its usability needs to be improved. For non-technical users, it is a little difficult to understand how Enterprise Architect works. Users who are not engineers find it difficult to understand how this tool works. This is something they need to work on. They can develop a BPM model to simulate processes."

"I think the UI could be improved and made a little bit more presentable."

"My organization didn’t manage to take advantage. It needs a ‘critical mass’ of users and understanding to generate benefit, but here we failed."

"Shared environments are a little bit tricky. Looking at it from an enterprise perspective, there should be a much better shared environment."

"Repository integration. SVN based repositories can be a pain to merge changes."

"In my company at the moment, many people have difficulty in using Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect. It is not easy for someone who is not experienced with the platform."

"I would rate technical support as OK. The forum was great. The actual support was only so-so."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are on the Flex licenses."

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

"The cost of other pieces and integrating them in needs improvement."

"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."

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

"Our licensing costs are about a quarter of a million dollars per year."

"We have several hundred licenses. It costs us several hundred thousand dollars a year."

"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."

More Planview Portfolios pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is reasonable."

"Pricing and licensing are suitable even for small companies."

"I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."

"Use floating licenses strategically."

"It's affordable. The only additional cost that we haven't yet figured out is the floating license. If you buy a floating license, you have to have a license management server, which comes at an additional cost that's not discussed. So, we haven't yet used the floating license. That’s because I haven't had a chance to figure that out."

"In terms of cost, Sparx EA is probably one of the cheapest tools I have ever used."

"There is a license for this solution. When comparing this solution to others it is priced well."

"The solution is quite expensive."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect pricing and cost advice

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892,611 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

15%

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

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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

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Planview Portfolios vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect