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Planview Portfolios vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect 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

Planview Portfolios
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
71
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
99
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of Planview Portfolios is 2.6%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is 8.6%, down from 13.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect8.6%
Planview Portfolios2.6%
Other88.8%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

Monabi Kingsley - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Milan Sterba - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Enterprise One makes it really easy to just pull the resource management tab and quickly look at who is overloaded."
"Now, we have a full view of projects, allocations, and effort to deliver our portfolio projects."
"In my opinion, the financial planning feature is the most valuable feature of Planview Enterprise One."
"This is giving us huge flexibility to accommodate the company's needs."
"We use time reporting. We convert time reporting into financial costs and do contractor and capacity planning for our resources. We track our work. So, that's the module we use extensively. As a matter of fact, we have upwards of 300 open projects at this given moment. It is pretty close to 300 open activities that are working."
"We've brought our portfolio altogether. We have had multiple ways of reporting out what our portfolio is, whether it's in Excel, Word, or in different places. We brought all of our projects together in one place. That has worked out well for us. We've been able to manage the work on Gantt charts and our resources better. The big thing for us on research and development is around managing people's time, on which projects they are working on, and how much effort does it take to launch our projects."
"With the lifecycles, it helps us step through our processes easier. We'll take a process and create it in Visio, then we'll go and implemented in Planview. Anytime that we have to do a new process, this is what we use. We just step it through the lifecycles and the configure screens are very easy to use. The fields that you need are easy to use."
"It has improved the way our organization functions by giving us the overall picture of our financials."
"The company wants to reduce its maintenance budget so the aim is to get more for less, and the solution has achieved this and improved efficiency."
"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."
"The solution is easy to use, supports SysML and UML, and is able to connect to MATLAB. This is very important for us."
"We previously used rational tools (Rose, RSA and some other rational tools as well), and this product is much cheaper and enough for our needs."
"It is a useful tool for modeling and testing automated processes."
"Using Sparx Enterprise Architect allowed my customer to detail and make the company's IT strategy visible and accessible to all. The system provided clear roadmaps for IT development and helped to keep up-to-date documentation of systems and processes."
"It supports multiple modeling languages like ArchiMate for database design, software lifecycle visualization, and team management."
"Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect was easy to set up and it took just twenty minutes."
 

Cons

"Planview Portfolios can be improved by making the platform more dynamic and user-friendly, especially for non-technical users."
"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."
"Sometimes within the application, when you pull a report, it takes awhile performance-wise for the reports to pull up."
"There's still a lot of reluctance within the organization. We're not using all of the capabilities that we have today."
"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. It slows us down in reporting the big picture to management."
"Its support to legacy paying customers is something PlanView is not handling well.​ We were unable to implement due to lack of professional support by PlanView. ​"
"I would like to be able to copy and paste from Excel into work and assignments along with roles and hours, as opposed to having to type it out one by one."
"I would like to see more documentation pieces. I would like to see more out-of-the-box features with document repository capabilities."
"Greater OMG UML and XMI compliance"
"I have found the solution is lacking options. The general usability needs improvement and more compliance to CML definitions."
"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."
"My organization didn’t manage to take advantage. It needs a ‘critical mass’ of users and understanding to generate benefit, but here we failed."
"UML analysis needs to improved."
"Performance of remote rdbms is nightmare and the reason is that every link and every attribute is separate sequential insert/update to db."
"This solution should have better ease of use for the uninitiated."
"The presentation graphics need to be improved in future builds."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't know about the actual pricing. I have not come across any costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"Our licensing costs are probably $150,000 to $180,000 a year with 270 licenses total."
"We have unlimited licenses for all of our functionalities. Since we went global, we went with that model."
"Our licensing costs are about a quarter of a million dollars per 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."
"We recently did a new bundle for all of Enterprise One. It includes some of the newer pieces, like Projectplace and LeanKit. It bundled our CTM in with it as well. I think the total came out to be about $900,000 a year. This is for unlimited licenses."
"We overbought our licenses. We looked at our needs three to four years down the road and tried based our contract on that. However, we were over aggressive. We use about a third of the licenses that we have. We're looking to adjust the makeup so we can start utilizing the amount of money that we are spending. Right now, we're overspending, and my organization is not seeing the value in Planview because we are paying so much for licenses that we're not using."
"I don't think we have necessarily purchased everything that I would have liked to have seen."
"Its price is very good for the value that you get with it."
"Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is priced well. The price we pay is approximately $20 per month. Other solutions I have found to be much more expensive."
"It is cheap."
"The license for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is paid yearly, but I don't handle that area. It's good for its price, so I'm rating it a five out of five, but I'm not using it much. I also don't have information regarding additional costs apart from the standard licensing fees."
"I use my own license. So, I just bought the professional version, which costs $800 or something like that. In the company where I am working, we have floating licenses. They are probably more expensive. Its licensing is affordable, but we are talking about a large organization, and there could be modelers or viewers of the models. We don't know how much that would cost us."
"Enterprise licensing is competitive. What would be helpful if they load the pricing for consultants, you know, people who are consultants for clients. So the license is fine for end-user organizations. Still, they should consider lowering the license to support this adoption, particularly for people who are consultants like myself."
"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."
"Licenses are pretty low cost compared to, for example, ARIS."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
7%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise66
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business39
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise58
 

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?
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 ...
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...
 

Also Known As

Planview Enterprise One, Troux
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

UPS, NatWest, Ingram Micro, Canadian Tire, Viessmann, Volvo, NASCO, UNESCO
OmniLink
Find out what your peers are saying about Planview Portfolios vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
890,088 professionals have used our research since 2012.