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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

"It has been one of the very good decisions the company has made."
"It gives us the vast ability to churn out-of-the-box reports and have an overview about approach rates and resource utilization."
"Having Enterprise One has increased our on-time completion rate by 40%."
"Planview has helped connect funding and strategic outcomes with work execution."
"Planview has helped connect funding and strategic outcomes with work execution because we utilize the strategic module within Enterprise One to help with that work."
"The dashboards and reports that we provide out of Planview are priceless when compared to any other tool."
"The portfolio and technology management are well built."
"Planview Portfolios has been the perfect project management tool for me to manage the entire project life cycle from a centralized source, ensuring controlling, tracking, and delivering projects on time within an agreed budget and time frame."
"Solution architecture and design, however the database management area really was not usable."
"I am sure that the process of the developing of our product is faster and more secure through using Sparx."
"In terms of product features, I'm very happy with the support for UML 2 diagrams, Archimate, TOGAF and the collaboration capability using a RDBMS back-end."
"The profiles and ready-made templates are an extremely helpful feature. This is one of the biggest features that I find very useful in Sparx."
"Ability to model and create view under same roof."
"We have a positive ROI and will probably be buying it."
"Simplified our task at maintaining architecture information and traceability with requirements."
"For the money, breadth of scope, depth of features, add-ons, customizability, and capabilities, it still ranks number one."
 

Cons

"I would like to be able to integrate with Oracle to supplement what we're currently doing with reporting."
"It is a bit of a rigid system."
"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."
"For some projects where we have hundreds of tasks with hundreds of resources to open, it might take on the order of five minutes to load up, which, to open a screen, is not a reasonable amount of time."
"The technical support is a little overworked. At least, they have been in the past year. We need them to focus on somethings from time to time. You can tell that they're really focusing on many things. It has gotten better, but I think they could still use some relief."
"It could do with a quicker response time for some reports or portfolios."
"The content management definitely needs to improve."
"I think that the user interface needs some getting used to. It's not immediately intuitive."
"There should be a MATLAB-specific toolbox added to the solution with better compatibility. The connections currently are good but in the future, it needs a huge improvement."
"It took me a while to figure out how to use the report generation features effectively. So, it would be really nice if they had a way to make that a little bit more interactive and a little bit more straightforward."
"The platform has support for Windows and Mac, but not Linux."
"The elements of the modeling sets can have better customization and visual representation. It would be great to have a mobile version."
"Enterprise Architect is not very good for mockups."
"The UX/UI seems a bit dated and clunky and I would like to see a refresh of this."
"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. It's perfect in English, but we need something in French."
"It lacks some collaborative functions like sending emails when a status changed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have unlimited licenses for all of our functionalities. Since we went global, we went with that model."
"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."
"We have several hundred licenses. It costs us several hundred thousand dollars a year."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $50,000 USD annually."
"Our licensing costs are about a quarter of a million dollars per year."
"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."
"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."
"This product has a paid license, with a yearly subscription option."
"It is cheaper than other solutions. Its cost is around $686 per year. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"I think our license costs roughly $1,000 a year, but I could be wrong."
"It is cheap."
"They have the price on their site for the enterprise version, and we do receive a small discount."
"The Corporate Edition, or one of the bundles, is the way to go."
"We paid 1200 euros as a once-off cost. All add ons and integrations come at an additional cost."
"In terms of cost, Sparx EA is probably one of the cheapest tools I have ever used."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
7%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
10%
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 Business38
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 do you like most about Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
The stability has been good and satisfactory. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.
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 ...
 

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.
886,426 professionals have used our research since 2012.