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SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer vs SAP PowerDesigner comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

SAP Enterprise Architecture...
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
23rd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP PowerDesigner
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Metadata Management (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer is 1.4%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP PowerDesigner is 9.0%, up from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP PowerDesigner9.0%
SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer1.4%
Other89.6%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

Artur Chyziewicz - PeerSpot reviewer
Co-Owner at Edusolution s.c.
Great training available with traceability a key feature
I use this solution to model enterprise software architecture. We are customers of SAP and an educational organization in Poland.  Traceability is a fantastic feature.  They should upgrade the algorithm. The solution currently has an old algorithm and there are now free tools on the market that…
HemantKUMAR6 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Architect at Sopra Steria
Customer support has delayed successful upgrade to supported version
It was a long time back when my company purchased it, but I am now participating in upgrading it to the latest version. I found customer support to be tedious during the upgrade process to the latest version. I tried to upgrade to a trial version before purchasing a new license. During that process, I had some technical issues. When trying to go from 12.5 to 16.5, I could migrate but faced technical challenges. When I approached customer support, they informed me that even 16.5 is not supported. They stated I would need to go to 16.7 before they could look at my issue. They didn't spend any time on the issue because according to them, 16.5 is not supported. Until I get 16.7 and complete the migration, I'm not getting any help from them. I was not too happy with the customer support. This was my only interaction with customer support, and I haven't received any resolution to my issue. It can be rated as low as zero because that's the only time I approached them. I cannot even say zero out of ten because I approached only once. Perhaps they are correct that they don't support 16.5, so they don't want to spend any time on that.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Traceability is a fantastic feature."
"It has helped me to develop the as-is state, design its to-be state, and track the capital investment according to gap analysis."
"The most valuable feature is that it is a very fast reverse engineering process. It does a very expansive comparison."
"In terms of operational efficiency and cause savings or return on investment, I can say that with SAP PowerDesigner, our company saves a lot of time."
"It offers a lot of features in one solution, and you would have to get multiple other products to bundle together all of the capabilities that you get in just this product."
"I mostly work on the conceptual and logical side of things, and I enjoy how easy it is to use."
"The most valuable features of SAP PowerDesigner are the creation the flow charts and folders. It is a powerful tool."
"I previously used Erwin and I switched because PowerDesigner is a more powerful tool."
"It allows us to have proper documentation in terms of the databases."
 

Cons

"The solution currently has an old algorithm and there are now free tools on the market that offer better options for drawing algorithms."
"The algorithm is outdated and should be upgraded."
"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."
"Checking-in models to the repository, especially when working remotely, is a slow process than can sometimes have problems with models being corrupted."
"Connectivity can be improved because it's not very good."
"It also has a web portal feature, which is much more convenient for giving people access to look at entity-relationship diagrams, but that web portal is unstable and does not work. It freezes up all the time."
"Technical support could be better and more human."
"The meta-model (a.k.a. how objects are supposed to be connected to each other) seems to be proprietary."
"This product does not have a good BPMN Modeler."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing varies based on functionality and users."
"PowerDesigner is not the cheapest solution on the market, so make sure that you are using it to its full potential."
"The price of the solution is too expensive. When we asked for certain licenses in different countries it was unattainable."
"SAP PowerDesigner is cheaper than eriwin."
"I bought the software outright and do not pay a licensing fee."
"The price of the solution is low."
"Regarding costs, SAP PowerDesigner is pricey, as I've heard from my team manager, which is why the company has been thinking of bringing another solution on board."
"The ROI has been 43%."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
21%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise18
 

Questions from the Community

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What needs improvement with SAP PowerDesigner?
Synchronization is vital since I experience multiple problems, such as mismatched models and manual DDL handling. Improving the synchronization between models and databases can enhance integration ...
What is your primary use case for SAP PowerDesigner?
I use SAP PowerDesigner for data modeling, which greatly enhances the clarity of my data management processes. I manage data across multiple databases, including cloud databases, Teradata, and Orac...
 

Also Known As

SAP EA Designer
Sybase PowerDesigner
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 Quest Software, SAP, SAP LeanIX and others in Enterprise Architecture Management. Updated: September 2026.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.