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SAP PowerDesigner 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

SAP PowerDesigner
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Metadata Management (5th)
Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of SAP PowerDesigner is 7.4%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is 8.6%, down from 14.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SAP PowerDesigner7.4%
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect8.6%
Other84.0%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

Kopparapu Venkatesh Prasad - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Data modeling tool improves data management and decision-making efficiency
The lineage analysis helps my organization understand data dependencies at an enterprise level. As a SAP PowerDesigner developer, I monitor data across the organization, creating data models that reflect not just one data warehouse but comprehensive organizational information. If you have a small company, lineage helps track employee data across different areas such as finance and HR. Data governance prevents duplicate records, so when tracking employee details, SAP PowerDesigner highlights where data exists in various areas, helping ensure we only use the appropriate sources. This functionality allows us to assess the impact of data deletions effectively. I utilize the reverse engineering capabilities in SAP PowerDesigner. Reverse engineering is helpful, especially since I have colleagues new to SAP PowerDesigner. They often do not know which columns are available where. In SAP PowerDesigner, we can reverse engineer existing data from its source and identify errors in production. For instance, by using Ali's example, if an error arises, I can trace it back to the table and environment it originated from using the reverse engineering feature. The best features of SAP PowerDesigner, from my perspective, are its ability to keep the connectivity between the source database and the new system, data redundancy and availability, and impact analysis. The first feature acts as a bridge between systems. The second allows us to see what data is already available and what new data can be brought in. The third, impact analysis, helps determine how many tables will be affected if a specific table is deleted. This critical point allows us to capture how much data will be lost if any table is removed. Currently, these features shape my daily work. SAP PowerDesigner primarily benefits business management units by offering three types of data modeling structures: conceptual, logical, and physical models. The conceptual model communicates high-level insights to top executives, while logical and physical models address complex queries faced by developers in analytics. SAP PowerDesigner enhances the clarity of our data management significantly, as around 80% of data can be searched quickly and maintained in our SAP systems. The tool enables mapping from end to end, making my work faster and more efficient than using other ER data modeling solutions. The interface allows easy creation of data models and searching for existing data, ensuring I can complete my tasks significantly quicker. The importance of SAP PowerDesigner's collaboration capabilities lies in fostering a unified data management approach. It acts as a unified tool, preventing the duplication of existing data in analytical processes, thus saving both effort and storage costs, which is essential for effective data management. We utilize collaboration capabilities in SAP PowerDesigner with various source systems such as PG admin, Postgres, Oracle, and Snowflake. Recently, we have added Snowflake for cloud data modeling and POC work, streamlining the collaboration process across different systems.
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 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 the way you can extend it and customize it. With most modeling tools, you fit your modeling process to fit the tool. In PowerDesigner, you can make the tool fit the way you want to work."
"I like the property sheet capability and the user-defined attributes that you can set up."
"The physical database model is definitely the most valuable feature because it describes normalization exactly the way you understand the data, and it deploys it perfectly with open source systems."
"The feature I found valuable in SAP PowerDesigner is extraction. I also like that my company hasn't faced any issues because of the clear documentation about SAP PowerDesigner."
"This solution has good tools for big data, where you can manage large and complex databases."
"The most valuable feature is that it is a very fast reverse engineering process. It does a very expansive comparison."
"What I appreciate best about SAP PowerDesigner is that it is a very detailed and comprehensive tool."
"Its ease of use and the breadth of the toolkit are most valuable. It has an incredible repository of artifacts to work with, and they're all cross-referenced. It works with a whole bunch of different standards. It works with BPMN, which is Business Process Modeling Notation, and it also works with something called TOGAF, which is the Open Group Architecture Foundation. There are different layers when you're dealing with architecture. There is the user interface, application, data, data servers, and all that kind of stuff. You have the infrastructure, hardware, and software layers, and then you have the application and business capability layers. You can model a business process and decompose it into all of the applications, data, and hardware to support it."
"It's a very practical solution. You don't need to do an advanced course to start using this tool."
"The product offers very good support for all mainstream modeling notations and architectural frameworks."
"It is simple to build the first model for the solution."
"The solution saved a lot of time, about 30%."
"The Business Process Modeling or BPM part is the most valuable. Its ability to simulate scenarios is also very useful. It can also create descriptions of the workflows. It has a feature in which if you create some BPMN process, a workflow diagram, and the description inside, you can actually simulate the whole scenario, and you get the description. That's very handy."
"We use it to develop and maintain the Enterprise Conceptual Model, migrated from erwin a couple of years ago."
"Simplified our task at maintaining architecture information and traceability with requirements."
 

Cons

"The solution is very, very expensive. It would be ideal if it was a more affordable product."
"I have found the solution not easy to use. When publishing you have to download the HTML, make adjustments against the updated HTML, convert it to HTML, then finally paste the HTML. There is not an on-the-fly function available to bypass the step-by-step converting process that other solutions have."
"They didn't spend any time on the issue because according to them, 16.5 is not supported."
"The focus is more on mainstream development environments, and I see a lack of focus on the open source world. I think SAP PowerDesigner probably interfaces better with SQL Server and Db2 but not with open source databases like PostgreSQL and MySQL."
"One issue is the cost, as it is a high-priced tool coming from SAP."
"The user interface could be more user-friendly."
"In terms of improvement, the pricing is a bit high."
"This product lacks artificial intelligence that should be very good in terms of automatically identifying the classification of elements."
"It could be more user-friendly. The tools could be more simple to use. It's a very complex solution. Because I am a business analyst, I use these tools to manage requirements, and I make models in UML, BPMN, and ArchiMate, and it's complex. In the next release, I would like to see more integrations."
"When collaborating with other people, it needs to be more user-friendly."
"Their technical support is not good in India. I wrote to them because I had a question, but I never got an answer. So, I just left it behind."
"Sparx can be a bit slow. If you are trying to design software architecture, sometimes we run into issues and need to refresh."
"Inconsistent UI elements must be tidied up with the toolbox gaps removed."
"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."
"Not visually appealing."
"No way to implement data integrity and referential integrity constraints."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is low."
"The price of the solution is too expensive. When we asked for certain licenses in different countries it was unattainable."
"I bought the software outright and do not pay a licensing fee."
"When you purchase the license for SAP PowerDesigner, you have to buy one year of support. The tool is worth the money."
"SAP PowerDesigner is cheaper than eriwin."
"I would like SAP to prove free licenses to professionals that are using the solution. The free version is limited."
"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."
"It is cheap."
"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."
"We paid 1200 euros as a once-off cost. All add ons and integrations come at an additional cost."
"The Corporate Edition, or one of the bundles, is the way to go."
"We have an annual license, and it's very affordable."
"This product has a paid license, with a yearly subscription option."
"I think our license costs roughly $1,000 a year, but I could be wrong."
"The licence has a costly upfront fee which gets you access. You have to pay an annual maintenance fee, which is less."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SAP PowerDesigner?
It allows us to have proper documentation in terms of the databases.
What needs improvement with SAP PowerDesigner?
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 late...
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

Sybase PowerDesigner
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
OmniLink
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP PowerDesigner vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,565 professionals have used our research since 2012.