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Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs Visio vs Visual Paradigm comparison

 

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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is 10.5%, down from 12.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Visio is 12.5%, down from 13.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Visual Paradigm is 5.8%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design
 

Featured Reviews

Milan Sterba - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Tugrul TASCI - PeerSpot reviewer
We have seen return on investment in the form of time savings but should have more design tools
I am generally using Visio to create some diagrams Visio should implement more complex tools or graphics to facilitate processing and use flexible templates. It should allow users to easily drag and drop some previously created diagrams. The tools supplied or provided are very basic, and there…
Angie Ibrahim Eissa - PeerSpot reviewer
A software application designed for software development teams to model business information systems and manage development processes
Setting up Visual Paradigm is easy. There's hardly any configuration needed, unlike some other tools. You just choose your method and diagram type, and you're good to go. As for improvements, integrating project management features with diagrams could be better. Viewing outputs could also be smoother, especially when working with multiple files.Deployment is quick and painless. It practically takes no time at all to set up. And because I also teach at the university, I use Visual Paradigm for my classes and case studies. It's easy to switch between products, and my students have no trouble using it on their own.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a very rich tool in terms of the functionality, and the types of diagrams, that you can create in this tool."
"Sparx technical support is good."
"Sparx offers good flexibility."
"I have found the Meta Model tuning feature useful as it provides me with an overview of all my work needs."
"The profiles allow me to customize the tool to the corporate environment instead of the other way around saving huge amounts of time and energy on trying to turn dozens of individuals into TOGAF, ArchiMate or Zachman experts, or even Sparx EA experts."
"It is simple to build the first model for the solution."
"The most valuable feature of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is the value streams."
"Customizable and tailored to the environment. Several template frameworks are provided."
"The product provides a lot of flexibility in writing graphs and customizing them."
"It is stable. I have never experienced any issues."
"Visio makes it easy to communicate your ideas from several areas of your imagination across several domains."
"It keeps track of its connections as you move things around."
"A major benefit of Visio is its user-friendliness. Upon opening the program, you have access to a variety of pre-made templates, saving you time and effort. All you need to do is input your data into the template and you're ready to proceed with your project."
"Visio is a very easy tool in general, making it easy for anyone to understand."
"Simple to use and very intuitive."
"The scalability is good. We can reuse it as a model. It can be modified."
"Visual Paradigm is simple and easy to use."
"I find it very user-friendly for my purposes, which is creating business process models that I can publish as HTML pages. It has worked flawlessly for my project, and my clients are able to utilize it as an internal web portal for their process documentation and other needs."
"It is easy and intuitive to use, not excessively rigid, and quite flexible."
"It is a scalable solution since it can be used at an individual level as well as for enterprise-sized businesses."
"The most valuable feature of Visual Paradigm is the ability to design form flows, add libraries, create organizational charts, and connect them all together."
"Stable design software with multiple functions and features. It's simple to install and easy to use."
"The solution is the best application for data modeling. It helps to architect business processes. Its best features are pricing and functionality."
"The solution is very user-friendly. It's easy to just open it and start working."
 

Cons

"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."
"I think that collaboration can be better."
"I think the product is good. When I'm trying to do something specific for some part of project documentation, it's hard to get it figured out if you don't use it all the time. It's such a massive tool, it's hard to figure out how to dig in and get to the documentation where you have to be to get some idea of what to do. There are not a lot of examples that I'm aware of to be able to do that."
"I would like it to be less of a general tool. Currently, it is not a Swiss army knife that can do everything. It is not specialized for our purposes. We are a civil engineering company. We build things. We work mostly in what is known as Infra world in the Netherlands, which comprises objects such as bridges, locks, and water management. We would like to see more focus on such types of projects. It would be nice if it has more specializations. At the moment, it is very generic, and you have to create everything yourself. Our focus is more on user requirement management, which is currently very basic. I would like to see a lot more functionality in this area. Its basic functions for adding user requirements are perfect, but we need more features. Currently, it has limited possibilities for our requirements. I would also like to see better contract management and have it managed in a certain way."
"When many users are accessing the system at the same time, Sparx slows down. It can't easily support a large team."
"When collaborating with other people, it needs to be more user-friendly."
"In general, we now have a problem with Sparx Enterprise Architect because many analysts think it's too complicated to use in a giant environment."
"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."
"When you use a BPA solution you can open an end-to-end process in one window, go down, or go up between layers to different places. You should be able to see descriptions of the steps of the process."
"The platform has limitations in managing aspects like repositories."
"Visio can be more user-friendly."
"It needs hyperlinked or narratives for page flows to make demos more effective."
"An area for improvement in Visio is pricing. It's a costly tool for my company because it only uses Visio occasionally."
"We need the place and route capability for the lines when we have a database. I use it for architectures, and between the boxes, there are lines or interfaces from one tool to another. I wish those lines could be easily drawn without having to place them mechanically. I wish that there was some kind of place and route capability, so I just press a button, and all the lines get drawn."
"It thinks that it knows what you want to do, but it doesn't. It has a way of behaving that can be very frustrating from time to time. Either it moves things about because it thinks its placement should be at a certain place, or it's keeping track of things that you don't necessarily see, so it moves something elsewhere."
"There are some issues in Visio with the connectors, and it gets tricky when you want to connect objects with each other."
"Takes up a lot of resources."
"The solution could be more compatible with other products in the future."
"The user interface is not easy to navigate, so it should be made easier."
"Visual Paradigm is heavier and has more complexity than one of its competitors, e.g. Lucidchart. It could have been better if it was more simplified."
"The solution is not user-friendly. It uses a lot of memory and CPU. You have to have a good computer to use it."
"Visual Paradigm can improve by having better process mining tools and model integration."
"More flexibility when choosing the type of diagram would be nice."
"The solution's technical support can be improved and accessible for our company location since Visual Paradigm follows a remote support model with some challenges."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Use floating licenses strategically."
"The licence has a costly upfront fee which gets you access. You have to pay an annual maintenance fee, which is less."
"The pricing for ultimate version is steeply high."
"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."
"They have the price on their site for the enterprise version, and we do receive a small discount."
"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."
"It is cheap."
"The solution is expensive. The solution does come bundled in other packages."
"I know you can pick it up in retail for under a thousand per person. You can also pick it up for cheaper than that. Microsoft has about 7,000 licensing models, and you get certain percentages off specific licensing. If you're a partner, you get specific numbers of licenses with the partnership price."
"You have to purchase a license to use the solution."
"The pricing of Visio is much better. It has a free version of the cheapest functionality which is enough for us."
"If I want to buy Visio for myself, I think it will be around 80 to 120 USD, though it is important to consider that I am unsure of its actual costs."
"Personally, I think the price of this solution is too high."
"While I don't recall the exact price I do recall that it was quite high."
"I don't have any issue with the pricing. It has a subscription-based model, and the subscription is done on a yearly basis. Of course, we need internal approvals in place."
"Visual Paradigm costs $99 per license. I chose the cheapest option from the pricing list."
"Visual Paradigm has two models available. One of them is the educational edition, and another is the business edition. For my personal usage, I use the educational version mostly. In a project, my customers have to purchase a license."
"I rate Visual Paradigm's pricing a five out of ten."
"You can move between the tiers from month to month so you are not restricted to one pricing model."
"Over the years I've seen an increase in price, and it makes it difficult for a single person company, like me, to decide whether to extend the license."
"This is an open-sourced solution, it is free to use."
"In terms of pricing, I find Visual Paradigm's subscription services reasonable, especially for the modern and standard editions. However, the premium products can be a bit pricey, especially considering our location in the Middle East. Currently, paying around a hundred dollars per user translates to almost six hundred Egyptian pounds, which can add up. For enterprise licensing, I think the perpetual license option could be more affordable. If it were cheaper, say around five hundred dollars, I would have invested in multiple perpetual licenses long ago. Sometimes, to manage costs, we share accounts among team members or switch access on and off for certain members who aren't actively working on projects. As for additional costs, there are charges for cloud services, which I'm considering because I've already exceeded the free capacity."
"Visual Paradigm's pricing is not expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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 stra...
How easy is it to migrate process flow charts (modeled using tools like Visio) into Bizagi?
I have been using Bizagi with a major project for a state government agency for about four years now. It is pretty st...
What do you like most about Visio?
The diagrams Visio creates are quite impressive in the sense that we can cooperate with more colleagues in one task a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Visio?
One of the main problems with Visio is its licensing options and associated issues, which lead to discussions about t...
What do you like most about Visual Paradigm?
The solution is the best application for data modeling. It helps to architect business processes. Its best features a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Visual Paradigm?
I purchased Visual Paradigm on my own, and it was competitively priced, so I was fine with the pricing.
What needs improvement with Visual Paradigm?
The product can always get better as the industry changes, however, I didn't necessarily feel it was lacking for what...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Visio
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

OmniLink
Thomas College, Hamburg Port Authority, Portigon AG, Conseil G_n_ral du d_partement des Hautes-Alpes, AAA Auto a. s., Commonwealth Financial Network, ICA, Abu Dhabi National Energy Company
Adobe, Apple, at&t, Caterpillar, Intel, NASA, Nokia, Toyota
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Camunda, SAP and others in Business Process Design. Updated: June 2025.
861,803 professionals have used our research since 2012.