LeanIX Reviews

We use the tool's Enterprise Asset Management and Application Portfolio Management. 

The most valuable features are the clean user interface and the fact sheet feature in Application Portfolio Management. The tool integrates well with ServiceNow, which is the usual CMDB platform. 

I find LeanIX's pricing expensive for the functionality it offers. However, with the acquisition by SAP, the pricing might become more affordable due to scale and tiered application pricing. Currently, it offers different tiers for the first 400 applications: 400 to 600 and 600 to 1,000, making it expensive from a pricing standpoint.

LeanIX is stable. 

The solution is scalable. However, the tiered pricing structure makes it expensive as you scale up. Despite the cost, the clean interface and UI make it accessible even to those who are not very familiar with enterprise architecture.

The technical support is decent, with gold, silver, and platinum levels. Some of my clients have platinum support, which is very good. They offer in-person advice and join us over conference calls, like Teams, which is helpful.

My client has the highest level of support, platinum level, so they pay the maximum amount. The support is really quick.

I rated it eight out of ten because sometimes our queries lack answers. They say they'll return to us, and we must follow up separately.

Positive

The tool's deployment is easy. It is easier than other tools and takes about three to four months to implement, depending on the number of applications and fact sheets. A complete deployment can take up to six months.

LeanIX is very clean and intuitive. The website offers good training solutions, so you can start using it even if you're not an enterprise architect by profession. It's one of the easiest tools to learn and use. I rate the product a ten out of ten. 

I was part of an international bank and suggested this product for implementation. 

So our use cases include Portfolio rationalization and transformation.

The most impactful features include: 

• Business capability modeling
• IT landscape dashboards and surveys
• Integration with ServiceNow

For the reporting capabilities, LeanIX provides dashboards for different levels, including CXO dashboards. There are plenty of dashboards for reporting.

LeanIX has limited in-build diagramming capabilities, requiring the purchase of another tool. That is the main drawback of LeanIX because they don't have a built-in add-on product for diagramming.

Other than that, we do not have an on-premise version. It is a software-as-a-service solution. However, some organizations prefer to install the software on-premise, which is not possible with LeanIX.

I have been using it for four years. 

There are some spikes. For example, at the starting time, you might experience a little bit of slowness because concurrent users are more. Otherwise, it's quite a stable solution.

It is a highly scalable solution. Based on the demand of the usage, it can be scaled because it's a cloud-deployed solution.

LeanIX provides excellent support with success managers enabled. They will provide day-to-day test calls to solve any issues or implementation queries. 

We've been quite happy so far in my two client implementations, which were very successful and allowed us to implement quickly.

Positive

I have also worked with IBM and Docker Essential, a competitor from Enterprise Architecture Solutions from UK. It's a developer version. They have three versions of the same product called Essential Projects, Essential Docker, and Essential Cloud. They have three flavors of products for enterprise architecture from the vendor Enterprise Architecture Solutions.

Compared to the solutions I have used, LeanIX provides more intelligence in terms of dashboards for the C-suite. Essential Docker is quite expensive and offers both on-prem and cloud versions, but the intelligence behind their dashboards is lesser than LeanIX's.

It is pretty quick, and it takes only a few weeks to set up and start using it. It's a software product; you can choose a cloud vendor, and it is installed very quickly.

For initial usage, one person is more than enough. If you really want to integrate with your active directory, for authentication, it might require a little bit more effort. But, otherwise, it is straightforward.

It is very easy to integrate because LeanIX provides REST APIs and webhooks to integrate with other systems, like Tableau, Apigee, and Alation. Using REST APIs, you can integrate with any other ITOps applications, and it's pretty straightforward.

LeanIX provides out-of-the-box intelligence. That is the major highlight that allows you to get the benefit immediately. 

Whereas Essential Docker, you have to customize a little bit to get the benefit you want.

LeanIX uses application-based account licensing, where the cost is multiplied by the number of applications in the software implementation. 

Essential Docker offers unlimited users and limited applications, along with three repositories. In our experience, it's more cost-effective than LeanIX.

I don't have the latest pricing model. For Essential Docker, we paid $19,000 (USD) a couple of years back. And LeanIX was about the same price back then. 

I would like to rate LeanIX as nine out of ten. LeanIX has a holistic view of the app landscape, and they also have work solutions in terms of technology, computer, lifecycle integration, and ServiceNow, which makes the product robust enough to implement quickly and get the benefits. 

On the other hand, Essential Projects, Essential Docker, and Essential Cloud provide cost-effective solutions for small and medium organizations, and up to 170 customizable dashboards. I would like to rate it five out of ten.

Our company is a partner with the solution and we use it to provide our clients with enterprise architecture management.

Partnering with LeanIX has given an edge to our Enterprise Architecture Consultants.

The out-of-the-box Enterprise Architecture artifacts are accurate and intelligent.  

The solution has a very useful assessment tool that automatically populates from input data to produce a detailed analysis of customer's environments. 

Sandbox access is provided across all architects. 

The solution needs to incorporate an AI/ML data intelligence tool that gets smarter with industry wise enterprise engagements and provides suggestive data input when optimum data sources not available for a new engagement. 

The solution has good security but should be wary of publishing services over internet for open consumption, because that will increase the attack surface. 

I have been using the solution for nine months. 

The solution is stable. 

Technical support is very good with no issues because they have an engagement model across sales, marketing, and support. 

The setup was handled by the solution's technicians so I cannot speak to its complexity.

The implementation was also handled by the solution's technicians and everything runs fine.

The solution's pricing is based on a licensing model that is competitive and in line with other products. 

I rate pricing a ten out of ten because there is good value. 

Most enterprise architecture solutions include standard features with little difference between products. 

All of the leading EA Tools depends on CMDB and ServiceNow for source data. 

We recommend the solution to customers because we are partners and prefer to use it. 

But it all depends on the assessment scope and what is the best fit. Some customers are not ready to move to a new enterprise solution or want to stick with what they already have in place. 

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

LeanIX is used for cloud governance from a business perspective, for example, to understand technology management, application portfolio management, data flow, and integration architecture.

LeanIX has a wide range of integrations, a data model, business architecture, and technical architecture, making it a comprehensive end-to-end solution. For example, the solution can be used for cloud use cases, Azure, and AWS components, and it imports data related to great availability and data modeling. LeanIX is user-friendly.

LeanIX has a great application information architecture. Currently, the interface application project and data objects are well organized and defined, making it easy for people to use. Additionally, the business architecture, for which I have used the business application processor, is properly aligned with the current market needs. The solution has many integrations which are easy to use.

The initial setup has room for improvement. Currently, the setup is complex.

I have been using LeanIX for one and a half months, and have found it to be one of the best tools available.

LeanIX was initially difficult to use because it is very new and there is limited knowledge available in the market. We had to read the manuals, watch videos, and search YouTube for information. The initial setup took some time.

I give the solution a seven out of ten.

We should be aware of our enterprise architecture strategy, and the governance we want to implement and use the solution accordingly. There are many different architecture layers and methods, such as content service platforms and solution architecture modeling. For example, we could use Sparx, DT, or something else. It is important to choose carefully within the strategy of what app we want to use, as there are many options. For example, there are other interfaces for unified communication, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Atlassian Chat. It can be difficult to decide which is the best-unified communicator for a company if there is no report outlining which unified communication should be used for a global purpose.

We are system integrators for LeanIX. LeanIX works in the petroleum industry towards the production of petroleum products, supply and demand, supply chains. The company was looking for an end-to-end view of its environment and business capabilities across the organization. LeanIX is indicative of that process. I'm a company partner. 

This product has the ability to interface with downstream systems of data, whether primary or secondary. It's one of the better in the market place. It's an extremely useful system to enable visualization of your end-to-end flow and to look at future proofing. It's got great graphics and is new, modern, and completely cloud-based. It's efficient to put into production quickly. 

LeanIX does a poor job of being able to allocate detailed costings to components within the network, rather using an average base, and it won't let you extend its data structure to include detailed pricing information. That is not sufficient in today's world and climate. The biggest issue we have is that the support staff are in Europe and we're in Southeast Asia so it's difficult getting support. 

They need to be able to provide extensions to their metadata structure so you can create functions but you can't add metadata structure, so you actually have to get creative and start using additional add ons or add on libraries. It takes away from maximizing the use of LeanIX. 

We've been using LeanIX for about three years. 

The solution is highly scalable. Scalability is only limited by the license type so it's about the number of active users as opposed to the functional component. 

There are difficulties with support because our company is based in Southeast Asia and the support is based in Europe. 

This is an SaaS product so it's on my network and the maintenance is automatic because of that. 

I recommend this solution but it's important to engage the business first and acknowledge that they're the owners of the data. Engaging the business significantly improves the return on investment. I rate this solution nine out of 10. 

The product has matured a lot over time. They've moved up into the enterprise architecture realm very well. They're still able to provide substantial value on application portfolio management (APM), and in doing that, I am able to drive cost savings to justify the purpose of the tool. From that standpoint, it's a very good tool, and then we're able to get a lot of the enterprise architecture facts from that.

The most valuable feature would be application portfolio management, which is where they came from, but over time, they have got artificial intelligence. They built up a very good repository. If I identify a system by name, from historical information, oftentimes, they can tell me that this is deployed with this number of CPUs and they can give me a really good profile of the application for me to put it into a change management database with very little effort.

They're moving forward pretty well. I'm seeing a little bit more focus on the business architecture side than they are currently focused on, but the pendulum for that is shifting back to more of a traditional enterprise architecture view, so they're probably positioned pretty well for that. Over the next eighteen months, you're going to see people starting to move back towards more of the traditional enterprise architecture view versus the MDA-type business view of the world. 

In terms of focusing a little bit more on the business side, there's a short-term window. By the time they focus on it, the window would have closed, so their current trajectory is very good. Some of them are trying to position with the heavy, what I refer to as, MDA-flavor on how business architecture is being addressed, and I see the pendulum has already swung out to that area, and it's starting to come back. So, if you're building for that now, it's not going to be that significant when you get to market with it. 

They're probably positioned pretty well. I hope that they would not focus that much on the business architecture, and they would focus more on the overall cloud strategy and how we can leverage multi-cloud and transition back and forth from other cloud providers. With a lot of current vendors, you get locked in with one cloud, and then you try to migrate to someone else, and it becomes very problematic. What they need to do is to look at the overall data strategy, and they probably need to amplify their data strategy, especially around multi-cloud.

I've been using it off and on for about five years.

I have not had to deal with their tech support. Most of the people who have been working with me on it have been very comfortable with it. Anytime we've had questions, they've been very helpful. It was years ago when we had to reach out to them, but they were very supportive, and normally, it was the person in the sales cycle who was supporting us. So, it was very high-touch when we reached out to them.

The actual initial time to value is about three days. I can get it installed if I have someone who knows what they're doing with it. They can import my data because normally, we have the data laying around somewhere, and I can get through and identify overlaps in my portfolio within probably three business days so that it gives me a good value. 

Their go-to-market is rather interesting where you can do a pilot. In the pilot itself, you can pretty well identify enough cost savings to justify the full purchase. From that, it puts them in a very good position to then be able to save you additional components and make your enterprise architecture more robust.

I have not done any recent ones. Most of my data was from around three years ago, and I was getting a full return on investment in under six months. Normally, I'm looking for at least around eight months. That's normally what I'm expecting, but anything better than that is really surprising. With some of the more expensive tools, we're looking at a two-year ROI. They can move up their price just a little bit based on that.

There is a sweet spot of where they need to be on pricing right now. They could go up a little bit in pricing, but it has to do with the cost savings, and it has to do with the practitioners using it. I use it where I get cost savings and I can justify it, but they probably have the ability to flex a 10% up channel on their sales on that. So, they could increase their settle price, not their offering price, when they sell. They can probably hold that up a little bit higher than it is because there are cost savings that we can drive from it.

I would rate LeanIX a solid nine out of ten. I've recommended it for usage to probably seven customers, and four of them purchased it.

This is what we're using LeanIX for: clients come to us with a lot of apps they want to manage. There are too many apps out there, so they're not quite sure which app is doing what, so they come to us to rationalize these things, and they want to make sure that the landscape of the apps that they have are functional and actually fit their purpose. We utilize LeanIX for assessing the apps, and we come up with integrations. For example: how these applications are talking to each other, how data is exchanged, etc.

We then come up with a target application landscape: which apps we'd maintain and which apps we'd sunset. From the CXO level, they'd get the overall view, in particular, how the IT landscape is, and that will help them increase capability and make it more aligned with their business needs.

What I find most valuable in LeanIX is its reporting feature. It provides very nice, built-in reports, like the time series report, etc. It's quite useful, especially if you want to present it to the CXO team. Our CXO team likes the way the reports have been built. It's also very easy to create the reports.

LeanIX is also intuitive, so it's quite a good tool to have. It's really easy to use compared to other tools.

What could be improved in LeanIX is the reporting aspect, in particular the variety of reports. If they could give us more drilled down reports, for example: if we can get more reports that can answer the question: "When the business is actually spending money, how can that translate into benefits?" that would be great. At times, we'd need customized reports, so more reporting varieties would be good.

The data import feature of LeanIX could also be improved, if they can give us more flexibility in terms of importing data across different data sources, that would be good. More generic, more lucid data importing would make the service better.

Feature-wise, if we compare LeanIX with industry leading tools such as MEGA and other competitors, there are certain features that aren't there, but those tools were built for something more holistic, so overall, LeanIX is fine for me.

I've used LeanIX for the last two to three years.

LeanIX is a stable tool. It's really good, especially in terms of usability.

I have not used LeanIX for a very complex IT landscape, so I'm unable to comment on how scalable it is.

I find the technical support for LeanIX helpful.

Deploying LeanIX isn't that difficult, especially when you compare it with other tools, e.g. MEGA. Configuring it is not that difficult. It's quite easy to install it.

How long the deployment takes would depend on the complexity of the IT landscape. Deploying LeanIX could take one week, two weeks, or it could take a month, depending on the difficulty of the landscape you're in.

We didn't use a third-party or a consultant to deploy the service because it's cloud-based.

I evaluated MEGA.

In terms of LeanIX deployment, we have a tier for it, they just provide us with cloud instances, and we use those.

LeanIX is quite good because they just try to focus on the modern aspects of the applications and how the business evolves. I'm fine with their vision. The good part about LeanIX is that it is quite a new tool. When you have an old tool, they do have a lot of features, but the problem is that they have certain legacy thoughts, but LeanIX doesn't have that "baggage of thoughts", as it is a new tool. Instead, it has a modern way of thinking, and that's a good way to start.

I'm not part of the Procurement Department, so I'm unable to comment on the pricing for the tool, but in general, because it's cloud-based, it's normally cheaper. It's quite popular because the overall pricing comes down a lot when you deploy tools on the cloud.

My advice to others looking into implementing LeanIX is that it's a pretty good tool if they're looking to reduce costs, but still want better IT. If cost is their primary consideration, then LeanIX is a really a good tool.

I'm giving LeanIX a rating of eight out of ten.

It offers neat visualization and referencing functionality while enabling the creation of landscape maps and showing the relationship between different applications. It allows logical mapping and basic architecture design, making it similar to other tools used for creating schemas. The tool is easy to adopt and has a low barrier to entry in terms of usability. Overall, it is a user-friendly and comprehensive solution for optimizing IT landscapes.

I highly appreciate its usability and capabilities for enterprise asset management.

It would be beneficial to have additional features and capabilities to enhance mapping between applications, especially across domains where the relationships may not be direct. Adding a basic intelligence layer that could suggest connections and dependencies based on labels metadata assigned to applications in the future would save time.

I have been using the solution for a year.

We didn't face any issues regarding the performance stability.

Being mostly used as a repository, documentation and design solution, we didn't have scalability issues with the solution.

I had experience with similar tools in the past and I consider LeanIX to be one of the best alternatives on the market.

Prior to choosing LeanIX, I would suggest verifying the ability to adopt it and its features to utilize its full potential. It does require significant expertise and technical proficiency, as it is a tool primarily used by a limited number of experts in the architecture field. I would rate it eight out of ten.