ARIS BPA vs SAP PowerDesigner comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

ARIS BPA
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (3rd), Business Process Management (BPM) (6th)
SAP PowerDesigner
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (5th), Metadata Management (4th)
 

Market share comparison

As of June 2024, in the Business Process Design category, the market share of ARIS BPA is 9.7% and it increased by 9.4% compared to the previous year. The market share of SAP PowerDesigner is 3.9% and it increased by 27.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design
Unique Categories:
Business Process Management (BPM)
6.2%
Enterprise Architecture Management
13.7%
Metadata Management
0.9%
 

Featured Reviews

NR
Aug 24, 2023
Seamless collaboration, excellent technical support, and provides a single source of truth
Although ARIS is already a leading tool in the BPA space for years, in my opinion, there are a few areas that can be made even better, For example: 1. The reporting capabilities and the ability to create custom reports need to be simplified and made easy so that people even with a good functional understanding of the tool can leverage it to create their own custom report. Since, at the end of such BPA/BPM implementations, higher management typically wants to see the value coming out of ARIS and all the modeling effort and this would make it more adaptable for our customers as they would see the value coming out of the tool. 2. As the world is going the way of low code/no code, they should also think of modernizing the report creation in a similar fashion. 3. The integration capabilities with other COTS products should be better. Since every organization uses many applications/systems for day-to-day operations, the easy integration with such systems like SNOW, SFDC, et cetera, will make the adoption easy for the client rather than seeing ARIS as a standalone system with separate license and maintenance costs.
Lasha Grdzelishvili - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 29, 2022
Easy to use data models, highly reliable, and straightforward setup
SAP PowerDesigner could improve by making the repository easier to understand. It is difficult to understand how the repository works because when I used logical models as part of the team, we wanted to use them together and update the older versions of the data model version but it was confusing. The repository needs to be explained. It would be helpful to have a checking system on the objects that are generated from the physical data model on the specific database to help see if there is a difference on the database side and on the SAP PowerDesigner documentation side.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If you ever tried to draw a picture in a browser app or with a cloud service, it is normally a painful death. ARIS works perfectly on diagrams in the browser, so I was excited. I like it because there have been so many bad experiences in the past with drawing or doing something in a browser. Normally, it's always painful because it's coded badly. With ARIS, it is really well-implemented. It's simple."
"The shared repository allows for cross-functional cooperation instead of doing things in a silo. You can operate cross-functionally and really work end-to-end, instead of dividing everything up on a functional basis."
"Also, the UML parts have been improved very much in the last two years. And it's very powerful now to combine the BPMN and UML parts in the product, because you can make a connection between them, so that you have the right interoperability between them. So if you're doing data modeling, you can use your class diagram and bind that to the BPMN part."
"The tool has good navigation."
"The most valuable feature is the process documentation. For us, ARIS is a lifestyle more than a tool. It helps us learn how to think and how to plan for our system."
"The technical support is good."
"The most valuable feature in the latest versions is the connect portal, where you can do very simple modeling using the web-based portal."
"​The matrix model makes building relations easier.​"
"SAP PowerDesigner is an excellent tool that does what I need it to do. What I like most about it is that it's stable, fast, and easy to understand."
"Provides the flexibility to create logical and conceptual data models."
"The most valuable features of the solution are it's built very well, easy to use, and simple to describe freely what is needed in logical and physical data models."
"In PowerDesigner, I primarily use BPM and modeling standards. I find it beneficial for process analysis, although I use data modeling to a lesser extent."
"It's a great tool for documentation."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is that it is a very fast reverse engineering process. It does a very expansive comparison."
"Very good repository features."
 

Cons

"It needs external API and the ability to navigate back, similar to "Back" in web browser."
"I would like the possibility to use real data. In other words, it can use this system to integrate with others that are operating directing with users like clients, employs, and others."
"Its governance tool and integration with ESB and execution engine can be improved. Their partner support can also be improved."
"Create simple data uploader."
"ARIS BPA is not really a platform that offers you the opportunity to execute processes that you model."
"Sometimes, ARIS BPA breaks down, and its stability can be improved."
"The Risk and Compliance Management tool is rather complex and moreover, it needs to be customized if you want to use it."
"The workflow approval process could be represented better in the overviews."
"One disadvantage of SAP PowerDesigner is that you cannot reverse engineer the ALTER statements, so that's an enhancement or area for improvement I'm looking forward to seeing from the SAP team in the future. That should directly reflect on the physical data models my company builds."
"The solution is very, very expensive. It would be ideal if it was a more affordable product."
"There are some minor things that could be easier. We're writing up procedures to bring all the modeling back into one group as this reduces delays in production."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Checking-in models to the repository, especially when working remotely, is a slow process than can sometimes have problems with models being corrupted."
"Technical support could be better and more human."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In terms of pricing, it would be nice if it were more affordable."
"It depends on different parameters."
"The solution has a fair price for the value it delivers."
"The product is a bit pricey."
"Usually, our company buys technical support from the Software AG site. We bought the technical support for the first year of usage for ARIS version 6 and 7. So, when we migrated to ARIS version 7, we bought support only for the first year. Then, we didn't use it the next year. Our experience was that we use it only one to three times during the first year. Therefore, there wasn't much value for us to buy this service because we have no problem with using ARIS after the first year."
"We have a concurrent license system."
"This is absolutely not the cheapest solution in the market, but for large companies, the price is fine."
"Their license model is really difficult to understand, and licenses are quite expensive."
"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."
"The price of the solution is low."
"The ROI has been 43%."
"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."
"The price of the solution is too expensive. When we asked for certain licenses in different countries it was unattainable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ARIS BPA?
The most valuable features of ARIS BPA are its flexibility and reporting.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ARIS BPA?
ARIS has different licensing mechanisms for different modules, but they are perpetual licenses. So you pay once. It is a mid-range product in terms of licensing costs. So, it depends on what you wa...
What needs improvement with ARIS BPA?
I always miss an execution module that is better than the current one. The current one is called ARIS Process Governance, and it's mostly focused on setting up internal workloads for ARIS and the p...
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's really effective in terms of validating everything, but sometimes they don't allow us some flexibility if we compare it with other tools in the market. So, it's doing too many validations that...
 

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM
Sybase PowerDesigner
 

Learn More

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tesco, Weifu, Airbus, Siemens, Proximus, Alicorp, Sekerbank, Bancor, Philips,Sky, Emirates NBD, Dubai Municipality, Suva, U.S. Army, Australia Post, Westfalen Weser Energie - ARIS serves customers across all industries and of every size worldwide. Companies trust ARIS as the market leader for process excellence with more than 30 years of experience in the market, 10 million users worldwide, from 1 user companies to the Fortune 500.
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 Microsoft, Camunda, Software AG and others in Business Process Design. Updated: June 2024.
787,061 professionals have used our research since 2012.