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BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs erwin Data Modeler comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 19, 2025

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

BiZZdesign HoriZZon
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
7th
Ranking in Business Process Design
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
erwin Data Modeler
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
3rd
Ranking in Business Process Design
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of BiZZdesign HoriZZon is 4.9%, up from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 8.3%, down from 10.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
erwin Data Modeler8.3%
BiZZdesign HoriZZon4.9%
Other86.8%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Raju Mallipudi - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to implement, and it's reliable but restrictions in integration capabilities
Integration definitely needs improvement. There are some restrictions. We've seen that it doesn't integrate with everything we might expect. Out of ten products we want to integrate, maybe five or six integrate easily. The other four might face challenges due to lower investment in the products or compatibility issues. It's definitely not easy to achieve seamless integration for any product. We can only test to a certain extent, and issues could arise from either BiZZdesign HoriZZon or the other product. Another point is the cost of licenses. If they were a bit lower, it would be easier for businesses to acquire more licenses... something like an enterprise or bulk license model. Maybe different pricing tiers based on the number of licenses, like significant discounts for orders over one hundred. This could help clients adopt the product.
Khadarvalli Phatan - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps map data relationships and document business logic through exportable visual diagrams
I would rate the visualization feature in erwin Data Modeler a six out of ten because the visualization is somewhat poor and some of the features are not user-friendly. You need to spend more time to make it a framework. There are areas where erwin Data Modeler can improve, such as scrolling and zooming in and out to see any particular columns. The visualization is average to above average, but not great. Erwin Data Modeler could improve in areas such as the interface, as there are features like copy and paste, creating duplicates, and the visualization elements and toolbars which feel quite old. The user interface resembles a 1998 Windows structure, so that can be enhanced.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Among the valuable features is the ability to document standards. For example, we have mandatory operating standards that need to be followed by every application and every architecture. We use things like table charts and pie charts for documenting the costs incurred across the systems. All of these are good features."
"This is one of the best tools, especially because of its collaborative nature. Anyone using it can access previous projects and related data. It's definitely a strong collaborative tool."
"The most valuable feature is that it allows you to work with different methods, using the same tool."
"It is very easy to use. I can just click on an application component and find out if we are using this particular component. This provides us flexibility."
"I like the flexibility of the modeling part for standards like ArchiMate and, at the same time, BPMN. It allows us to connect elements from different areas and to have a single repository and a single source of truth. It gives us one place to do analysis throughout the organization."
"The most valuable features of BiZZdesign HoriZZon, from my experience, include its out-of-the-box connectors, such as integration with ServiceNow, Excel, and SQL databases, making data repository management more efficient."
"The feature I find most valuable is that the start times and loading times are short. It takes only a few seconds to load the repository and whenever I want to open diagrams, they are there almost immediately."
"The powerful editing function in teamwork project-based, common or shared modeling, based on a powerful repository and knowledge sharing in a portal are the most valuable features. These are the most important features for me. I can add the integration of individual modeling notations like Archimate plus BPMN and DMN, and so on. We travel from one location to another and the tool allows us to keep track."
"One of the best aspects of the tool is its reverse engineering capability."
"The visual data models for helping to overcome data source complexity and enabling understanding and collaboration around maintenance and usage are excellent. A picture speaks 1,000 words. Seeing a picture that shows you how the data relates to each other helps you better understand what the data is and how to use it. Pairing that information with a dictionary, which has the definitions of the tables and columns or the entities and attributes, ensures that the users understand what the data is so that they can use it best and most successfully."
"It's important to create standard templates — Erwin is good at that — and you can customize them. You can create a standard template so that your models have the same look and feel. And then, anyone using the tool is using the same font and the same general layout. erwin's very good at helping enforce that."
"It provides flexibility with the code. You can change the code as you want. Basically, you can change SQL based on what's best for your project."
"When you're getting down to the database level, where you're building a design and you're creating DDL out of it, or you're going in the other direction where you're reaching into system catalogs and bringing things back, that starts to really require specialization. Visio isn't going to reverse-engineer that for you. Those features in erwin are valuable."
"The fitting model is very intuitive."
"We use the Forward and Reverse Engineering tools to help us speed things up and create things that would have to be done otherwise by hand. E.g., getting a database into a data model format or vice versa."
"Being able to point it to a database and then pull the metadata is a valuable feature. Another valuable feature is being able to rearrange the model so that we can display it to users. We are able to divide the information into subject areas, and we can divide the data landscape into smaller chunks, which makes it easier to understand. If you had 14 subject areas, 1,000 entities, and 6,000 columns, you can't quite understand it all at once. So, being able to have the same underlying model but only display portions of it at a time is extremely useful."
 

Cons

"The ability to generate charts and deal with a use case involving Kibana was quite difficult."
"The repository of duplicate objects is bad."
"Integration definitely needs improvement. There are some restrictions. We've seen that it doesn't integrate with everything we might expect."
"It takes a long time to learn and understand, which is a learning curve you have to go through, but once you know how it works, it's very nice to work with."
"The automatic data collection and interface need improvement."
"It should be more open to integrating with other existing tools. Although there has been progress in the past."
"We tested it, and we had support from BiZZdesign, including patches, but it just didn't do what we wanted."
"There is room for improvement in making it more seamless between the modeling and the analysis pieces. Sometimes you have to do some work in the backend to ensure that the HoriZZon portal really gets all of the information the way you want it. They are working on the seamlessness between what they call Enterprise Studio and HoriZZon."
"Complete Compare is set up only to compare properties that are of interest to us, but some of the differences cannot be brought over from one version of the model to another. This is despite the fact that we are clicking to bring objects from one place to another. Therefore, it's hard to tell at times if Complete Compare is working as intended without having to manually go into the details and check everything. If it could be redesigned to a degree where it is easier to use when we bring things over from one site to another and be sure that it's been done correctly, that would be nice to have. We would probably use the tool more often if the Complete Compare were easier to use."
"The interface must be improved."
"I love the product. I love the ability to get into the code, make it automated, and make it do what I want. I would like to see them put some kind of governance over the ability to make changes to the mart tables with the API, so that instead of just using the modeler's rights to a table -- it has a separate set of rights for API access. That would give us the ability to put governance around API applications. Right now a person with erwin and Excel/VBA has the ability to make changes to models with the API if they also have rights to make changes to the model from erwin. It's a risk."
"The solution's reporting side needs to be improved."
"I would like the solution to be more user-friendly to deploy."
"We can only get licenses through partners."
"It does not have a cloud application."
"Sometimes when I want to open the attribute editor, it stops working and the whole application freezes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If one is very cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the product price as a seven out of ten."
"[The] Orbus... pricing model was based on every single functionality having a price. The pricing was comparable but if we wanted to scale, it would have ended up being a lot more expensive. BiZZdesign gave us one price with all of the functionality, and we could scale as much as we needed."
"In terms of this particular product usage, my clients currently only use per-user licenses."
"First and foremost within the scope of improvement for the solution would be the cost. It's very costly..."
"I haven't found any issues with the scalability and licensing parts that are access-related."
"The pricing model is slightly on the high side and could be more competitive for long-term partnerships."
"We were customers and bought licenses from them. We used their remote instance initially but upgraded to the on-device version due to lag. For pricing, we paid about 2200 pounds a year per seat for the client installation at an educational rate. I'm not sure about commercial rates. I managed to get a free copy at BBC since it was for evaluation purposes."
"The price is reasonable."
"An issue right now would be that erwin doesn't have a freely available browser (that I am aware of) for people who are not data modelers or data engineers that a consumer could use to look at the data models and play with it. This would not be to make any changes, but just to visually look at what exists. There are other products out there which do have end user browsers available and allow them to access data models via the data modeling tool."
"Price-wise, erwin Data Modeler is okay. You can purchase a single license and it is not very expensive."
"This company had bought the license for three years, and it's not an individual license. While you can buy a license for each individual, that would be very expensive. There is something called concurrent licenses where you can purchase licenses in bulk and 15 to 20 people can access the license and model. Concurrent licenses are scalable to the number of users and are proportional to the cost."
"Though the solution is not cheap, it's worth the money."
"We've continued to use the product for many years and compared it with others on the market. The pricing is reasonable considering what the solution offers and what we pay. There are cheaper tools, but they may not be as robust and easy to use, so it's worth the money."
"Likewise, the solution is a little pricey."
"erwin is expensive compared to other solutions. We are paying almost $6,000 per seat a month."
"There is either a one-year or three-year license. It is not a pay-as-you-go license like a SaaS solution. It’s more of a traditional licensing. They are a little bit on the pricier side."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise31
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
This is one of the best tools, especially because of its collaborative nature. Anyone using it can access previous projects and related data. It's definitely a strong collaborative tool.
What needs improvement with BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
There is room for improvement in BiZZdesign HoriZZon. It's quite robust and has good online forums where people discuss it, though maybe the interface can improve, but I don't want to criticize it ...
What is your primary use case for BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
The typical use case with BiZZdesign HoriZZon is basically for enterprise architecture and also for business process modeling.
What do you like most about erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
Forward engineering, DDL generation, reverse engineering, and reporting are the most valuable features of the solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
I do not recall the pricing from about a year and a half ago, but it seems reasonable.
What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
erwin Data Modeler could improve its UI as it still feels old school and not very modern. There are many features, and I would expect good documentation detailing each feature, including when and h...
 

Also Known As

HoriZZon
erwin DM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

T-Mobile, Shell, HSBC, Erasmus University, VIVAT Insurance
 Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples
Find out what your peers are saying about BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs. erwin Data Modeler and other solutions. Updated: November 2025.
873,085 professionals have used our research since 2012.