Ardoq vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest comparison

Ardoq and erwin by Quest are both solutions in the Enterprise Architecture Management category. Ardoq is ranked #11 with an average rating of 7.5, while erwin by Quest is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.2. Ardoq holds a 3.4% mindshare in AM, compared to erwin by Quest’s 10.2% mindshare. Additionally, 50% of Ardoq users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of erwin by Quest users who would recommend it.

Ardoq

Read 2 Ardoq reviews

1,008 Views
1,008 Comparison Views

50% willing to recommend

erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Read 39 erwin Data Modeler by Quest reviews

5,317 Views
3,669 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Ardoq

erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

Erwin Data Modeler by Quest and Ardoq are products in the enterprise data management category. Ardoq has the upper hand with its extensive feature set and perceived value, despite higher costs.

Features: Erwin Data Modeler provides comprehensive data modeling capabilities, strong integration with database environments, and data governance functionalities. Ardoq maps and visualizes enterprise architecture dynamically, facilitates real-time collaboration, and adapts to agile environments flexibly.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Erwin offers a straightforward deployment model, focusing on integration with existing data ecosystems and technical implementation support. Ardoq's cloud-based deployment ensures seamless scalability, and its proactive support enhances user adoption.

Pricing and ROI: Erwin Data Modeler uses a traditional licensing structure with predictable costs, appealing to enterprises with established budgeting strategies. Ardoq's subscription-based pricing offers flexible investments, leading to potentially higher ROI due to its agile features.

To learn more, read our detailed Ardoq vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Ardoq vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest

July 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 861,524 peers since 2012

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

Ardoq

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

11th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Design (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of Ardoq is 3.4%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of erwin Data Modeler by Quest is 10.2%, up from 10.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Architecture Management

Featured Reviews

Anthony Houghton

Data Architect at UK Research and Innovatio

Provides stable performance and scalability but not intuitive for data modeling

Overall, I would rate it around six out of ten. The training environment wasn't very intuitive, but maybe with more use, it will get better. We need to learn to navigate it. So, there is a potential learning curve in this tool. I use it once in a blue moon, and not very frequently because I have not found it very intuitive.

Read full review

Saswata Mondal

Director Data Science at a media company with 5,001-10,000 employees

The creation of data models is easy and quick, and the fitting model is very intuitive

The ease and quick ability to create the model is valuable. The fitting model is very intuitive. The other cool feature is the reverse engineer feature. If we connect to the database, we can reverse engineer from the database itself of the physical model. That gives us the relationship of the data if not much documentation is available.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Snapshots are the most valuable feature."

"It is a stable solution."

"Another feature of erwin is that it can help you enforce your naming standards. It has little modules that you can set up and, as you're building the data model, it's ensuring that they conform to the naming standards that you've developed."

"It is a scalable solution...The technical support team is fine."

"I have worked with erwin Data Modeler for quite some time and familiarity is its most valuable feature."

"The solution’s code generation ensures accurate engineering of data sources, as there is no development time. Code doesn't even have to be reviewed. We have been using this solution for so long and all the code which has been generated is accurate with the requirements. Once we generate the DDLs out of the erwin tools, the development team does a quick review of the script line by line. They will just be running the script on the database and looking into other requirements, such as the index. So, there is less effort from development side to create tables or build a database."

"The most valuable feature is the physical or visual representation of the database, showing the tables, the columns, the foreign keys, and the ability to generate DDL, so you can physically implement databases."

"There is absolutely no problem with the stability."

"The ability to collaborate between different members across the organization is the most valuable feature. It gives us the ability to work on the same model, regardless of where we are physically."

"The product lets us import different types of models from various databases."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest pros

Cons

"Scalability as a standalone system is good, given the information that has been described inside Ardoq. But not the scalability as a third-party system or with integration with other systems. Because in this direction, the scalability is about zero for Ardoq."

"The training environment wasn't very intuitive, but maybe with more use, it will get better."

"The erwin ETL functionality has room for improvement when it comes to mapping databases with a classic entity-relationship model to a data warehouse model."

"The report generation has room for improvement. I think it was version 8 where you had to use Crystal Reports, and it was so painful that the company I was with just stayed on version 7 until version 9 came out and they restored the data browser. That's better than it was, but it's still a little cumbersome. For example, you run it in erwin, then export it out to Excel, and then you have to do a lot of cosmetic modification. If you discover that you missed a column, then you would have to rerun the whole thing. Sometimes what you would do is just go ahead and fix it in the report, then you have to remember to go back and fix it in the model. Therefore, I think the report generation still could use some work."

"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 reverse engineering in Oracle Databases needs improvement, as there are issues."

"I would like to see more support for working with the big-data world. There are so many new databases evolving and it's very hard for them to keep up with all of the new technologies. It would be good if they were able to dynamically support big-data platforms, other than Hive and Teradata."

"I'd really like to see the PDF function become available. It would make my life much easier than what it is at the moment because whenever I need to collaborate with people that do not have erwin, I have to go through the wonkiness of going to Word and then save it from Word into PDF. There's a lot of differences between erwin 4.4 and 2020."

"I would like the solution to be more user-friendly to deploy."

"Some Source official systems give us DDLs to work with and they have contents not required to be part of the DDL before we reverse engineer in the erwin DM. Therefore, we manually make changes to those scripts and edit them, then reverse-engineer within the tool. So, it does take some time to edit these DDL scripts generated by the source operational systems. What I would suggest: It would be helpful if there were a place within the erwin tool to import the file and automatically eliminate all the unnecessary lines of code, and just have the clean code built-in to generate the table/data model."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay for extended support."

"It is not a very expensive solution. Only the licensing and maintenance fee needs to be paid."

"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"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."

"I wish it wasn't so expensive. I would love to personally buy a copy of my own and have it at home, because the next job that I'm looking at is probably project management and I might not have access to the tool. I would like to keep my ability to use the tool. Therefore, they should probably have a pricing for people like me who want to just use the solution as an independent consultant, trying to get started. $3,000 is a big hit."

"Likewise, the solution is a little pricey."

"There are two license options and the pricing is reasonable."

"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."

"Pricing is very high compared to any other product."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Architecture Management solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Government

Computer Software Company

University

Financial Services Firm

19%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

Any experience with Strategic Project Portfolio Management Solutions?

Hi @Cheryl Joseph Looking at the crossover between Project and Portfolio management with EA, then Planview could be a good choice. If looking at Portfolio Management from an EA perspective then Le...

See all answers

What do you like most about Ardoq?

It is a stable solution.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Ardoq?

It doesn't seem good for data modeling. So, I would like to see some features related to that in future releases.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

The product is expensive. I rate the product’s pricing a nine out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

As a documenting tool, it's solid, though its reporting could be more robust. The reporting mechanisms could be more intuitive regarding report creation. It can generate reports in CSV files, displ...

See all answers

Comparisons

LeanIX vs Ardoq

Compared 45% of the time

MEGA HOPEX vs Ardoq

Compared 12% of the time

OrbusInfinity vs Ardoq

Compared 10% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs Ardoq

Compared 9% of the time

ADOIT vs Ardoq

Compared 6% of the time

More Ardoq Competitors

SAP PowerDesigner vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 35% of the time

IDERA ER/Studio vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 19% of the time

Lucidchart vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 13% of the time

Visio vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Rational System Architect vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 1% of the time

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Enterprise Architecture Management

July 2025

Download Ardoq product report

Buyer's Guide

erwin Data Modeler by Quest

July 2025

Download erwin Data Modeler by Quest product report

Also Known As

No data available

erwin DM

Overview

A Dynamic and Data-Driven Approach to Enterprise Architecture
Engage and connect stakeholders across the organization with business-friendly visualizations understandable to all.

Ardoq

erwin pioneered data modeling, and erwin Data Modeler (erwin DM) remains trusted, award-winning software for data modeling and database design, automating complex and time-consuming tasks. Use it to discover and document any data from anywhere for consistency, clarity and artifact reuse across large-scale data integration, master data management, metadata management, Big Data, business intelligence and analytics initiatives – all while supporting data governance and intelligence efforts.

erwin by Quest

Sample Customers

Schibsted, Government of Malmo, Torvald

Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples

Buyer's Guide

Ardoq vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest

July 2025

Free Report: Ardoq vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Find out what your peers are saying about Ardoq vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Ardoq vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest report.

See our list of best Enterprise Architecture Management vendors.

We monitor all Enterprise Architecture Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.