ARIS Architect and Designer vs erwin Data Modeler comparison

Software AG and Quest Software are both solutions in the Business Process Design category. Software AG is ranked #11 with an average rating of 9.2, while Quest Software is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.4. Software AG holds a 1.3% mindshare in BPD, compared to Quest Software’s 2.6% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of Software AG users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Quest Software users who would recommend it.

ARIS Architect and Designer

Read 11 ARIS Architect and Designer reviews

845 Views
845 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

erwin Data Modeler

Read 47 erwin Data Modeler reviews

5,545 Views
1,664 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

ARIS Architect and Designer

erwin Data Modeler

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 23, 2025

Erwin Data Modeler and ARIS Architect and Designer are both influential in the data management and enterprise process management sector. While Erwin stands out with its data-centric features, ARIS shines in enterprise process visualization.

Features: Erwin Data Modeler is noted for its advanced capabilities in bulk editing, forward and reverse engineering, and visualization that assists in understanding and collaboration. It automates reporting and supports various integrations. ARIS Architect and Designer offers superior enterprise architecture management, advanced process visualization, and has the ability to establish in-depth process alignments with high customizability, enhancing its integration capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Erwin struggles with usability issues and a complex interface, along with limited compatibility with new big data platforms. Improving the Complete Compare usability and simplifying navigation could improve the user experience. ARIS could lower licensing costs and improve cloud functionality, as the separation of collaboration tools into a separate, costly product is a barrier for some users. Enhancements in simulation and usability would boost its market appeal.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both Erwin and ARIS primarily operate on-premises. Erwin is known for its proactive customer support, despite some inconsistency in response times, and has gaps in JSON and big data platform support. ARIS’s support is satisfactory but has room for improvement in handling technical issues, especially when it comes to accessing more advanced cloud-based features.

Pricing and ROI: Erwin’s concurrent and per-seat licensing options are often seen as pricey, especially for smaller organizations, posing challenges in license management. It delivers ROI through time savings and enhanced data governance. Similarly, ARIS faces challenges with complex licensing and high costs, potentially deterring new users. However, its value in enterprise process management supports its cost for larger implementations. Both products deliver ROI but could improve accessibility by reevaluating pricing strategies.

To learn more, read our detailed ARIS Architect and Designer vs. erwin Data Modeler Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

ARIS Architect and Designer vs. erwin Data Modeler

February 2026

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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

ARIS Architect and Designer

Ranking in Business Process Design

11th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

erwin Data Modeler

Ranking in Business Process Design

7th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Architecture Management (2nd), Data Governance (9th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of ARIS Architect and Designer is 1.3%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 2.6%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Process Design Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
erwin Data Modeler	2.6%
ARIS Architect and Designer	1.3%
Other	96.1%

Business Process Design

Featured Reviews

BeenishMustafa

Consultant at KAFD DMC

Has raised concerns about pricing while expressing satisfaction with its contribution to optimizing internal processes

Considering the integration capability of the product, it contributes to data-driven decision-making in our case. We see some impact of reporting tools on performance tracking or strategic planning. We do different kinds of analysis in regard to due integration controls, risk, and how we can strengthen the processes and the activities. We use it for various purposes. Regarding the process visualization framework, it helps to improve communication and collaboration in the company in a positive way. Architect is managing all the library management and with regards to the filter management. It's always a positive side that if you want to use anything further, we know that we can reach out to the Architect to add those objects and those attributes. It's really good.

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Sushree Panigrahi

Snowflake Data Engineer| Senior PLSQL Developer |Data Modeler|Assitant Vice Pre at Jp Morgan Chase & Co.

Data modeling has transformed regulatory reporting and collaboration across cloud environments

In erwin Data Modeler, areas that have room for improvement include performance improvements. I see that large models sometimes cause it to be slow when opening. Impact analysis can lag as well. Version control is another aspect. If we have developed a current version, it is not integrated with Git where we can easily compare different versions. UI modernization is also something we cannot utilize as it is primarily for development. Additionally, cloud-specific optimizations are needed when it comes to Snowflake or Databricks. When it comes to AI aspects, auto-suggestions for normalization or identifying primary, foreign, or surrogate keys are areas that can be improved.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is suitable for banks, insurance companies, public administration, etc. The method is very adaptable and can be applied independently of the business."

"Considering the integration capability of the product, it contributes to data-driven decision-making in our case."

"The user interface is easy to work with."

"One of the most valuable features is how user-friendly ARIS is, compared to other BPM tools. This tool has very diverse types of assets available. ARIS also has a lot of customizable options, different model types, object types, a number of attributes, and a lot of customization is possible. In comparison, Signavio is very limited in terms of model types and object types. So these customizations ARIS offers are really valuable to any client who wants to create a BPM repository."

"The support team is very responsive."

"Its user interface is highly regarded, especially when compared with Visual Paradigm."

"Considering the integration capability of the product, it contributes to data-driven decision-making in our case."

"We use the product for modeling, conducting process checks, doing process flow, running, and analyzing the report."

More ARIS Architect and Designer pros

"There is absolutely no problem with the stability."

"Forward engineering, DDL generation, reverse engineering, and reporting are the most valuable features of the solution."

"erwin has versioning so you can keep versions, over time, of those models and you can compare any version to any version. If you're looking at a specific database and you want to see what changed over time, that's really useful. You can go back to a different version or connect that to your change-control processes so you can see what was released when."

"The generation of DDL saved us having to write the steps by hand. You still had to go in and make some minor modifications to make it deployable to the database system. However, for the data lineage, it is very valuable for tracing our use of data, especially personal confidential data through different systems."

"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."

"The solution is good for organizing the data and the scripting part is very powerful. It's easy to create technical scripts for models."

"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."

"erwin Data Modeler's ability to generate database code from a model for a wide array of data sources saves time in development, as utilizing the solution allows me to accomplish tasks in minutes compared to the extended time required for manual processes."

More erwin Data Modeler pros

Cons

"The support team takes a long time to respond to our queries."

"The simulation part still has some way to go. It's a good feature, and it's something that other vendors don't have right now, but it can still be improved. Some features are needed in ARIS Architect, so advanced users can do things through drag-and-drop functionality."

"This product could be improved by lowering the licensing cost. More organizations could use ARIS if they slashed the licensing costs even a little bit."

"Currently, we don't have any metrics to measure the success of ARIS Architect and Designer. We would appreciate it if you could share anything with us that we can do to find out the impact."

"You can have a collaboration feature, but it's necessary to have ARIS Connect which is a separate, costly product."

"Currently, we don't have any metrics to measure the success of ARIS Architect and Designer."

"Even with a formal modeling language, users can still draw freely and make a bit of a mess in your repository. It should also improve usability."

"Sometimes, it's not easy to convince customers to use this methodology because it's a bit rigid."

More ARIS Architect and Designer cons

"This is a very complex product."

"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."

"Although Quest Software has made tremendous strides in recent years, they need to evolve more in the big data arena; erwin Data Modeler could use a little more work when it comes to big database designs."

"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."

"The Bulk Editor needs improvement. If you had something that was a local model to your local machine, you could connect to the API, then it would write directly into the repository. However, when you have something that is on the centralized server, that functionality did not work. Then, you had to export out to a CSV and upload up to the repository. It would have been nice to be able to do the direct API without having that whole download and upload thing. Maybe I didn't figure it out, but I'm pretty sure that didn't work when it was a model that sat on a centralized repository."

"The navigation is a little bit of a challenge. It's painful. For example, if you've got a view open and you want to try to move from side to side, the standard today is being able to drag and drop left and right. You can't really do that in the model. Moving around the model is painful because it doesn't follow the Windows model today."

"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."

"One of the best aspects of the tool is its reverse engineering capability."

More erwin Data Modeler cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licenses are very costly. I've seen many people who are hesitant or not able to use ARIS Suite just because of the license cost. Even though they like all the functionalities and understand the value of everything ARIS provides, they aren't able to implement it."

"Many customers find the licensing configuration confusing. There are many different sub-details in the licensing, making it very difficult for us to understand what we are buying and what we are using with what."

"The product is expensive."

"The tool is a little bit expensive."

"I don't specifically know what we're paying now. About three years ago, in another organization, I have this memory of 6,000 AUD a seat or something like that, but I am not sure. In the mid-2000s, it was something like 1,200 AUD a seat. I get the impression that there was a price jump when it was spun off from CA as a separate company, which is understandable, but it could sometimes be a barrier in some organizations picking it up. I haven't talked to erwin people yet, but I'm going to suggest to them that they could perhaps think of having an entry-level product that is priced a bit lower, and then, you can buy the extra suite."

"erwin is expensive compared to other solutions. We are paying almost $6,000 per seat a month."

"Price-wise, erwin Data Modeler is okay. You can purchase a single license and it is not very expensive."

"The primary reasons that erwin was selected were that it was much more affordable for us [than Embarcadero] and it was easily maintainable."

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

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

"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."

"The price of erwin Data Modeler is very expensive, in particular for this part of the world."

More erwin Data Modeler pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

10%

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Performing Arts

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	3

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	34

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ARIS Architect and Designer?

Currently, we don't have any metrics to measure the success of ARIS Architect and Designer. We would appreciate it if you could share anything with us that we can do to find out the impact.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for ARIS Architect and Designer?

We spoke with you about ARIS Architect and Designer. We already have two architect licenses, I think three architect licenses, and we have, I think, six or seven designer licenses. Architect is bas...

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What advice do you have for others considering ARIS Architect and Designer?

The reviewer is a consultant at KAFD. We would give ARIS Architect and Designer an overall review rating of ten out of ten.

See all answers

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

Regarding pricing, I am unsure what the exact price is for erwin Data Modeler, but I believe it is not useful for an individual. It is more targeted toward an enterprise level since organizations l...

See all answers

What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

I write code and I write code accessing erwin Data Modeler's API, the Application Programming Interface, so that I can use Excel to update erwin Data Modeler and then get those updates and put them...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

I work for CVS with a pretty big database as a data modeler on the PBMs, the Caremark PBM side, which is the Pharmacy Benefits Manager. There's a retail side too for all the stores, but our data wa...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ARIS Architect and Designer

January 2026

Download ARIS Architect and Designer product report

Buyer's Guide

erwin Data Modeler

January 2026

Download erwin Data Modeler product report

Also Known As

ARIS Architect & Designer, ARIS Architect, ARIS Designer

erwin DM

Overview

ARIS is the market-leading solution for professional business process management and modeling. Whether you want to document the "as-is" state of your operations for quality or certification reasons or design the "to-be" in terms of continuous improvement in your transformation program, ARIS is the best choice for establishing a single source of truth regarding all process excellence topics in your organization. It is for any organization looking to digitally transform their business, increase operational excellence and customer experience and ensure compliance in execution. ARIS helps you to make the most out of your processes with Process Mining, Risk & Compliance Management, RPA and much more.

What makes the difference?

The most comprehensive platform for process excellence in the market
Easy to use
Covers business & IT architecture from all angles
Full flexibility and >100 diagram types
Customer-driven development based on best practices
Strong partner ecosystem

ARIS is the market-leading solution for any organization and ideally suited to digitally transform the organization, increase operational excellence and customer experience and ensure compliance in execution.

Software AG

Erwin Data Modeler provides an effective approach to visualizing and managing data models. It assists in creating, reversing, and synchronizing data models with ease, supporting logical and physical transitions while enhancing understanding across teams.

Erwin Data Modeler is a comprehensive tool designed for professional database management. It offers capabilities to organize and enforce standards, automating script generation with robust reverse engineering and DDL output. Users can manage complex data environments, capitalize on integration with data intelligence, and maintain large-scale databases smoothly. Despite its strengths, improvements in multi-language support, database integration, and reporting features are needed. Users benefit from extensive support for conceptual, logical, and physical database modeling, enhancing architectural design and data governance for platforms like SQL Server, Oracle, and Teradata.

What are the key features of Erwin Data Modeler?

Visual Representation: Facilitates clear visualization of data models, aiding comprehension.
Versioning and Editing: Enhance usability with versioning and bulk editing capabilities.
Reverse Engineering: Offers powerful tools for reverse engineering and DDL generation.
Integration: Aligns with data intelligence to streamline database management.
Naming Standards: Enforces consistency with automated script creation.

What benefits should users consider in Erwin Data Modeler reviews?

Collaboration: Promotes team understanding and collaboration through visual tools.
Automation: Reduces manual effort through automated processes and integration.
Scalability: Handles large database management efficiently, crucial for enterprise settings.
Data Governance: Facilitates effective data governance with structured modeling.

Erwin Data Modeler finds application in industries focused on robust data management, implementing it for enterprise data warehouses, business domain models, and operational systems. It supports architectural design and governance, aligning with business applications demanding precise data representation and visualization.

Quest Software

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.

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

Buyer's Guide

ARIS Architect and Designer vs. erwin Data Modeler

February 2026

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