ARIS BPA vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest comparison

Software AG and erwin by Quest are both solutions in the Business Process Design category. Software AG is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.5, while erwin by Quest is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.2. Software AG holds a 8.6% mindshare in BPD, compared to erwin by Quest’s 2.2% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of Software AG users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of erwin by Quest users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

ARIS BPA and Erwin Data Modeler by Quest compete in the business process analysis and data modeling categories, respectively. ARIS BPA has the upper hand in enterprise-level modeling and data management, while Erwin Data Modeler excels in visualization and synchronization of complex data environments.

Features: ARIS BPA facilitates business users with tools for process analysis, strategy determination, and enterprise-wide modeling, integrating platforms like SAP SolMan. It offers ARIS Connect for collaboration and provides extensive business process management features. Erwin Data Modeler focuses on data visualization, allowing for forward and reverse engineering, versioning, and synchronization of data models, assisting data architects in managing large datasets.

Room for Improvement: ARIS BPA faces issues with real workflow execution and tool integration due to limited API exposure, along with integration challenges and high costs. Erwin Data Modeler could enhance its reporting automation, offer better support for new database platforms, and improve usability and real-time synchronization capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: ARIS BPA offers flexible deployment options including Hybrid Cloud, Public Cloud, On-premises, and Private Cloud, with robust technical support. Erwin Data Modeler is mainly on-premises, providing a stable environment with commendable customer service, although improvements in support speed would be beneficial.

Pricing and ROI: ARIS BPA is characterized by its varied yet high pricing structure, justified by its extensive feature set and enterprise support, with ROI dependent on implementation scale. Erwin Data Modeler's pricing reflects its premium status, with strong ROI potential in data modeling-intensive environments, though the cost may be prohibitive for some users.

To learn more, read our detailed ARIS BPA vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

ARIS BPA vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

IBM Blueworks Live

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of IBM Blueworks Live is 3.5%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ARIS BPA is 8.6%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of erwin Data Modeler by Quest is 2.2%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Process Design

Featured Reviews

AjarMathur

Global Innovation Director at Ernst & Young

An easily scalable and affordable solution that enables users to document and digitize processes with ease

IBM Blueworks is BPMN 2.0 compliant, but it does not adapt to the overarching BPMN 2.0 concepts. There is only one kind of BPMN 2.0 diagram. It is a process diagram. It doesn't have the concept of separate tools, which other products offer. If I had to do a hardcore BPMN 2.0 modeling, the product would have its own reservations. There were features we could not explore from a BPMN 2.0 perspective. Most of the time, people who are shifting from Microsoft Office tools to a digitized way of working still want the reporting capabilities to be strong. Some tools, like ARIS or Signavio, offer customized solutions from the reporting perspective. If I have documented my whole finance process and want to fetch out a complete SOP report in a very customized manner, IBM Blueworks cannot provide it. We have to rely on some other services. So that's one area in which we always struggled, how to really customize the reporting aspects. I understand that we need to keep the tool a little more asset-light. It's very difficult to keep adding many options, but at least a few BPMN 2.0 options were needed. We have been suggesting to IBM that we should have some way of customizing the reporting. At least we should get a custom way of reporting it into different formats like Excel or putting up a logo for one of the clients so that their SAP can be printed that way.

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Libor Černý

Process manager at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

I can usually find an answer to my issue on ARIS Community

From the start, there were some difficulties on how to create outputs since there wasn't a repository tool in version 6. However, in version 7, there has been a tool for creating standards for a company, and that tool has been very intuitive. While I have been using this tool for several years, other people just starting to use it find the learning curve steep. This tool is very robust and accommodates many roles, where people can participate from compliance, IT designers, etc. This can create problems for users who have no experience with similar tools. It took me a year before I felt comfortable with this tool, because when I came from university it was the first or second tool that I worked on. It took me a year to run every feature or use it for every possibility since this tool is very robust. We sometimes have to create the link to the server and the repository twice because it is deleted once for some unknown reason. Though, this is not a big problem. There should be a more intuitive tool when creating reports.

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JorgeSanz

Data Governance Senior Advisor at Abu Dhabi National Oil Company

Streamline data modeling and automate network changes for increased efficiency

The initial setup depends on the tool if you are using the data model environment. Stopping the server could be complex and require strong expertise. If you have everything set up and configured, Erwin is straightforward. You can deploy it in a few hours. In our case, it took a couple of months to address internal conditions, assign machines, and set up everything for the services. I rate the initial setup a six out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.

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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

"Collaboration is most valuable. You can collaborate online with many people. People can comment, and you can comment back. It is just like a social network, and that, for me, is very good."

"It enables decisions based upon processes that we do model, and ultimately move forward with."

"The licenses are transferrable between different users."

"Business users understand it really well, which means we can then help them automate their business processes."

"The business process discovery is excellent. The diagram or blueprinting functionality of the solution are very good. It's quite easy. You can link the sub-processes and get a big overview of the whole process then."

"This solution is good at utilizing standards rules for connectivity."

"The reporting that we can generate from IBM Blueworks Live has been interesting. We found the KPIs, risks, process modeling, format, and colors, to be very good. We use the EY template and it is interesting to generate reporting in this format."

"IBM Blueworks Live is cloud-based and provides easy access to all your processes in one place."

More IBM Blueworks Live pros

"ARIS BPA provides very good visibility and control of processes because we have a concurrent license system. As a result, every person in our company and group is able to look at the published processes."

"This solution has helped us in terms of discovering business processes."

"I like everything about ARIS BPA. I've used it for a long time and it's a fantastic tool. There is a list of things ARIS has that other solutions do not have."

"The most valuable features of ARIS BPA are its flexibility and reporting."

"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."

"Object oriented modeling allows us to trace what's going on with the specified object."

"I am impressed with the tool's integration. It also facilitates collaboration in the organization."

"The ability to sort via multiple criteria to identify the relationships you need for a specific object."

More ARIS BPA pros

"It supports a wide variety of databases, including the latest ones. We have chosen to go for a cloud-based database, and it supports that, which is very useful."

"The most valuable features are the ability to reverse engineer and do model comparison. With the reverse engineering, I can understand the databases from third-party products. With the model comparison, I can track the differences between two versions of the same database."

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

"The modeling portion of the tool is the most valuable. There are some notes, naming standards, and other functions that we use as well. There's a whole boatload of functionality in this thing and we use maybe 10% of it. It seems to be pretty common that not all the functionality is fully utilized. But it's just got gobs and gobs of stuff that you can implement if you so choose to."

"It allows us to create logical data models. We can represent a database model in business terms, which is very useful for us."

"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 logical model gives developers, as well as the data modelers, an understanding of exactly how each object interacts with the others, whether a one-to-many, many-to-many, many-to-one, etc."

"We use the macros with naming standards patterns, domains, datatypes, and some common attributes. As far as other automations, a feature of the Bulk Editor is mass updates. When it sees something is nonstandard or inaccurate, it will export the better data out. Then, I can easily see which entities and attributes are not inline or standard. I can easily make changes to what was uploaded to the Bulk Editor. When taking on a new project, it can save you about a half a day on a big project across an entire team."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest pros

Cons

"We would like the ability to add additional custom colors. We would like to color additional items to add notes to the blueprint."

"The objects that the solution creates are not unique."

"The ability to create a very structured rule. With the capability that we have right now, Blueworks Live is more process focused. We should be able to enhance it to include a lot more of decisions as well."

"I would like to see integration with ERP systems. This would help us to simulate the process and see where the problems are. Though IBM Blueworks Live is a good tool for documenting, it is not good for simulating."

"IBM Blueworks is BPMN 2.0 compliant, but it does not adapt to the overarching BPMN 2.0 concepts."

"Spaces are not well organized; space controls are lacking."

"The initial setup is neither straightforward nor complex however you do need to know what you are doing."

"The APIs are great, except the normal business user doesn't know how to create APIs. So it's hard because IBM comes to us as the business users and tell us to create reporting with APIs, except we don't know that, so we have to turn around and flip it to our IT people."

More IBM Blueworks Live cons

"The areas of ARIS where we see room for improvement are actually related to the background services that support it. Over the last number of years, Software AG has moved from an on-premises solution into deploying a SaaS solution to their enterprise base. That has been really successful from my point of view, as I have been a customer of ARIS, managing the relationship, for a couple years. Certain support functions around the knowledge base, customer service, and the cross and upselling of modules within the core ARIS component are lagging behind the SaaS movement."

"The solution's processes are huge and it is not easy to get an overview of how things work. It needs to improve the interface. I would like to see the product include a better overview of processes and improve search."

"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."

"While the dashboarding solution for integrating all kinds of process-related information from company sources other than ARIS is getting ever better, my personal wish would be to have a module that is more targeted to an Agile implementation of some modeled processes (model–to-execute)."

"With ARIS BPM, the script creation is quite cumbersome. With version ten, we needed our developers to do scripting."

"One thing that could be improved is regarding the handling of the content itself. Maybe ARIS could provide a set of best practices, or best processes, so that people do not have to start from scratch."

"There is a lot of room for improvement. They need to increase the performance of the system flow. They need to support it more. ARIS Process Governance is still quite basic, and they are using an old BPM and process automation module."

"End-to-end visibility and real-time are areas that will need greater attention."

More ARIS BPA cons

"The only real complaint I have is the time it takes to do a database comparison on a large model. If they could speed that up, that would be the only thing I can think of that needs improvement."

"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 erwin Data Modeler is quite complex to use."

"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."

"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."

"We are planning to move, in 2021, into their server version, where multiple data modelers can work at the same time and share their models. It has become a pain point to merge the models from individual desktops and get them into a single data model, when multiple data modelers are working on a particular project. It becomes a nightmare for the senior data modeler to bring them together, especially when it comes to recreating them when you want to merge them."

"erwin is not as robust as a data warehousing project I've been on in the past."

"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."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price wise, IBM Blueworks Live is in the middle range, and I would give it a five out of ten."

"The solution is very, very cost-effective."

"Making it less expensive would be good."

"We are seeing ROI from this solution. The solution has saved us time."

"The solution is not very expensive."

"Based on the licenses purchased, from a footprint perspective, you can have as many people as you want. You have multiple different categories of licenses to keep the cost low."

"There are editor licenses that are around 50 euros per month, and contributor licenses that are around 30 euros per month."

"They have a free subscription model that gives a lot of power to the users."

"The price could be better."

"Pricing is a bit on the higher side."

"The tool is expensive."

"Negotiate. Price is high so make sure you’re getting the best deal."

"I would recommend the product to only enterprise companies because of the pricing."

"It is on the higher side."

"It is an expensive solution."

"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."

More ARIS BPA pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

19%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Blueworks Live?

The solution is easy to operate. Also, there is an automatic mode to make the business flow. You don't have to put an...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Blueworks Live?

The solution costs around 600-700 dollars/year, which is quite affordable.

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What needs improvement with IBM Blueworks Live?

Sometimes, the tool is automatic, which can complicate it, but once you're accustomed to manipulating it, you can use...

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What do you like most about ARIS BPA?

The most valuable features of ARIS BPA are its flexibility and reporting.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ARIS BPA?

Pricing for ARIS BPA is average, not cheap or expensive. It's cost-effective and worth the money we pay.

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What needs improvement with ARIS BPA?

Improvement should be made as per customer requirements.

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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.

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What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

The solution's model mark could be better because it crashes sometimes.

See all answers

Comparisons

Visio vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 37% of the time

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 17% of the time

Lucidchart vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 15% of the time

ARIS Cloud vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 9% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 4% of the time

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SAP Signavio Process Manager vs ARIS BPA

Compared 25% of the time

ADONIS vs ARIS BPA

Compared 10% of the time

Camunda vs ARIS BPA

Compared 7% of the time

Bizagi vs ARIS BPA

Compared 6% of the time

Visio vs ARIS BPA

Compared 5% of the time

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SAP PowerDesigner vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 28% of the time

IDERA ER/Studio vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 17% of the time

Lucidchart vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 15% of the time

Visio vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 10% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 8% of the time

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Blueworks Live

December 2024

Download IBM Blueworks Live product report

Buyer's Guide

ARIS BPA

December 2024

Download ARIS BPA product report

Buyer's Guide

erwin Data Modeler by Quest

December 2024

Download erwin Data Modeler by Quest product report

Also Known As

IBM Lombardi Blueprint

ARIS, ARIS BPM

erwin DM

Learn More

IBM

Software AG

erwin by Quest

Overview

IBM Blueworks Live is a cloud-based business process modeling tool that helps you discover, map and document your processes. It is easy to use, allowing you to learn and perform business process modeling in minutes.

With Blueworks Live you can:

Simplify business process modeling
Quickly build business processes in a straightforward, cloud-based interface designed for both IT and business users.

Improve process efficiency and accuracy
A central process repository eliminates version control and consistency issues by providing users real-time access to process workflows.

Enhance cross-team collaboration
A shared team workspace engages all business process owners, encouraging cross-team participation and continuous process improvement.

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.

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.

Sample Customers

Cloudsoft Corp. Ltd., Bayer, S¾SS, Essex County Council

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 BPA vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest

December 2024

Free Report: ARIS BPA vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Find out what your peers are saying about ARIS BPA vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.

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