ARIS BPA vs erwin Evolve by Quest comparison

Software AG and erwin by Quest are both solutions in the Business Process Design category. Software AG is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.3, while erwin by Quest is ranked #18 with an average rating of 9.0. Software AG holds a 7.8% mindshare in BPD, compared to erwin by Quest’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Software AG users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 81% of erwin by Quest users who would recommend it.

ARIS BPA

Read 66 ARIS BPA reviews

4,824 Views
3,921 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

erwin Evolve by Quest

Read 19 erwin Evolve by Quest reviews

552 Views
339 Comparison Views

81% willing to recommend

ARIS BPA

erwin Evolve by Quest

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

ARIS BPA and erwin Evolve compete in the business process analysis category. ARIS BPA appears to have an advantage with its extensive modeling capabilities and comprehensive reporting features, while erwin Evolve is noted for its flexibility and strong system analytics.

Features: ARIS BPA is recognized for its comprehensive reporting, process analysis, and centralized repository, which supports effective documentation and collaboration. Users benefit from its object reusability and ability to model across various processes. Conversely, erwin Evolve is valued for its flexibility, strong system analytics, and notable integration and collaboration functionalities.

Room for Improvement: ARIS BPA users suggest enhancements in usability, integration processes, and streamlined reports generation. The complexity of its scripting language and dual interfaces also need improvement. For erwin Evolve, better integration with other systems and improved navigation and user-friendliness are desired.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: ARIS BPA provides on-premises, hybrid, and cloud deployment options, and its technical support is generally rated positively despite some inconsistency. Erwin Evolve operates on public cloud and on-premises configurations, with reasonable support that customers appreciate for its direct approach but would prefer improved response times.

Pricing and ROI: ARIS BPA is considered costly with high licensing and maintenance costs, but worth it for large enterprises due to process transparency and efficiency gains. Erwin Evolve’s pricing is also high, posing challenges with licensing models. However, its adaptability and collaboration features offer benefits for ROI, especially in environments requiring extensive architectural modeling.

To learn more, read our detailed ARIS BPA vs. erwin Evolve by Quest Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

ARIS BPA vs. erwin Evolve by Quest

April 2025

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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 BPA

Ranking in Business Process Design

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Management (BPM) (9th)

erwin Evolve by Quest

Ranking in Business Process Design

18th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Architecture Management (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of ARIS BPA is 7.8%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of erwin Evolve by Quest is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Process Design

Featured Reviews

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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ScottLawson

Director IT Architecture at QAD

Enables us to present data and objects visually, in diagrams, and to make them available via the web. Also enables web-based editing of data.

We tried their collaborative web modeling and we used it with a few people but we tend to not use that piece. We tend to collaborate with the people and then my team of architects draws up the diagram using the modeling tool. We then iterate through those. I would like to use it, but it was a little clunky when they first rolled it out. Overall, it's more about the company having room for improvement. What they need to do is to consolidate more of their products. For example, I was just looking and I couldn't figure out what erwin DT is. It's on the website but it would help if they could put information together and make it more clear as to what products they have and how they work with other things. I hear them talking in the support forums and, when I talk to the representative, they say they're going to do a bunch of stuff but it seems the progress is slow. The changes they need to make are to take their old, legacy product, which we use, and focus a lot on it so they can transform it into a modern cloud tool so that we have fewer little pieces to deal with. They could also fix their security model. It's very confusing to get new people onto the tool and to make sure that your content isn't being exposed to the wrong people.

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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

"BPA, the modeling tool, is the main module used because of our need for documentation."

"The BPMN notation and the share flow through users. It is nice to see all flows in a common, shared space for all the stakeholders to view the same thing and the same language."

"Business Process Analysis: We can simulate, optimize, and analyse business processes based on various business requirements. It assures our rolling out the best processes."

"One of the many advantages of ARIS is that it is supported by a very strong BPM community, which is critical for us. Although it has been in business for many years, it is still at an early stage of evolution. There are so many instances where your specific use case or requirement for using ARIS hasn't necessarily been matured across the sector. So, you need access to a very active community to help you explore possible solutions and ways in which ARIS can be used to achieve those use cases."

"Collaboration and governance over enterprise artifacts."

"The matrix model makes building relations easier."

"Process Modeling or Process Mapping/Documentation. This is the most comprehensive tool for capturing the process details. Any organization who wants to embark on a BPM journey, process mapping/documentation, lays the foundation for the BPM led implementation."

"The maintenance capabilities of ARIS BPM and the strong underlying database are particularly valuable."

More ARIS BPA pros

"The initial setup was really straightforward and the deployment was done within one day."

"You can use different kinds of diagrams to represent the architecture setting."

"One of the most valuable features is the website that sits on top of the database. There's a database of objects and how they are related, and you can make views and diagrams and visual elements out of that information on the website. The website is the part that is called Evolve and we use the Evolve Designer and publish the website out to our employees. They can click around and navigate and search, etc."

"Evolve is like a tank. You can do whatever you want with the solution, but you need to customize it. I think that it's not very aligned with the framework for enterprise architecture. MEGA is focused on these enterprise architectures, but it's only for that. With Evolve, you can do everything you want with professional services."

"The ability to share and collaborate on the solution is its most valuable feature."

"There is a model behind it. It's really nice that the Evolve front-end, as it builds a website, keeps those relationships in mind. You can even go to a procedure and see all the applications that are related to it. Then you can go into that application and see all the standard operating procedures that that application is a part of. It's just very connected."

"Evolve's reverse engineering ability is quite useful."

"I have not seen capabilities for web-sharing and interaction with the architecture from any other supplier. It's a great capability..."

More erwin Evolve by Quest pros

Cons

"Since this is a design tool, seamless interface to make the process flows executable."

"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)."

"Improvement should be made as per customer requirements."

"The tool needs to improve its support since they take long to respond."

"An area where it lacks and can be considered for improvement in the future is if we can somehow automate or learn how we can automate different processes."

"The Risk and Compliance Management tool is rather complex and moreover, it needs to be customized if you want to use it."

"I had a hard time with ARIS's access and licensing policy. It requires you to pay for each step you want to take forward with the solution."

"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."

More ARIS BPA cons

"erwin Evolve by Quest could have additional features to manage the architecture of enterprises and businesses."

"The solution needs to focus on allowing for more integrations."

"Add some ability to do conditional Visualization on the models and in reports (some ideas) – maybe as a specialized Theme or Diagram or Display."

"The solution's integration capabilities with other tools in our system has not been all that well done. We have people who use ARIS, who use System Architect and, of course, Visio. erwin has very limited ways to import and export from those kinds of tools. It's not a very easy thing to do."

"I feel that the UML drawing capability needs to be improved."

"With the Excel importing, the "up to date" part is the challenge. If we had a real-time integration, we could keep things up to date for whatever kinds of change points we had. With Excel, it is more that you have to export from one system then import it to another, so it's better for data that doesn't change that often."

"Business process modelling could be improved."

"I would like it to be easier to make changes and then deploy them into production, especially when you have multiple web servers or front-ends. It would be nice to make a change and then have it propagate to the production servers in a more automated fashion."

More erwin Evolve by Quest cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you can afford it, it's the best so far."

"In terms of pricing, it would be nice if it were more affordable."

"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."

"This is absolutely not the cheapest solution in the market, but for large companies, the price is fine."

"The product is a bit pricey."

"ARIS has different licensing mechanisms for different modules, but they are perpetual licenses. So you pay once."

"The product is expensive."

"Their license model is really difficult to understand, and licenses are quite expensive."

More ARIS BPA pricing and cost advice

"The cost is something like $15,000, per license. But I haven't looked at those numbers in three years. It was over $100,000 to initially set everything up and get it all configured."

"I estimate that we pay between $40,000 and $50,000 a year for the solution, not including the upfront costs to buy things the first time."

"I think erwin is quite expensive. I have difficulty selling the portal, in fact."

"On a yearly basis, our licensing costs are 50,000 euro. There are no additional costs because we are on a SaaS model."

"Yearly, our cost is €100,000."

"The licensing enables you to differentiate between people who edit the content and the people who consume it. We are able to keep the licensing costs down by keeping the "contributor" licenses to a minimum, and we then just roll out the content in a read-only version for the rest of our users."

"Unless you are a one person shop – always go with the Workgroup edition and Concurrent licensing."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ARIS BPA?

I find it difficult to access the database as I want with direct querying. I must write scripts, which requires specific knowledge. Software AG could improve this by making the database more open. ...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering erwin Evolve?

I rate erwin Evolve by Quest a nine out of ten.

See all answers

What do you like most about erwin Evolve by Quest?

We can efficiently deploy business models into the databases and generate SQL scripts.

See all answers

What needs improvement with erwin Evolve by Quest?

erwin Evolve by Quest could have additional features to manage the architecture of enterprises and businesses.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 25% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

Visio vs ARIS BPA

Compared 6% of the time

Bizagi vs ARIS BPA

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Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs erwin Evolve by Quest

Compared 25% of the time

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Compared 20% of the time

SAP PowerDesigner vs erwin Evolve by Quest

Compared 13% of the time

IDERA ER/Studio vs erwin Evolve by Quest

Compared 10% of the time

Lucidchart vs erwin Evolve by Quest

Compared 9% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ARIS BPA

April 2025

Download ARIS BPA product report

Buyer's Guide

erwin Evolve by Quest

April 2025

Download erwin Evolve by Quest product report

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM

erwin EA, erwin Business Process, erwin Enterprise Architecture

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 is used by more than 50,000 professionals in 60+ countries to get big results from their enterprise data initiatives. erwin is the #1 choice in virtually every industry, from government and healthcare to retail and finance.

erwin Modeling provides a collaborative environment to manage enterprise data through an intuitive, graphical interface. With a centralized view of key data definitions, you can leverage information as a strategic asset and more efficiently manage your data resources to save time and money.

erwin by Quest

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.

AT&T, Bank of America, Chevron, Duke University, ESPN, Fidelity, GE, JP Morgan Chase, KPMG, McGraw Hill, NASA, Pfizer, Royal Bank of Scotland, Teradata, Union Pacific, Vodafone, Wells Fargo.

Buyer's Guide

ARIS BPA vs. erwin Evolve by Quest

April 2025

Free Report: ARIS BPA vs. erwin Evolve by Quest

Find out what your peers are saying about ARIS BPA vs. erwin Evolve by Quest and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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