ARIS BPA vs Lucidchart vs Visio comparison

The compared Software AG and Lucid Software solutions aren't in the same category. Software AG is ranked #4 in BPD , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 7.8% mindshare in the category. Lucid Software is ranked #2 in MMS , with an average rating of 10.0, and holds a 24.3% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Software AG users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Lucid Software users who would recommend it.

ARIS BPA

Read 66 ARIS BPA reviews

4,824 Views
3,926 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Lucidchart

Read 54 Lucidchart reviews

787 Views
703 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Visio

Read 106 Visio reviews

7,369 Views
5,936 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

ARIS BPA

Lucidchart

Visio

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between ARIS BPA, Lucidchart, and Visio based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda, Microsoft, Sparx Systems and others in Business Process Design.

To learn more, read our detailed Business Process Design Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Business Process Design

April 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 849,210 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:

Mindshare comparison

Business Process Design

Mind Mapping Software

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.

Read full review

MichaelChirinian

Data Engineer at Mindmap

Intuitive, integrates well, and is a great way to change text into visual ideas

I'm not a super user, and there might be a way of doing it that I haven't explored, but I was looking for some specific icons that are just standard icons, and I found the icon library to be very focused on architecture icons. It didn't have as many standard or generic icons. Another thing that somewhat irritated me is the fact that there is a paste function in the menu, but when you right-click and select paste, it tells you that you can't use paste. You must press Command-V or Apple-V to paste. They give you a menu option to paste, but every time you use that, they say, "We don't accept it." On top of that, normally, you'd have an option for paste or paste values, but when you use the paste function, you don't have that capability. So, to copy text from one place, I have to use Command-V to paste it, but if I don't like the format, I've got to go back and do copy style and then paste style on top of that. It is a small detail, but when you're doing diagrams, it is annoying that they don't support paste values. It is a small irk. I'm not penalizing it, and I still think it is a five-star product. In terms of other bigger things, I don't really have any comments or criticism so far.

Read full review

Tugrul TASCI

IT Professor at Sakarya University

We have seen return on investment in the form of time savings but should have more design tools

I am generally using Visio to create some diagrams Visio should implement more complex tools or graphics to facilitate processing and use flexible templates. It should allow users to easily drag and drop some previously created diagrams. The tools supplied or provided are very basic, and there…

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

"The whole ARIS BPM solution is a bit special, because from the very beginning it was targeted more to Business users and the Management."

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

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

"The solution's basic features are easy to use, overall designed well, and it has good process mining analysis."

"The most valuable feature in the latest versions is the connect portal, where you can do very simple modeling using the web-based portal."

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

"In general, the users really like it and they can get started using it very easily."

"It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

More ARIS BPA pros

"The most valuable features are the different templates that they have already created, as well as all the different shapes you can use in the process charts because each shape stands for a different element or thing that's being done. It's easy to distinguish between different steps using the already set-out shapes."

"It is important to me that the solution accommodates both Mac and PC users because the developers in our company use Mac, then the business people use Windows. The technical people create the technical architecture using Lucidchart. So, it is important that it is compatible with both the systems."

"The wireframe and mock-up features have been the most useful so far. It's easy to create the mock-ups and then communicate to our development team what they need to look like. Lucidchart's capabilities for visualizing and understanding process flows or workflows is very good as well. I'm able to easily use any style of box that I need to create on a flowchart, to effectively communicate to our development team."

"The swimlanes feature is one that I use a lot. I have used swimlane diagrams to create business process flows and I think that it does the job pretty well."

"The ability for Lucidchart to create database schemas or modify existing data structures is strong. That's what I initially introduced it for in our organization. The script that Lucidchart provides works with other systems like Oracle, SQL Server, and Postgres that I can copy-paste, and get a quick dump of metadata and import into has saved me a ton of steps that I didn't have to manually create these tables. I had a lot of things where I still had to put in the linkages between tables, but I didn't have to type in every field name, every data type, and everything else that came in. That saved me tons of time."

"It is a very effective tool for documenting processes and using it has improved our efficiency significantly."

"The interface is really good and it is very easy to use."

"The interface is very good and easy to use. We don't need documentation on how to use it. It is self-explanatory, which is very convenient for a new user."

More Lucidchart pros

"The interface is the most valuable aspect of this solution."

"Great at illustrating advanced topics which helps my team understand what I'm trying to get across."

"The most valuable feature is the set of diagramming tools."

"The most valuable feature is how easy it is to use."

"One of the most valuable features of Visio is its extreme flexibility."

"The solution makes it very easy to make exciting pictures and designs. Everything is very intuitive and simple to figure out."

"Simple to use and very intuitive."

"I like all the features. I go online, and everything pops there. It is in the cloud, and everything is there. Even if there is a crash, everything is still there. I don't lose anything. That's what is the most valuable and likable. It is really a professional solution for designing. The designs look really nice in the PDF."

More Visio pros

Cons

"Its governance tool and integration with ESB and execution engine can be improved. Their partner support can also be improved."

"The tool's installation and configuration part needs to improve."

"I find it difficult to access the database as I want with direct querying."

"The solution is difficult and not very exciting to learn."

"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."

"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 find it difficult to access the database as I want with direct querying."

"Since ARIS 9.X was released, the product has not been as robust and responsive as the previous versions."

More ARIS BPA cons

"I don't know if I will be able to add some animations if I want to. I believe the problem may be the program's process flows but if I want to transfer it into a PPP or any other document, I can only do image transfer."

"I've had an issue is when you create, let's say, a rectangle box. You can write some text in it and give it a name, and, depending on how you shape the size of the box, the text will rearrange itself to fit. That is, except if your box is very, very narrow, but very long, like a long, narrow rectangle in a vertical position. In this case, the text will always go out of the rectangle."

"What I do find extremely frustrating is that when I've sent the sheet to non-license holders, you have to create an account. You create a username and password. The path taken to create that account is so confusing that everyone thinks that they have to give their credit card number, and then they're reluctant. They don't want to go through the sheet."

"Lucidchart subset their older components or something like that had happened. I don't entirely know the totality of it, but we were forced to upgrade to a different integration with Lucid than what we had. I've had a lot of frustrations with that because I've lost a lot of diagrams. I can't get them back and I'm getting pop-ups that are showing me that our data will be loading and I can't run four or five years of my engineering diagrams"

"It would be helpful if there were different options available for organizing the folders, such as having a high-level display with pictures."

"There is a basic function that I struggle with, in the interface, which is having to switch between the editing and navigation modes. A lot of clicks are required when switching between edit and navigation modes and I think that many could potentially be avoided by handling the tasks at the same time."

"The main improvement I would like to see is for them to improve the help section on the flow charts or on the formatting."

"I'm not sure if this feature is already there, but it would be good if we can import a cloud database in the web version."

More Lucidchart cons

"Lacks the ability to analyze the different relations between activities, positions and roles."

"The user interface could be simplified and easier to use."

"Searching for specific templates within the program can be difficult. For example, if I need a template for an electrical diagram with certain symbols, it can be challenging to find it."

"In terms of features, it could provide more automation to display data flowing through architecture."

"The user interface could be more robust."

"The design and the look and feel, need to be improved."

"Visio should be object-oriented to enable the reusability of objects across different models."

"It is a visualization tool, so database visualization is pretty static in it. They haven't moved the ERDs very well. They haven't adopted any real visualization like what you have in Hackolade for JSON or other data patterns. It has none of that. If you go onto broader patterns, you can actually label and integrate with a data set, if you want, for Visio, but it's very clunky and very difficult for me to assign that to another user. I can't assign it to a junior or a documenter. They really haven't cleaned up and made their tools simpler to use when linking to data, which is primarily what you're trying to do."

More Visio cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ARIS is quite expensive."

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

"ARIS enables you to start small and grow the use of the solution over time, although it's quite expensive. So if you want to start small, it's quite an investment for a small company."

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

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

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

"It depends on different parameters."

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

More ARIS BPA pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is very reasonable, and they have a free trial available that you can play with."

"There is a nominal charge for the paid version of the product. They have a free version available and from what I could see, there was not much difference between it and the pro version."

"The price and licensing are good."

"The price was low enough to make me think that it was fine, I'll go for it. I think it's $80 or so. It's not too expensive."

"We signed up for the month-to-month and it charged us all at once for the whole year. I believe we signed up for the $7.99 one. I think that was the price."

"Pricing-wise, it is pretty fair. I don't really know what group pricing looks like, but right now, I pay $10 a month for my Lucid subscription. One thing I would say is that I do worry about my bosses being okay with paying $10 a month for every single employee because we would have around 20 people. It makes me a little nervous about whether they are going to pay $200 a month for people to be able to use this software. At the same time, from where I'm sitting, it's totally worth it. We save a thousand dollars from using this software. It's still a no-brainer."

"I had a quick glimpse of it. It was about 100 Canadian Dollars a year for just me. I don't know if there are any additional costs."

"I have a subscription as an individual user for one year, and it is not expensive."

More Lucidchart pricing and cost advice

"We're in a Visio plan that is like $15 a month per user. At the moment, it is just the standard licensing fees that I'm aware of."

"Visio is about a $180 dollars to purchase. It is a one-time licensing fee."

"We probably have an M-365 E3 license."

"The cost of the software is reasonably priced."

"My organization has paid for the solution. However, I have used it personally without payment. There is a free option available."

"The yearly cost is approximately $400 CAD ($300 USD)."

"Cloud-based tools are always cheaper since they are subscription-based. I use the on-premises version of Visio hence the price is quite expensive. However, I believe that the cloud version of Visio may not be as expensive as the on-premises version."

"I don't have any issue with the pricing. It has a subscription-based model, and the subscription is done on a yearly basis. Of course, we need internal approvals in place."

More Visio pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business Process Design solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

849,210 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software 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 speci...

See all answers

LucidChart vs LucidSpark for brainstorming sessions over Zoom

Hi @Krista Thompson - Yes, LucidSpark is a much more nimble and, in some ways, user-friendly tool than LucidChart. ...

See all answers

Do you recommend Lucidchart?

I definitely recommend Lucidchart. I feel it is one of the top visual collaboration platforms that’s available on the...

See all answers

How easy is it to migrate process flow charts (modeled using tools like Visio) into Bizagi?

I have been using Bizagi with a major project for a state government agency for about four years now. It is pretty st...

See all answers

What do you like most about Visio?

The diagrams Visio creates are quite impressive in the sense that we can cooperate with more colleagues in one task a...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Visio?

One of the main problems with Visio is its licensing options and associated issues, which lead to discussions about t...

See all answers

Comparisons

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

Pega Platform vs ARIS BPA

Compared 4% of the time

More ARIS BPA Competitors

Figma vs Lucidchart

Compared 16% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs Lucidchart

Compared 10% of the time

Visual Paradigm vs Lucidchart

Compared 9% of the time

erwin Data Modeler by Quest vs Lucidchart

Compared 8% of the time

MURAL vs Lucidchart

Compared 2% of the time

More Lucidchart Competitors

Bizagi vs Visio

Compared 20% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs Visio

Compared 12% of the time

Visual Paradigm vs Visio

Compared 9% of the time

IBM Blueworks Live vs Visio

Compared 8% of the time

erwin Data Modeler by Quest vs Visio

Compared 4% of the time

More Visio Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ARIS BPA

April 2025

Download ARIS BPA product report

Buyer's Guide

Lucidchart

April 2025

Download Lucidchart product report

Buyer's Guide

Visio

April 2025

Download Visio product report

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM

No data available

Microsoft Visio

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

Our online diagram application makes it easy to sketch and share professional flowchart diagrams. From brainstorming to project management, we support all of your communication needs. That’s why millions of users choose Lucidchart.

Lucid Software

Visio is an innovative collaborative solution that enables users to quickly visualize data-connected business process flows with a host of integrated intuitive features that bring the power of Microsoft 365 to Visio. Visio allows users to easily create professional diagrams, graphs, and other visual data, easily anywhere, anytime, and with anyone. Users are able to confidently and easily transform data into creative powerful visuals. Visio provides dozens of easy-to-use templates along with thousands of customizable colorful shapes that bring a user's best ideas to life. Visio is available for all Microsoft 365 commercial users and is available on desktop and Web applications.

Visio Features

Visio can easily create visual data for today’s business needs. Some of its most useful visual data include:

Flowcharts: Users can easily bring business concepts to fruition with Visio’s robust flowchart features. Visio provides a huge library of shapes, stencils, and templates to transform numbers and data into impactful, easy-to-understand business stories.
Organizational charts: Visio makes it easy to design articulate org charts to better visualize team, reporting, and hierarchy structures. Users are then able to seamlessly share the charts with stakeholders, teams, and employees.
Network diagrams: Users are able to creatively display how a system design processes function and visually illustrate how devices and networks interact with each other using a variety of network shapes, templates, and connector tools.
Brainstorming: Visio makes brainstorming simple and actionable with a wide range of templates designed specifically for interpreting problems and mapping out solutions, including fishbone and Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) diagrams.
Floor plans: Users can design ergonomic workspaces, retail store layouts, new homes, and more with accurate, scalable templates and tools to help them better visualize function, flow, and overall aesthetic appeal.
Accessible: Visio is able to integrate with a wide variety of accessibility tools, such as Narrator, Accessibility Checker, and high-contrast support, to ensure Visio diagrams are available to your entire team.

Reviews from Real Users

“Visio has improved my workflow by making it easy to create charts, diagrams, and essential illustrations to use in my client reports and proposals. It has saved me a lot of time I would otherwise spend creating visuals for clients manually.” - Michael B., Principal Consultant at Lexington Consulting

“I use it for diagramming networks, racks, data centers, data flow applications, etc. It is a useful tool to map data flows, network objects, and computer science technology and to show to clients. It does what I need it to do. It's a tool I've used the longest, so I know it the best, and that's probably the claim to fame.” - Greg S., Director of Solution Architecture at Winslow Technology Group

“We use Visio for architecture modeling. We also use it to facilitate communication with other people. The feature I like most about Visio is that it acts as a facilitator of communication, as it displays information in a way that's easier to understand.” - Guy M., IT/Business Architect at a financial services firm

Microsoft

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.

Google, Salesforce, Adobe, Whirlpool, Uber, Wal Mart, Pearson, Twitch, Riot Games, Western Union, Trimble, Starbucks

Thomas College, Hamburg Port Authority, Portigon AG, Conseil G_n_ral du d_partement des Hautes-Alpes, AAA Auto a. s., Commonwealth Financial Network, ICA, Abu Dhabi National Energy Company

Buyer's Guide

Business Process Design

April 2025

Download Free Report

Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda, Microsoft, Sparx Systems and others in Business Process Design. Updated: April 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

849,210 professionals have used our research since 2012.