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ARIS BPA vs SAP PowerDesigner comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Blueworks Live
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (12th)
ARIS BPA
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (3rd), Business Process Management (BPM) (4th)
SAP PowerDesigner
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (5th), Metadata Management (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Business Process Design
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

AjarMathur - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Libor Černý - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
JorgeSanz - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective in terms of validating everything, but sometimes they don't allow us some flexibility and GUI could improve
I would recommend SAP PowerDesigner to others for data architecture management. It provides all the functionalities in terms of data modeling, so it's also a good tool for that. I see trends in terms of data classification, but I don't see this tool with the intelligence to do that automatically. So, like, with artificial intelligence. Overall, I would rate the solution a six out of ten because there are too many validations. Also, I found some gaps in terms of relationships; they didn't appear when you do reverse engineering. Also, this tool lacks artificial intelligence that should be very good in terms of automatically identifying the classification of elements and maybe also to incorporate some artificial intelligence in providing descriptions for each data element included in the solution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has a built-in capability to capture process owners and managers against processes along with other process governance roles."
"It's very easy, very quick to create a process map. It has templates. The look and feel is very nice. What we want to achieve out of the process map, we can achieve it using Blueworks."
"The ease of documenting and digitizing the processes was valuable to us."
"I like the two-tiered approach, that is, discover and then drill down to the main steps. You can right click and attach risk, policies, and much more. It is a user-friendly solution."
"For me, what I find to be the most valuable is its simplicity and the association with Microsoft Office."
"The solution is stable. All the refreshes run very well."
"It has the ability to document in different formats. It is not tied to a specific model. You can look at it from different angles and see the intuitive nature of it. It always generates a valid diagram. You cannot create something that is not BPMN compliant."
"You can use if from your mobile device or you can be on the desktop. It doesn't matter. You are always connected. It is cloud-based, so you don't have to install anything."
"It helps to maintain a single source of truth regarding the processes followed within an organization."
"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 tool defines the processes. It's the documentation of everything."
"ARIS BPA is customizable as per specific business requirements."
"This solution has helped us in terms of discovering business processes."
"Platform that it supports covers legacy and new. Caters to moving older objects into an integrated DB, relatively popular ones: SQL, Oracle, etc."
"Features like SAP SolMan sync, Alfabet EA integration (another Software AG product)."
"In general, the users really like it and they can get started using it very easily."
"It offers a lot of features in one solution. You would have to get multiple other products to bundle together all of the capabilities that you get in just this product."
"It can automate many routine tasks and save human resources to focus on real problems."
"The most valuable feature is the way you can extend it and customize it. With most modeling tools, you fit your modeling process to fit the tool. In PowerDesigner, you can make the tool fit the way you want to work."
"The initial setup was very easy."
"The physical database model is definitely the most valuable feature because it describes normalization exactly the way you understand the data, and it deploys it perfectly with open source systems."
"I've used the reverse engineering feature a lot. I can take a look at the structure of the database and what relationships it has."
"In PowerDesigner, I primarily use BPM and modeling standards. I find it beneficial for process analysis, although I use data modeling to a lesser extent."
"It has helped me to develop the as-is state, design its to-be state, and track the capital investment according to gap analysis."
 

Cons

"Sometimes, the tool is automatic, which can complicate it, but once you're accustomed to manipulating it, you can use it very effectively."
"The font size is really, really small and it's really not useful to print out process models because you cannot read what's written in different boxes. This makes it necessary for people to have access to the tool. We view licenses to see how the printing or output is. It's not very good."
"There should be an option to import from and export to Microsoft Visio. Being able to move files back and forth between Blueworks Live and Visio would be good."
"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."
"We would like the ability to add additional custom colors. We would like to color additional items to add notes to the blueprint."
"Spaces are not well organized; space controls are lacking."
"I wish Blueworks Live had simulations built in, but it doesn't. It also lacks a feature of reporting; ad hoc, drag and drop reporting. A lot of senior people are always asking for reports, and there's no reporting feature within IBM Blueworks."
"I can't insert any images. For example, within the process map, if I want to put it in the box or rectangle, or circle. If I have to use one image or icon, that's not possible."
"The standard out-of-the-box solutions for modeling are not so good. You have to do some configuration to make it easier and more user-friendly."
"One of the biggest challenges is to realistically enable the defined structures of the processes that you have in ARIS documented, and then actually implement them in the business."
"The interface is a little archaic."
"Since ARIS 9.X was released, the product has not been as robust and responsive as the previous versions​."
"​The usability. Others tools are easier to manage without same complexity that ARIS has.​"
"ARIS BPA is not really a platform that offers you the opportunity to execute processes that you model."
"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)."
"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."
"Checking-in models to the repository, especially when working remotely, is a slow process than can sometimes have problems with models being corrupted."
"Not very intuitive or user-friendly."
"The focus is more on mainstream development environments, and I see a lack of focus on the open source world. I think SAP PowerDesigner probably interfaces better with SQL Server and Db2 but not with open source databases like PostgreSQL and MySQL."
"In the future, I would like to see data manipulation capability where you can actually write SQL queries and manipulate data from directly within the tool."
"Pricing for small consultancies needs improvement. They sustain prices to competing tools. The competing tools tend to do special offers. PowerDesigner SAP doesn't pay much attention to the pricing of it and there are no special offers."
"This product lacks artificial intelligence that should be very good in terms of automatically identifying the classification of elements."
"UI could be improved by enabling simpler navigation."
"The solution itself does not need to be improved. However, they could add support for different languages."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They have a free subscription model that gives a lot of power to the users."
"We are seeing ROI from this solution. The solution has saved us time."
"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."
"The solution is very, very cost-effective."
"Price wise, IBM Blueworks Live is in the middle range, and I would give it a five out of ten."
"The solution is not very expensive."
"There are editor licenses that are around 50 euros per month, and contributor licenses that are around 30 euros per month."
"Making it less expensive would be good."
"If you can afford it, it's the best so far."
"​It is on the higher side."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"Pricing is a bit on the higher side."
"The solution has a fair price for the value it delivers."
"The price could be better."
"ARIS is quite expensive."
"The pricing and licensing costs are available on their website. They will assign a relationship manager to assist if you show further interest in their products."
"When you purchase the license for SAP PowerDesigner, you have to buy one year of support. The tool is worth the money."
"The price of the solution is too expensive. When we asked for certain licenses in different countries it was unattainable."
"SAP PowerDesigner is cheaper than eriwin."
"PowerDesigner is not the cheapest solution on the market, so make sure that you are using it to its full potential."
"The price of the solution is low."
"I would like SAP to prove free licenses to professionals that are using the solution. The free version is limited."
"The pricing varies based on functionality and users."
"Regarding costs, SAP PowerDesigner is pricey, as I've heard from my team manager, which is why the company has been thinking of bringing another solution on board."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Government
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Blueworks Live?
The solution costs around 600-700 dollars/year, which is quite affordable.
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...
What do you like most about ARIS BPA?
The most valuable features of ARIS BPA are its flexibility and reporting.
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.
What needs improvement with ARIS BPA?
Improvement should be made as per customer requirements.
What do you like most about SAP PowerDesigner?
It allows us to have proper documentation in terms of the databases.
What needs improvement with SAP PowerDesigner?
Based on my experience with SAP PowerDesigner, I'd like to see improvements in the DMM feature. Even if I have an ETL...
 

Also Known As

IBM Lombardi Blueprint
ARIS, ARIS BPM
Sybase PowerDesigner
 

Learn More

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Overview

 

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.
Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Camunda, Software AG and others in Business Process Design. Updated: November 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.