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ARIS BPA vs SAP PowerDesigner comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (4th), Business Process Management (BPM) (9th)
SAP PowerDesigner
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (5th), Metadata Management (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

ARIS BPA and SAP PowerDesigner aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. ARIS BPA is designed for Business Process Design and holds a mindshare of 7.8%, down 9.2% compared to last year.
SAP PowerDesigner, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Architecture Management, holds 8.9% mindshare, up 8.0% since last year.
Business Process Design
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

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

"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 ability to sort via multiple criteria to identify the relationships you need for a specific object."
"The most valuable feature in the latest versions is the connect portal, where you can do very simple modeling using the web-based portal."
"Aris BPA has a lot of tools that are more professional than Bizagi."
"The maintenance capabilities of ARIS BPM and the strong underlying database are particularly valuable."
"There is a module designer, that one is very powerful and it creates very good reports."
"ARIS has a good collaboration function. You create a portal where any authorized users can work on the models. There are simple flows for making and approving changes."
"The capability to integrate all information of the business and to generate simulations of processes. It can analyze the model of operations quickly."
"It can automate many routine tasks and save human resources to focus on real problems."
"The most valuable feature is that it is a very fast reverse engineering process. It does a very expansive comparison."
"I like the connectivity or the lineage between the models and usability."
"In terms of operational efficiency and cause savings or return on investment, I can say that with SAP PowerDesigner, our company saves a lot of time."
"It has helped me to develop the as-is state, design its to-be state, and track the capital investment according to gap analysis."
"SAP PowerDesigner is fairly stable."
"It's a great tool for documentation."
"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."
 

Cons

"There are some things in the collaboration module that could be improved a little, such as the functionality which dynamically pushes notifications to interested people when a process changes during the Release Cycle Management workflow."
"Improvement should be made as per customer requirements."
"ARIS BPA is not really a platform that offers you the opportunity to execute processes that you model."
"The pricing of the solution can be improved and the initial setup should be made easy."
"They should make improvements as per customer requirements."
"I believe the solutions BPM tools are not very good and need improvements."
"The Risk and Compliance Management tool is rather complex and moreover, it needs to be customized if you want to use it."
"The tool needs to improve its support since they take long to respond."
"The portal of SAP PowerDesigner could be better. The tool also needs more features and integration with other products, such as Collibra. It would be interesting for SAP PowerDesigner to have more integration."
"Regarding improvements, I suggest enhancing the connection between objects in process and data models. It's crucial to define the structure of objects, especially when dealing with standard frameworks like VMM. There should be better visualization of arrows between BPM and data modeling objects, specifying their structure and impact. For future versions, a feature similar to Bizagi, allowing users to see forms or SQL representations of objects, would be valuable for demonstrating and presenting project details to stakeholders."
"This product lacks artificial intelligence that should be very good in terms of automatically identifying the classification of elements."
"There should be a better usage of current hardware including multicore CPUs, higher resolutions, and multiple displays."
"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."
"Technical support could be better and more human."
"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."
"SAP PowerDesigner could improve by making the repository easier to understand. It is difficult to understand how the repository works because when I used logical models as part of the team, we wanted to use them together and update the older versions of the data model version but it was confusing. The repository needs to be explained."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would recommend the product to only enterprise companies because of the pricing."
"ARIS BPA is too costly from a licensing perspective."
"It depends on different parameters."
"The setup cost and pricing depend on the license (Modeler, Viewer, Administrator)."
"The product is inexpensive."
"The price could be better."
"Prices are high. However, they are worth it if the organization utilizes the tool to its full potential."
"Their license model is really difficult to understand, and licenses are quite expensive."
"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."
"I would like SAP to prove free licenses to professionals that are using the solution. The free version is limited."
"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."
"I bought the software outright and do not pay a licensing fee."
"The price of the solution is low."
"The pricing varies based on functionality and users."
"The ROI has been 43%."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

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.
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?
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. ...
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 tool, I'd like the DMM options to directly connect to ETL tool repositories lik...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM
Sybase PowerDesigner
 

Overview

 

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.
Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
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845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.