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ARIS BPA vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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
65
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (6th)
Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...
Ranking in Business Process Design
3rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of ARIS BPA is 8.1%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is 11.5%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design
 

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.
Milan Sterba - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient documentation generation through organized model structure with a good price-performance ratio
Whenever I begin a new project with Sparx, I have to spend time training people on how to use it since it is not straightforward. Although it's a powerful product with plenty of features, it's not easy for even experienced users to find their way without guidance. This is not the most user-friendly solution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of ARIS BPA are its flexibility and reporting."
"BPA, the modeling tool, is the main module used because of our need for documentation."
"It helps the business make an informed decision."
"ARIS provides the basic foundation for any digital transformation an organization decides to take."
"The solution's basic features are easy to use, overall designed well, and it has good process mining analysis."
"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 stability of the ARIS BPM platform is quite good. The nice thing about it is the central database, where we can use all of our data. We can even manage users."
"Good at controlling the workflow and relevant key processes."
"Its most valuable feature is the Zachman Framework."
"Automated document generation is a real time saver, no more cut and paste, no more keeping track of which diagrams are in which reports, no more last minute update panics. Just click a mouse and you've got an up to date report."
"The platform is stable and reliable."
"Scalable solution for modeling, project sharing, and collaboration. Support for it is good."
"The initial setup is easy."
"It is a handy tool for visual modeling that provides opportunities for analysis, design, and support of models using ArchiMate, UML."
"Its traversability is most valuable. I can use ArchiMate, and I can create a UML model. ArchiMate is for logical enterprise architecture, UML is for software engineering, and BPMN is for business processes. I can build it to have multiple models, and they are also traversable, which is not something that every tool allows. If there is a huge organization, you can segment it and have separate models for business technology or internal resource management system. You don't need to keep them in one model, and you can decide to segregate them."
"The most valuable feature of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is the value streams."
 

Cons

"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."
"Integration with third-party tools should be improved (e.g. based on APIs)."
"The reporting and the information query features could do with some improvement."
"They should make improvements as per customer requirements."
"The reporting capabilities and the ability to create custom reports need to be simplified and made easy so that people even with a good functional understanding of the tool can leverage it to create their own custom report."
"The user experience's usability (in general) should be improved as the tool is updated."
"Its governance tool and integration with ESB and execution engine can be improved. Their partner support can also be improved."
"This solution has some limitations from a business perspective."
"I would like to see integration with Confluence or any other TRM, and the capability to integrate with the data storage, such as a repository similar to GitHub."
"The templates for documentation should be enhanced to include complex documents such as template RFP, or Non functional requirements template."
"The Business Process Modeling or BPM feature can be improved to make it more interactive and user friendly because it is a tool for technical people. My current use is only for business process modeling notation and putting in the icons etc. You need to take them in as a class, which makes things very complex. Because of this complexity, it is not an easy-to-handle solution. Enterprise Architect is not very good for mockups. We cannot create user screens and other similar kinds of stuff, which is bad. For these things, we prefer to use Axure RP and other similar solutions. They should either remove this feature from this product or provide some kind of connectivity with Axure RP so that people can do better mockups of screens and import them. They need to augment and strengthen the BPM feature, which is the main feature. They need to put in some elements like artificial intelligence and augmented reality. They should look into such features because these things are coming up."
"The UI is a little bit outdated. It should be more fresh and clean."
"The database management area was not usable."
"The documentation could be better. Where I work, we speak French and we don't speak English, so we don't have anything in French. It's perfect in English, but we need something in French."
"I think the product is good. When I'm trying to do something specific for some part of project documentation, it's hard to get it figured out if you don't use it all the time. It's such a massive tool, it's hard to figure out how to dig in and get to the documentation where you have to be to get some idea of what to do. There are not a lot of examples that I'm aware of to be able to do that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From my point of view, no, it is not cheap, but it is not too expensive because you get this big organization behind it, technical support, and all those things. It's not so expensive to use. It's a Rolls Royce in this field, I know that. Even for small organizations, they can get so much effect from using this tool, in a very fast way, so the money will be back in the customer's pocket very fast."
"In terms of pricing, it would be nice if it were more affordable."
"Pricing is a bit on the higher side."
"It is an expensive solution."
"ARIS has different licensing mechanisms for different modules, but they are perpetual licenses. So you pay once."
"ARIS Express​ is free."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"It is well worth the investment in the enterprise."
"There is a license for this solution. When comparing this solution to others it is priced well."
"The licensing is not as expensive as some of the other data modeling tools such as Erwin."
"Its price is very good for the value that you get with it."
"The Corporate Edition, or one of the bundles, is the way to go."
"We paid 1200 euros as a once-off cost. All add ons and integrations come at an additional cost."
"Use floating licenses strategically."
"The pricing for ultimate version is steeply high."
"The solution is quite expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
10%
Educational Organization
18%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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?
Improvement should be made as per customer requirements.
What do you like most about Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
The stability has been good and satisfactory. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
One of the reasons many public sector institutions in the Czech Republic use it is that it provides a very good price-performance ratio. While it might be cumbersome to learn, it still delivers exc...
What needs improvement with Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
Whenever I begin a new project with Sparx, I have to spend time training people on how to use it since it is not straightforward. Although it's a powerful product with plenty of features, it's not ...
 

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM
No data available
 

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.
OmniLink
Find out what your peers are saying about ARIS BPA vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,997 professionals have used our research since 2012.