Avolution ABACUS vs erwin Data Modeler comparison

Avolution and Quest Software are both solutions in the Enterprise Architecture Management category. Avolution is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.0, while Quest Software is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.3. Avolution holds a 3.7% mindshare in AM, compared to Quest Software’s 7.8% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Avolution users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Quest Software users who would recommend it.

Avolution ABACUS

Read 15 Avolution ABACUS reviews

1,869 Views
1,626 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

erwin Data Modeler

Read 44 erwin Data Modeler reviews

4,996 Views
3,447 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Avolution ABACUS

erwin Data Modeler

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 23, 2025

Avolution ABACUS and erwin Data Modeler compete in enterprise architecture and data modeling fields, with ABACUS having the upper hand in pricing and support satisfaction, while erwin offers stronger data modeling features appealing to tech-focused buyers.

Features: Avolution ABACUS integrates with a variety of systems and provides a comprehensive modeling suite for diverse architecture projects, supporting complex visualizations. It features a customizable meta-model which allows extensive customization and use of catalogs. Erwin Data Modeler is known for efficient, detailed data model creation and features advanced tools for managing large datasets. It enables quick reverse engineering and offers visual data models to simplify data source complexities.

Room for Improvement: Avolution ABACUS can enhance its interface to improve user experience, streamline integration with third-party tools, and boost reporting capabilities. Erwin Data Modeler could improve by simplifying its complex configuration processes, offering enhanced integration capabilities with cloud platforms, and optimizing its performance for handling extensive data models.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Avolution ABACUS offers a modular deployment allowing seamless integration into varied environments with highly responsive customer support. Erwin Data Modeler utilizes a traditional robust deployment model focusing on data-centric environments, supported by detailed programs offering specialized assistance tailored to user needs.

Pricing and ROI: Avolution ABACUS boasts lower initial setup costs and offers affordable pricing models that facilitate rapid ROI through adaptable deployment. Erwin Data Modeler involves higher setup costs but achieves ROI with improved data precision and long-term efficiency gains, justified by its sophisticated data management capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Avolution ABACUS vs. erwin Data Modeler Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Avolution ABACUS vs. erwin Data Modeler

December 2025

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Helped 879,371 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:

Categories and Ranking

Avolution ABACUS

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

erwin Data Modeler

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

2nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Design (9th), Data Governance (13th)

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of Avolution ABACUS is 3.7%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 7.8%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Architecture Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
erwin Data Modeler	7.8%
Avolution ABACUS	3.7%
Other	88.5%

Enterprise Architecture Management

Featured Reviews

JoseCamacho

Freelancer at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

Supports evaluating architecture through corporate objectives

I conducted an evaluation of enterprise architecture at the European Court in Luxembourg, reviewing and analyzing existing implementations to identify potential improvements and providing recommendations I conduct evaluations to identify potential improvements and make recommendations, forming a…

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Alton Thibodeaux

Data Warehouse Architect at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Data modeling has supported secure migration from legacy platforms to cloud analytics

I write code and I write code accessing erwin Data Modeler's API, the Application Programming Interface, so that I can use Excel to update erwin Data Modeler and then get those updates and put them back into spreadsheets. The only thing I wish is that their API documentation was a little bit clearer and that it had better examples of successful code. To me, examples are worth a hundred pages of reference documentation. Just give me an example of how you use it, and that really helps. I know that's a nitpicking thing, but I wish their API documentation had a lot more examples of code that actually worked to do the things that they're talking about. As far as erwin Data Modeler itself goes, when we have a lot of tables, I have some erwin Data Modeler files that have thousands of tables in them, up to 3,000 or 4,000 tables. When erwin Data Modeler files start getting that big, it takes a really long time, I'd say a minute or more, to open the file. Whenever I'm working in it, sometimes there are operations that also take a long time, so as erwin Data Modeler files get larger, the response time really slows down. An irritation is that every now and then, when I'm working and usually when I have multiple erwin Data Modeler files open at the same time, I get a glitch where a lot of the text fields get solid black, the first eight characters of column names might be blacked out with a rectangle. All I have to do is close erwin Data Modeler, shut it down, and bring it back up, and then everything is fine. It doesn't happen all the time, only occasionally, maybe once or twice a week, and those are the only two things I can say. The previous version of erwin Data Modeler used to crash unaccountably, but this one hasn't ever crashed on me, so it's been a lot more stable than the previous version that we had.

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 tool's implementation is straightforward as everything is readily available. For instance, setting up a portal is seamless, allowing easy publishing and access to data. However, integrating with other tools like BI, Power BI, or Grafana requires setting up pipelines between them."

"If you face new challenges or issues then you can dynamically customize according to the business needs."

"You can design using a diagram tool installed on your desktop, a key difference from other vendors."

"The ease of modeling and the ease of showing interconnectivity and relationships is the most valuable. It is fairly simple and out of the box. It is customizable in many ways. It is a pretty good tool."

"There are a lot of different features, but the business/decision-maker feature, visibility, and dashboards are most valuable."

"The product is easy to use and well-structured for the integrations we need it to make."

"The most valuable feature is that it has a customizable meta-model, which is key."

"Scalable and stable tool for roadmapping and modeling, with a good dashboard, end-to-end impact analysis, and portfolio management."

More Avolution ABACUS pros

"erwin has versioning so you can keep versions, over time, of those models and you can compare any version to any version. If you're looking at a specific database and you want to see what changed over time, that's really useful. You can go back to a different version or connect that to your change-control processes so you can see what was released when."

"The solution's ability to compare and synchronize data sources with data models is fantastic. We use it for that on a regular basis to make sure that changes haven't been made to the database outside of the modeling process. I can take existing databases and reverse engineer them and understand their structure within 15 minutes. If I didn't have Data Modeler it would take hours. It increases our productivity and helps in understanding our legacy application."

"I have worked with erwin Data Modeler for quite some time and familiarity is its most valuable feature."

"It is a scalable solution...The technical support team is fine."

"My favorite feature of erwin Data Modeler is that we can export and import tables directly from the databases, and it is easy to map from table to table and column to column."

"The modeling portion of the tool is the most valuable. There are some notes, naming standards, and other functions that we use as well. There's a whole boatload of functionality in this thing and we use maybe 10% of it. It seems to be pretty common that not all the functionality is fully utilized. But it's just got gobs and gobs of stuff that you can implement if you so choose to."

"There is absolutely no problem with the stability."

"The product lets us import different types of models from various databases."

More erwin Data Modeler pros

Cons

"Having more control over page size is lacking in this product. Print utilization also needs to be improved."

"The usability of the tool is an area with shortcomings that need improvement."

"Avolution ABACUS has the drawback of needing data filtering at the development level, unlike some tools that offer filtering at deployment. Two areas where Avolution ABACUS could be improved are regional support and flexibility in model selection. Sometimes, it's challenging to access support or updates in certain regions, which can slow down progress. Additionally, it would be beneficial if the tool allowed more flexibility in selecting multiple models within a single unit."

"The reporting could be easier to configure."

"While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."

"It doesn't have the simulation capability, which would be helpful in doing some business process analysis and improvements."

"While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."

"The tool doesn't have any intelligence built in. We have to design the dashboards ourselves, which is a challenge because we have to depend on the vendor for customizations."

More Avolution ABACUS cons

"One of the things I've been talking to the erwin team about through the years is that every data model should have the ability to be multi-language... When I was working at Honda, it became very difficult to work with the Japanese teams using just one model. You can have two models, one in English and one in Japanese, but that means you have to keep the updates back and forth, and that always increases the risk of something not being updated."

"The reverse engineering in Oracle Databases needs improvement, as there are issues."

"I would like to see improved reporting and, potentially, dashboards built on top of that. Right now, it's a little manual. More automated reporting and dashboard views would help because currently you have to push things out to a spreadsheet, or to HTML, and there aren't many other options that I know of. I would like to be able to produce graphs and additional things right in the tool, instead of having to export the data somewhere else."

"It would be nice to have it on the Linux platform, not just Windows. If they can support Linux, there would be a huge market for it."

"One of the best aspects of the tool is its reverse engineering capability."

"I would like to have more data sources from other, different vendors. In recent years, the vendor has reduced the number of data sources, and I would like to have more data sources for every brand. For example, with Oracle, I would like to have compatibility for many versions, including old ones, not just the most recent."

"Erwin Data Modeler is a good product, but I recently experienced a problem where I was not able to open an erwin Data Modeler file because its version had automatically changed."

"I am not so happy with its speed. Sometimes, it can have problems with connections."

More erwin Data Modeler cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My company makes annual payments toward the licensing costs of the solution. Considering the product's capabilities, its prices are very reasonable."

"To get a fairly extensive license for Enterprise Architects from Spark is approximately US $400.00, maybe less, but with Avolution Abacus it was approximately US $2000.00 per year, and that includes maintenance with the Abacus tool."

"There is a subscription for this solution. We are on an annual subscription because you sometimes receive special offers the longer you subscribe."

"It is expensive."

"It is competitive. It is not chump change. I am just using the studio version. I am not using the full enterprise version, which would probably cost me three times more for single-use, but it gives a lot more capability and analysis. It is server-based as well, and it is reasonably priced compared to a lot of the other tools. There are other tools that have other sorts of capabilities, but in order to use them, you'd really have to have like 50 users for the price to become justifiable."

"The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."

"I'm paying on a yearly basis. I don't know whether it's a highly expensive tool or not. I'm getting a single version of it, and I don't have the enterprise part on it because I don't need the server component, and I don't need a web browser component. My estimate would be that it's a very reasonably priced tool given that you don't need to have licenses with everyone in order to get the information and the decision support capabilities out of the tool. You use the enterprise edition on top of the studio, which is the heart of the tool. I am not aware of any additional costs."

"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."

More Avolution ABACUS pricing and cost advice

"An issue right now would be that erwin doesn't have a freely available browser (that I am aware of) for people who are not data modelers or data engineers that a consumer could use to look at the data models and play with it. This would not be to make any changes, but just to visually look at what exists. There are other products out there which do have end user browsers available and allow them to access data models via the data modeling tool."

"We've continued to use the product for many years and compared it with others on the market. The pricing is reasonable considering what the solution offers and what we pay. There are cheaper tools, but they may not be as robust and easy to use, so it's worth the money."

"There are two license options and the pricing is reasonable."

"There is either a one-year or three-year license. It is not a pay-as-you-go license like a SaaS solution. It’s more of a traditional licensing. They are a little bit on the pricier side."

"The tool is expensive."

"The price should be lower in order to be on the same level as its competitors."

"erwin has this option where you pay a one-time fee and you have the license for six years, which makes sense because I don't upgrade my database engine every other year. I have an application that depends on it. This is something weird about PowerDesigner. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."

"I don't specifically know what we're paying now. About three years ago, in another organization, I have this memory of 6,000 AUD a seat or something like that, but I am not sure. In the mid-2000s, it was something like 1,200 AUD a seat. I get the impression that there was a price jump when it was spun off from CA as a separate company, which is understandable, but it could sometimes be a barrier in some organizations picking it up. I haven't talked to erwin people yet, but I'm going to suggest to them that they could perhaps think of having an entry-level product that is priced a bit lower, and then, you can buy the extra suite."

More erwin Data Modeler pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Government

12%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	9

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	14
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	33

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Avolution ABACUS?

The tool's implementation is straightforward as everything is readily available. For instance, setting up a portal is seamless, allowing easy publishing and access to data. However, integrating wit...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Avolution ABACUS?

It's pricey compared to Essential, Deltek, or Essential Cloud. However, its diagramming capabilities and metamodel design make it worth it. But it's not for large user bases. It has modules for app...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Avolution ABACUS?

While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product. It would be beneficial to have seminars or other met...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

Regarding pricing, I am unsure what the exact price is for erwin Data Modeler, but I believe it is not useful for an individual. It is more targeted toward an enterprise level since organizations l...

See all answers

What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

For the review, I would assign an eight because it has its own limitations. It has a very steep learning curve, limited support for NoSQL or streaming systems, and potentially a high licensing cost...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

I used erwin Data Modeler for approximately two to three years on a project. I used erwin Data Modeler for multi-level data modeling, conducting conceptual, logical, and physical data modeling with...

See all answers

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Compared 8% of the time

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Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Avolution ABACUS

December 2025

Download Avolution ABACUS product report

Buyer's Guide

erwin Data Modeler

December 2025

Download erwin Data Modeler product report

Also Known As

No data available

erwin DM

Overview

ABACUS is the enterprise architecture tool designed to have the quickest time-to-value. You can use it to build and maintain rich visual models from existing company data. ABACUS comes with standard industry frameworks as well as advanced analytic tools and best-in-class roadmapping and reporting functionality.

With Avolution ABACUS You Can:

Strategize and analyze your organizational architecture with ease using data-driven diagrams
Enjoy connected data, models, and metrics across your whole enterprise
Work directly and securely in your browser, which is ideal for global teams and remote working

Avolution ABACUS Features:

Modeling and roadmapping: ABACUS offers a fully provisioned modeling environment for enterprise and IT architecture, strategic planning, and digital business management.
Digital collaboration: Avolution ABACUS includes a feature that allows you to set up dashboards so you can tell data stories using business-friendly visualizations.
Portfolio management: Anyone can update their own data, which, in turn, reduces the workload of the enterprise architecture team.
Data-driven architecture: ABACUS’s data-driven architecture gives you the opportunity to design and automate key calculations using out-of-the-box or simple no-code algorithms.
Collaborative data management: Using this feature, you can save time with single sign-on (SSO) and AD Integrations; You can embed directly in MS Teams, Confluence, or other workplace social software.
Dynamic data visualizations: ABACUS’s graph view allows you to navigate through systems in a dynamic environment, as opposed to static diagram views.

Avolution ABACUS Benefits:

Time efficient: Models and roadmaps automatically stay up-to-date, saving your organization a lot of time so you can focus on other priorities instead.
Centralized location: With Avolution ABACUS, you can connect all data in one place, keeping everything both consistent and accurate.
Full flexibility: ABACUS gives you full flexibility to adapt and configure your own metamodels with ease.
Complete visibility: Your whole enterprise can have visibility of the architecture through the use of digital collaboration and visually clear dashboards.
Machine learning: With Avolution ABACUS, you can employ machine learning to speed data management and analysis.
Spot dependencies: ABACUS helps your organization spot dependencies and impacts that might trip up your projects.
Fully customizable: Avolution ABACUS is fully customizable; Select, configure, or adapt your repository and metamodel. You can also automate metrics and analytics specific to your business.

Reviews from Real Users:

Andre W., Enterprise Architect at Enterprise Architecture Perspectives, says, "The most valuable feature is that it has a customizable meta-model, which is key.”

The Lead Enterprise Domain Architects at a financial services firm feels that "The product is easy to use and well-structured for the integrations we need it to make.”

"There are plenty of features available, such as the ability to test applications for issues and a user-friendly dashboard,” says Suresh T., Enterprise Digital Solution Architect at a tech services company.

Avolution

Erwin Data Modeler provides an effective approach to visualizing and managing data models. It assists in creating, reversing, and synchronizing data models with ease, supporting logical and physical transitions while enhancing understanding across teams.

Erwin Data Modeler is a comprehensive tool designed for professional database management. It offers capabilities to organize and enforce standards, automating script generation with robust reverse engineering and DDL output. Users can manage complex data environments, capitalize on integration with data intelligence, and maintain large-scale databases smoothly. Despite its strengths, improvements in multi-language support, database integration, and reporting features are needed. Users benefit from extensive support for conceptual, logical, and physical database modeling, enhancing architectural design and data governance for platforms like SQL Server, Oracle, and Teradata.

What are the key features of Erwin Data Modeler?

Visual Representation: Facilitates clear visualization of data models, aiding comprehension.
Versioning and Editing: Enhance usability with versioning and bulk editing capabilities.
Reverse Engineering: Offers powerful tools for reverse engineering and DDL generation.
Integration: Aligns with data intelligence to streamline database management.
Naming Standards: Enforces consistency with automated script creation.

What benefits should users consider in Erwin Data Modeler reviews?

Collaboration: Promotes team understanding and collaboration through visual tools.
Automation: Reduces manual effort through automated processes and integration.
Scalability: Handles large database management efficiently, crucial for enterprise settings.
Data Governance: Facilitates effective data governance with structured modeling.

Erwin Data Modeler finds application in industries focused on robust data management, implementing it for enterprise data warehouses, business domain models, and operational systems. It supports architectural design and governance, aligning with business applications demanding precise data representation and visualization.

Quest Software

Sample Customers

Barclays

Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples

Buyer's Guide

Avolution ABACUS vs. erwin Data Modeler

December 2025

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