Avolution ABACUS vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest comparison

Avolution and erwin by Quest are both solutions in the Enterprise Architecture Management category. Avolution is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.0, while erwin by Quest is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.1. Avolution holds a 3.6% mindshare in AM, compared to erwin by Quest’s 10.9% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Avolution users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of erwin by Quest users who would recommend it.

Avolution ABACUS

Read 15 Avolution ABACUS reviews

2,024 Views
914 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Read 39 erwin Data Modeler by Quest reviews

4,005 Views
2,219 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Avolution ABACUS

erwin Data Modeler by Quest

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

Avolution ABACUS and erwin Data Modeler by Quest compete in the modeling and architecture domain. While Avolution ABACUS is noted for its flexible enterprise architecture capabilities, erwin Data Modeler stands out due to its robust data modeling features, earning an edge in data management.

Features: Avolution ABACUS offers flexibility with its Analytical and Simulation Engine, diverse frameworks, and extensive customization capabilities. The ability to customize the meta-model and catalogs adds to its versatility. erwin Data Modeler provides comprehensive visual data models, efficient reverse engineering, and intuitive migration of foreign keys, facilitating accurate and dynamic data synchronization.

Room for Improvement: Avolution ABACUS could enhance its integration with BI tools and improve its user-friendly interface for complex modeling tasks. Advanced customization may require additional simplification for broader accessibility. erwin Data Modeler may benefit from improved compatibility with cloud databases, better performance with large-scale models, and enhanced integration with other enterprise tools for more seamless workflows.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Avolution ABACUS deployment is straightforward, supported by extensive documentation, making implementation smoother. erwin Data Modeler's deployment is flexible but may require specialized support for custom setups, which is beneficial for organizations with specific data infrastructure needs.

Pricing and ROI: Avolution ABACUS offers competitive pricing with cost-effective ROI for comprehensive architecture management. erwin Data Modeler, despite higher initial costs, ensures substantial ROI with its precise data accuracy and compliance focus, making it suitable for data-centric enterprises.

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

Buyer's Guide

Avolution ABACUS vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest

March 2025

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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 by Quest

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Design (9th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of Avolution ABACUS is 3.6%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of erwin Data Modeler by Quest is 10.9%, up from 9.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

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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JorgeSanz

Data Governance Senior Advisor at Abu Dhabi National Oil Company

Streamline data modeling and automate network changes for increased efficiency

The initial setup depends on the tool if you are using the data model environment. Stopping the server could be complex and require strong expertise. If you have everything set up and configured, Erwin is straightforward. You can deploy it in a few hours. In our case, it took a couple of months to address internal conditions, assign machines, and set up everything for the services. I rate the initial setup a six out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.

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

"It is a very stable solution...The initial setup of Avolution ABACUS is very easy."

"Avolution ABACUS allows for flexible enterprise architecture analysis."

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

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

"The most valuable feature is the traceability, you can trace any object to the other."

"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."

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

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

More Avolution ABACUS pros

"The most valuable feature is the physical or visual representation of the database, showing the tables, the columns, the foreign keys, and the ability to generate DDL, so you can physically implement databases."

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

"They have a lot of features and the most up-to-date technology integration, which I haven't seen in other products."

"It's important to create standard templates — Erwin is good at that — and you can customize them. You can create a standard template so that your models have the same look and feel. And then, anyone using the tool is using the same font and the same general layout. erwin's very good at helping enforce that."

"The generation of DDL saved us having to write the steps by hand. You still had to go in and make some minor modifications to make it deployable to the database system. However, for the data lineage, it is very valuable for tracing our use of data, especially personal confidential data through different systems."

"We find that its ability to generate database code from a model for a wide array of data sources cuts development time. The ability to create one model in your design phase and then have it generate DDL code for Oracle or Teradata, or whichever environment you need is really nice. It's not only nice but it also saves man-hours of time. You would have to take your design and just type in manually. It has to take days off out of the work."

"Quest can create conceptual and physical data models to facilitate effective communication between business and IT. It can also integrate expertise from various engineering and database systems within your organization to enhance data management and administration."

"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."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest pros

Cons

"They should take more initiative to implement things that competing products have already come out with."

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

"It is vastly scalable but you can't run it on a Mac or Linux so it has limitations."

"The reporting could be easier to configure."

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

"The company needs to update the UML version they are using for the product as it is quite old."

"While this is one of the most powerful tools on the market it does not integrate well with Microsoft Office or others."

More Avolution ABACUS cons

"This is a very complex product."

"We are planning to move, in 2021, into their server version, where multiple data modelers can work at the same time and share their models. It has become a pain point to merge the models from individual desktops and get them into a single data model, when multiple data modelers are working on a particular project. It becomes a nightmare for the senior data modeler to bring them together, especially when it comes to recreating them when you want to merge them."

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

"The solution's model mark could be better because it crashes sometimes."

"In terms of new features, it would be great to have a cloud base. We should be able to put it on the cloud for better collaboration and data models sharing."

"I would like the solution to be less rigid in terms of its theory."

"Although Quest Software has made tremendous strides in recent years, they need to evolve more in the big data arena; erwin Data Modeler could use a little more work when it comes to big database designs."

"The solution's reporting side needs to be improved."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest 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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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 solution's pricing is not an issue."

More Avolution ABACUS pricing and cost advice

"The pricing of the solution is cheap. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."

"I wish it wasn't so expensive. I would love to personally buy a copy of my own and have it at home, because the next job that I'm looking at is probably project management and I might not have access to the tool. I would like to keep my ability to use the tool. Therefore, they should probably have a pricing for people like me who want to just use the solution as an independent consultant, trying to get started. $3,000 is a big hit."

"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."

"This company had bought the license for three years, and it's not an individual license. While you can buy a license for each individual, that would be very expensive. There is something called concurrent licenses where you can purchase licenses in bulk and 15 to 20 people can access the license and model. Concurrent licenses are scalable to the number of users and are proportional to the cost."

"Likewise, the solution is a little pricey."

"Pricing is very high compared to any other product."

"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."

"Though the solution is not cheap, it's worth the money."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Government

14%

Computer Software Company

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

19%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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 do you like most about erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

Forward engineering, DDL generation, reverse engineering, and reporting are the most valuable features of the solution.

See all answers

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

The product is expensive. I rate the product’s pricing a nine out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

As a documenting tool, it's solid, though its reporting could be more robust. The reporting mechanisms could be more intuitive regarding report creation. It can generate reports in CSV files, displ...

See all answers

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Compared 19% of the time

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Compared 15% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Avolution ABACUS

March 2025

Download Avolution ABACUS product report

Buyer's Guide

erwin Data Modeler by Quest

March 2025

Download erwin Data Modeler by Quest 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 pioneered data modeling, and erwin Data Modeler (erwin DM) remains trusted, award-winning software for data modeling and database design, automating complex and time-consuming tasks. Use it to discover and document any data from anywhere for consistency, clarity and artifact reuse across large-scale data integration, master data management, metadata management, Big Data, business intelligence and analytics initiatives – all while supporting data governance and intelligence efforts.

erwin by Quest

Sample Customers

Barclays

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

Buyer's Guide

Avolution ABACUS vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest

March 2025

Free Report: Avolution ABACUS vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Find out what your peers are saying about Avolution ABACUS vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

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