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Avolution ABACUS vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest 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

Avolution ABACUS
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
15
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
39
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 10.8%, up from 9.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

JoseCamacho - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
JorgeSanz - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Avolution ABACUS allows for flexible enterprise architecture analysis."
"The most valuable feature is that it has a customizable meta-model, which is key."
"It's more than just an enterprise architecture tool as it has a lot of nice features, e.g. messaging, simulation, etc."
"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."
"You can design using a diagram tool installed on your desktop, a key difference from other vendors."
"If you face new challenges or issues then you can dynamically customize according to the business needs."
"There are a lot of different features, but the business/decision-maker feature, visibility, and dashboards are most valuable."
"Being able to point it to a database and then pull the metadata is a valuable feature. Another valuable feature is being able to rearrange the model so that we can display it to users. We are able to divide the information into subject areas, and we can divide the data landscape into smaller chunks, which makes it easier to understand. If you had 14 subject areas, 1,000 entities, and 6,000 columns, you can't quite understand it all at once. So, being able to have the same underlying model but only display portions of it at a time is extremely useful."
"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."
"It has centralized storage so that a data model can be shared by different teams."
"It is a scalable solution...The technical support team is fine."
"The solution’s code generation ensures accurate engineering of data sources, as there is no development time. Code doesn't even have to be reviewed. We have been using this solution for so long and all the code which has been generated is accurate with the requirements. Once we generate the DDLs out of the erwin tools, the development team does a quick review of the script line by line. They will just be running the script on the database and looking into other requirements, such as the index. So, there is less effort from development side to create tables or build a database."
"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."
"We use the Forward and Reverse Engineering tools to help us speed things up and create things that would have to be done otherwise by hand. E.g., getting a database into a data model format or vice versa."
"Another feature of erwin is that it can help you enforce your naming standards. It has little modules that you can set up and, as you're building the data model, it's ensuring that they conform to the naming standards that you've developed."
 

Cons

"Having more control over page size is lacking in this product. Print utilization also needs to be improved."
"In the future, there could be improvements in integration and enhancements."
"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."
"While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."
"While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."
"They should take more initiative to implement things that competing products have already come out with."
"Their local presence in the Middle East could be scaled more, particularly in customer service. It would be good if they'd also have mobile dashboards for executive management out of the box."
"The usability of the tool is an area with shortcomings that need improvement."
"There is a lack of local support in the China region."
"The solution's reporting side needs to be improved."
"The interface must be improved."
"I still use Visio for conceptual modeling, and that's mainly because it is easier to change things, and you can relax some of the rules. DM's eventual target is a database, which means you actually have to dot all the Is and cross all the Ts, but in a conceptual model, you don't often know what you're working with. So, that's probably a constraint with erwin. They have made it a lot easier, and they've done a lot, but there is probably still room for improvement in terms of the ease of presentation back to the business. I'm comparing it with something like Visio where you can change colors on a box, change the text color and that sort of stuff, and change the lines. Such things are a whole lot easier in Visio, but once you get a theme organized in erwin, you can apply that theme to all of the objects. So, it becomes easier, but you do have to set up that theme."
"The erwin Data Modeler is quite complex to use."
"erwin generally fails to successfully reverse engineer our Oracle Databases into erwin data models. The way that they are engineered on our side, the syntax is correct from an Oracle perspective, but it seems to be very difficult for erwin to interpret. What I end up doing is using Oracle Data Modeler to reverse engineer into the Oracle data model, then forward engineer the DDL into an Oracle syntax, and importing that DDL into erwin in order to successfully bring in most of the information from our physical data models. That is a bit of a challenge."
"The modeling product itself is far and above anything else that I've seen on the market. There are certain inconsistencies when it comes to keeping up with other platforms' databases in the reverse-engineering process. It should also support more database platforms."
"I would like the solution to be more user-friendly to deploy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive."
"The solution's pricing is not an issue."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"This solution is expensive for some people's budgets and they need to offer a Lite version at a cheaper price"
"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
"The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."
"Price-wise, erwin Data Modeler is okay. You can purchase a single license and it is not very expensive."
"erwin Data Modeler by Quest is an expensive solution."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"Pricing is very high compared to any other product."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Government
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Educational Organization
5%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

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...
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...
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...
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.
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.
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
erwin DM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Barclays
 Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples
Find out what your peers are saying about Avolution ABACUS vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
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