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Avolution ABACUS vs erwin Data Modeler comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 19, 2025

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
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (10th), Data Governance (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of Avolution ABACUS is 3.6%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 8.9%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
erwin Data Modeler8.9%
Avolution ABACUS3.6%
Other87.5%
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

"There are a lot of different features, but the business/decision-maker feature, visibility, and dashboards are most valuable."
"Avolution ABACUS allows for flexible enterprise architecture analysis."
"The technical support is very good. They are responsive and the answers they provide are detailed."
"It's more than just an enterprise architecture tool as it has a lot of nice features, e.g. messaging, simulation, etc."
"Avolution ABACUS allows for flexible enterprise architecture analysis."
"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 plenty of features available such as the ability to test applications for issues and a user-friendly dashboard."
"Forward engineering, DDL generation, reverse engineering, and reporting are the most valuable features of the solution."
"The data lineage feature is very valuable."
"Drag-and-drop data modeling and reverse engineering out of databases are the most valuable features of erwin Data Modeler by Quest."
"The product allows us to reuse entities and attributes."
"It allows us to create logical data models. We can represent a database model in business terms, which is very useful for us."
"The ability to collaborate between different members across the organization is the most valuable feature. It gives us the ability to work on the same model, regardless of where we are physically."
"The fitting model is very intuitive."
"The solution is excellent in providing a visual representation of a database and can generate DDL for implementing changes. We use DDL for logical purposes to review with business people, ensuring they have the required fields for processing. We also use it as a data dictionary for the physical data model to understand all the purposes of the terms. This helps us map the logical and physical terms with the business definition to understand our data."
 

Cons

"The company needs to update the UML version they are using for the product as it is quite old."
"If they want to expand in the European market then they are going to have to improve their technical support."
"While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."
"The reporting could be easier to configure."
"It is vastly scalable but you can't run it on a Mac or Linux so it has limitations."
"While this is one of the most powerful tools on the market it does not integrate well with Microsoft Office or others."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The solution's model mark could be better because it crashes sometimes."
"Complete Compare is set up only to compare properties that are of interest to us, but some of the differences cannot be brought over from one version of the model to another. This is despite the fact that we are clicking to bring objects from one place to another. Therefore, it's hard to tell at times if Complete Compare is working as intended without having to manually go into the details and check everything. If it could be redesigned to a degree where it is easier to use when we bring things over from one site to another and be sure that it's been done correctly, that would be nice to have. We would probably use the tool more often if the Complete Compare were easier to use."
"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."
"I would like the solution to be more user-friendly to deploy."
"I love the product. I love the ability to get into the code, make it automated, and make it do what I want. I would like to see them put some kind of governance over the ability to make changes to the mart tables with the API, so that instead of just using the modeler's rights to a table -- it has a separate set of rights for API access. That would give us the ability to put governance around API applications. Right now a person with erwin and Excel/VBA has the ability to make changes to models with the API if they also have rights to make changes to the model from erwin. It's a risk."
"There is a lack of local support in the China region."
"Some Source official systems give us DDLs to work with and they have contents not required to be part of the DDL before we reverse engineer in the erwin DM. Therefore, we manually make changes to those scripts and edit them, then reverse-engineer within the tool. So, it does take some time to edit these DDL scripts generated by the source operational systems. What I would suggest: It would be helpful if there were a place within the erwin tool to import the file and automatically eliminate all the unnecessary lines of code, and just have the clean code built-in to generate the table/data model."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
"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."
"There is a subscription for this solution. We are on an annual subscription because you sometimes receive special offers the longer you subscribe."
"This solution is expensive for some people's budgets and they need to offer a Lite version at a cheaper price"
"It is expensive."
"The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."
"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."
"My company makes annual payments toward the licensing costs of the solution. Considering the product's capabilities, its prices are very reasonable."
"The primary reasons that erwin was selected were that it was much more affordable for us [than Embarcadero] and it was easily maintainable."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"The price should be lower in order to be on the same level as its competitors."
"The tool is expensive."
"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."
"erwin is expensive compared to other solutions. We are paying almost $6,000 per seat a month."
"There are two license options and the pricing is reasonable."
"erwin Data Modeler by Quest is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
16%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise29
 

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 and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.