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Avolution ABACUS vs SAP PowerDesigner comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Avolution ABACUS
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP PowerDesigner
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Metadata Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of Avolution ABACUS is 3.9%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP PowerDesigner is 8.6%, up from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

BPMexp67 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 15, 2019
Powerful and customizable, but the interface needs to be more user-friendly and it needs dashboards
The user interface needs improvement because it is not user-friendly. They need dashboards because I think that it is really important in the market at the moment. Dashboards seem to be the solid bridge between the business and IT departments, and I didn't see anything there. The people that are going to decide to buy the product are the top management, and they are not interested in seeing the everyday operational aspects. Rather, they want to see results, which is why you need dashboards. They have an open door for integration with the model, but that's all. Integration with third-party tools needs to be improved. We did some research on this, and they have open doors with certain tools, but at least in this assessment, it was not clear how to do it. They say that you can do it, but we could not figure out how. So, this is an odd part that I think they can make more clear. I asked whether they have APIs available, or whether we had to create them from scratch, but I didn't get an answer. There is a feature called the versioning of the models, and it is not easy. It is hard because it requires a lot of technical skill to work with a model, process, or another artifact. If they want to expand in the European market then they are going to have to improve their technical support.
JorgeSanz - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 18, 2024
Effective in terms of validating everything, but sometimes they don't allow us some flexibility and GUI could improve
I would recommend SAP PowerDesigner to others for data architecture management. It provides all the functionalities in terms of data modeling, so it's also a good tool for that. I see trends in terms of data classification, but I don't see this tool with the intelligence to do that automatically. So, like, with artificial intelligence. Overall, I would rate the solution a six out of ten because there are too many validations. Also, I found some gaps in terms of relationships; they didn't appear when you do reverse engineering. Also, this tool lacks artificial intelligence that should be very good in terms of automatically identifying the classification of elements and maybe also to incorporate some artificial intelligence in providing descriptions for each data element included in the solution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"You can design using a diagram tool installed on your desktop, a key difference from other vendors."
"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."
"It's more than just an enterprise architecture tool as it has a lot of nice features, e.g. messaging, simulation, etc."
"There are a lot of different features, but the business/decision-maker feature, visibility, and dashboards are most valuable."
"The technical support is very good. They are responsive and the answers they provide are detailed."
"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 most valuable features of SAP PowerDesigner are the creation the flow charts and folders. It is a powerful tool."
"I've used the reverse engineering feature a lot. I can take a look at the structure of the database and what relationships it has."
"It offers a lot of features in one solution. You would have to get multiple other products to bundle together all of the capabilities that you get in just this product."
"The most valuable feature is that it is a very fast reverse engineering process. It does a very expansive comparison."
"The feature I found valuable in SAP PowerDesigner is extraction. I also like that my company hasn't faced any issues because of the clear documentation about SAP PowerDesigner."
"The most valuable feature of SAP PowerDesigner is the testing of the models, it has the best function. Reverse engineering is very helpful too."
"SAP PowerDesigner is an excellent tool that does what I need it to do. What I like most about it is that it's stable, fast, and easy to understand."
"In terms of operational efficiency and cause savings or return on investment, I can say that with SAP PowerDesigner, our company saves a lot of time."
 

Cons

"It doesn't have the simulation capability, which would be helpful in doing some business process analysis and improvements."
"In the future, there could be improvements in integration and enhancements."
"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."
"The most valuable features are the catalog and the diagram."
"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."
"While this is one of the most powerful tools on the market it does not integrate well with Microsoft Office or others."
"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."
"Technical support needs improvement."
"The user interface could be more user-friendly."
"The portal of SAP PowerDesigner could be better. The tool also needs more features and integration with other products, such as Collibra. It would be interesting for SAP PowerDesigner to have more integration."
"Checking-in models to the repository, especially when working remotely, is a slow process than can sometimes have problems with models being corrupted."
"The data governance should be improved, like ER/Studio."
"There are many areas of this solution that needs to be changed."
"SAP PowerDesigner could improve by making the repository easier to understand. It is difficult to understand how the repository works because when I used logical models as part of the team, we wanted to use them together and update the older versions of the data model version but it was confusing. The repository needs to be explained."
"One disadvantage of SAP PowerDesigner is that you cannot reverse engineer the ALTER statements, so that's an enhancement or area for improvement I'm looking forward to seeing from the SAP team in the future. That should directly reflect on the physical data models my company builds."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"This solution is expensive for some people's budgets and they need to offer a Lite version at a cheaper price"
"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 pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
"The price of the solution is too expensive. When we asked for certain licenses in different countries it was unattainable."
"The price of the solution is low."
"Regarding costs, SAP PowerDesigner is pricey, as I've heard from my team manager, which is why the company has been thinking of bringing another solution on board."
"PowerDesigner is not the cheapest solution on the market, so make sure that you are using it to its full potential."
"The ROI has been 43%."
"I would like SAP to prove free licenses to professionals that are using the solution. The free version is limited."
"When you purchase the license for SAP PowerDesigner, you have to buy one year of support. The tool is worth the money."
"SAP PowerDesigner is cheaper than eriwin."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
15%
Computer Software Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Government
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

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?
The tool is quite extensive but 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. ...
What do you like most about SAP PowerDesigner?
It allows us to have proper documentation in terms of the databases.
What needs improvement with SAP PowerDesigner?
Based on my experience with SAP PowerDesigner, I'd like to see improvements in the DMM feature. Even if I have an ETL tool, I'd like the DMM options to directly connect to ETL tool repositories lik...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Sybase PowerDesigner
 

Learn More

Video not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Barclays
Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
Find out what your peers are saying about Avolution ABACUS vs. SAP PowerDesigner and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.