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Avolution ABACUS vs Visio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Avolution ABACUS
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (8th)
Visio
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (1st), Mind Mapping Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Avolution ABACUS and Visio aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Avolution ABACUS is designed for Enterprise Architecture Management and holds a mindshare of 4.0%, down 4.7% compared to last year.
Visio, on the other hand, focuses on Business Process Design, holds 12.5% mindshare, down 13.5% since last year.
Enterprise Architecture Management
Business Process Design
 

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…
IckyDu Buisson - PeerSpot reviewer
Good modeling and flexibility but object oriented features needed
Visio should be object-oriented to enable the reusability of objects across different models. Currently, changes made in one model do not automatically reflect in other related models. Having a repository behind the objects would significantly improve its utility, providing a structured environment for managing various architectural components and their relationships.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the traceability, you can trace any object to the other."
"It is a very stable solution...The initial setup of Avolution ABACUS is very easy."
"The product is easy to use and well-structured for the integrations we need it to make."
"Scalable and stable tool for roadmapping and modeling, with a good dashboard, end-to-end impact analysis, and portfolio management."
"There are plenty of features available such as the ability to test applications for issues and a user-friendly dashboard."
"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."
"Avolution ABACUS allows for flexible enterprise architecture analysis."
"It's more than just an enterprise architecture tool as it has a lot of nice features, e.g. messaging, simulation, etc."
"It is a standard and easy-to-use solution from Microsoft, and you benefit from the general functions of Microsoft solutions. It integrates easily with SharePoint, which is a useful tool from Microsoft."
"On the scalability front, the aspect of increasing the number of endpoints is relatively easy to handle."
"A good designation feature."
"It is easy to use."
"It keeps track of its connections as you move things around."
"The most valuable feature is how easy it is to use."
"I think the best part of Visio is that you can import drawings very well into Microsoft Word. For example, if you put the Visio drawing into Word, you can double click on it and it opens in Visio. It is a very useful feature and something which I miss switching to Enterprise Architect. In Enterprise Architect, if I import a drawing into Word it does not open the diagram in Enterprise Architect. This is one of the strongest features and the ability to create your own stencils."
"This is a very straightforward product and I don't think that anything needs to be simplified."
 

Cons

"While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."
"In the future, there could be improvements in integration and enhancements."
"The usability of the tool is an area with shortcomings that need improvement."
"Having more control over page size is lacking in this product. Print utilization also needs to be improved."
"It is vastly scalable but you can't run it on a Mac or Linux so it has limitations."
"The most valuable features are the catalog and the diagram."
"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."
"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."
"Some of the improvements that have been made in Visio have not been beneficial, at least to me, personally. Too many things have been added to it, and it makes it kind of clunky sometimes. There is an overwhelming desire or competition to continue to improve it when the product is and has been pretty good, and some of what is done tends to clutter it. In some cases, the updates make it more difficult to use. It is already pretty feature-heavy and continuing to add stuff is not productive from my perspective."
"It thinks that it knows what you want to do, but it doesn't. It has a way of behaving that can be very frustrating from time to time. Either it moves things about because it thinks its placement should be at a certain place, or it's keeping track of things that you don't necessarily see, so it moves something elsewhere."
"When you use a BPA solution you can open an end-to-end process in one window, go down, or go up between layers to different places. You should be able to see descriptions of the steps of the process."
"There are a lot of patches that sometimes change how one version will interact compared to another."
"Visio's scalability could be improved. I had a license through my school and it would have been great to be able to collaborate with more people."
"I would like to see traceability. It doesn't have it. You cannot find one object amongst several sheets of Visio diagrams."
"There is a limitation in Visio."
"I would like to see included in the next release is the implementation of web publishing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."
"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."
"It is expensive."
"My company makes annual payments toward the licensing costs of the solution. Considering the product's capabilities, its prices are very reasonable."
"The solution's pricing is not an issue."
"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
"The price of Visio is reasonable."
"I don't have any issue with the pricing. It has a subscription-based model, and the subscription is done on a yearly basis. Of course, we need internal approvals in place."
"We probably have an M-365 E3 license."
"The price could be more flexible for infrequent users. If it's your main utility that you use daily, then it's a good price."
"The popularity of a product is an indicator of its price. Because of the popularity of Visio, its price is on the higher side. We need better pricing for it."
"The product is inexpensive if you already have Microsoft products in your environment. The license encompasses all the required services."
"The solution could be less expensive."
"The licensing process is actually a breeze. Simply buy the license and download it from Microsoft, enter the license key in Visio to activate the software, and you're done."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
14%
Computer Software Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

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...
How easy is it to migrate process flow charts (modeled using tools like Visio) into Bizagi?
I have been using Bizagi with a major project for a state government agency for about four years now. It is pretty straightforward to load in files that are BPMN 2.0 compliant. The option to load V...
What do you like most about Visio?
The diagrams Visio creates are quite impressive in the sense that we can cooperate with more colleagues in one task and see the flow of the process.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Visio?
One of the main problems with Visio is its licensing options and associated issues, which lead to discussions about the price with a Microsoft representative. If asked to rate the price, I would gi...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Visio
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Barclays
Thomas College, Hamburg Port Authority, Portigon AG, Conseil G_n_ral du d_partement des Hautes-Alpes, AAA Auto a. s., Commonwealth Financial Network, ICA, Abu Dhabi National Energy Company
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