BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect comparison

BiZZdesign and Sparx Systems are both solutions in the Enterprise Architecture Management category. BiZZdesign is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.1, while Sparx Systems is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.1. BiZZdesign holds a 4.6% mindshare in AM, compared to Sparx Systems’s 14.6% mindshare. Additionally, 77% of BiZZdesign users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Sparx Systems users who would recommend it.

BiZZdesign HoriZZon

Read 17 BiZZdesign HoriZZon reviews

2,145 Views
971 Comparison Views

77% willing to recommend

Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...

Read 99 Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect reviews

5,552 Views
4,215 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

BiZZdesign HoriZZon

Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and BiZZdesign HoriZZon compete in the enterprise architecture tools category. BiZZdesign HoriZZon appears to have the upper hand due to its advanced analytical functionalities and user-friendly dashboards.

Features: Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect supports UML 2 diagrams, enabling collaboration with an RDBMS back-end and providing extensibility for various modeling standards. BiZZdesign HoriZZon integrates ArchiMate for enterprise architecture and offers advanced analytical tools that aid strategic planning and complex environment management. It also features dashboards that enhance architectural insights, suitable for business users.

Room for Improvement: Sparx Systems EA could improve usability, visualization, and control over repository security. It faces performance issues in large projects, and users seek better documentation and interface enhancements. BiZZdesign HoriZZon has a steep learning curve, high cost, and complex integration processes. Users encounter challenges with repository management and object queries.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Sparx Systems EA offers flexible deployment, including on-premises and hybrid options, and relies heavily on community support for issue resolution. Its customer service is rated favorably but is less frequently used due to the tool's stability. BiZZdesign HoriZZon is primarily cloud-based, supporting collaborative access, but requires more direct vendor interaction due to its complexity, although technical support is well-rated.

Pricing and ROI: Sparx Systems EA is cost-effective, offering competitive pricing with quick ROI realized through increased productivity. Conversely, BiZZdesign HoriZZon is perceived as expensive, impacting its ROI due to high costs, particularly for smaller teams or organizations considering long-term use.

To learn more, read our detailed BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

January 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

BiZZdesign HoriZZon

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

6th

Ranking in Business Process Design

13th

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

2nd

Ranking in Business Process Design

3rd

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of BiZZdesign HoriZZon is 4.6%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is 14.6%, down from 19.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Architecture Management

Featured Reviews

BijoyTalukder

Enterprise Architect at Tata Consultancy

Helps to get a clear overview of our enterprise architecture, especially when dealing with multiple departments

One area where BiZZdesign HoriZZon could use some improvement is in its REST APIs. While the platform offers REST APIs, they have limitations when it comes to retrieving and exporting data. Obtaining detailed information at the individual application or component level, including IDs, costs, and deployment-related data, can be challenging through these APIs. This limitation makes it difficult to smoothly export such granular data. I have raised this issue with the BiZZdesign team, and they expressed interest in addressing it, but I'm not aware of the current status of this improvement effort. Nonetheless, improving the usability and flexibility of the REST APIs for data extraction is an area that could enhance the platform's capabilities.

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Milan Sterba

Senior Enterprise Architect at Deepview S.r.o.

Efficient documentation generation through organized model structure with a good price-performance ratio

Whenever I begin a new project with Sparx, I have to spend time training people on how to use it since it is not straightforward. Although it's a powerful product with plenty of features, it's not easy for even experienced users to find their way without guidance. This is not the most user-friendly solution.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup of this solution was very straightforward."

"The most valuable features of BiZZdesign HoriZZon, from my experience, include its out-of-the-box connectors, such as integration with ServiceNow, Excel, and SQL databases, making data repository management more efficient."

"It is very easy to use. I can just click on an application component and find out if we are using this particular component. This provides us flexibility."

"BiZZdesign HoriZZon is scalable, and I'd give it an eight out of ten for scalability. Our customers are enterprise level companies, but the solution is suitable for small and mid-sized companies as well."

"One of the main advantages of this solution is that they have representation in the Open Group Forum, which means that any changes in ArchiMate are immediately implemented in BiZZdesign."

"The most valuable features are the application, portfolio, data, architectures, and modeling things."

"The feature I find most valuable is that the start times and loading times are short. It takes only a few seconds to load the repository and whenever I want to open diagrams, they are there almost immediately."

"I like the flexibility of the modeling part for standards like ArchiMate and, at the same time, BPMN. It allows us to connect elements from different areas and to have a single repository and a single source of truth. It gives us one place to do analysis throughout the organization."

More BiZZdesign HoriZZon pros

"Its most valuable feature is the Zachman Framework."

"Modeling is a part of my work, and it has a lot of standard modeling languages. It is quite wide, and a lot is possible in it. We are not programming it ourselves, but if you are into programming and developing software yourself, you can go further and do a lot with Sparx. You can work from the framework and go into the details. With this solution, you get a lot of value at a low cost. It is also quite intuitive in terms of use. I like the use of it."

"We use it to develop and maintain the Enterprise Conceptual Model, migrated from erwin a couple of years ago."

"It has led some teams to do better code reviews - to be less focussed on coding conventions (syntax) and more focussed on the semantics because of the abstraction level clear design affords."

"Sparx offers good flexibility."

"It's like a repository. So far, we use it only for Information Modelling."

"We can easily use it with our new customers."

"Its ability to reference and link to components from any diagram."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect pros

Cons

"There is room for improvement in making it more seamless between the modeling and the analysis pieces. Sometimes you have to do some work in the backend to ensure that the HoriZZon portal really gets all of the information the way you want it. They are working on the seamlessness between what they call Enterprise Studio and HoriZZon."

"I have seen table charts where, if the chart is a little too big, it does not fit in HoriZZon and it is not at all visible... There have been several times where we could not publish a chart properly and we had to break the chart into small tables and create multiple artifacts, creating a complete mess. This should be seriously taken up by BiZZdesign because there is a lot of scope for improvement in terms of usability. It's not at all good, unfortunately."

"We tested it, and we had support from BiZZdesign, including patches, but it just didn't do what we wanted."

"It lacks capabilities with regard to infrastructure modeling."

"In HoriZZon, there are different matrices. In some of the cases, there is an option to aggregate them, but in other cases, we have not done this, e.g., to see the proper costs. For example, if I have 10 different matrices, then I need to create an aggregate view out of those 10 matrices somewhere. That is where we have been struggling a bit. We have a counterpart from the HoriZZon product team with whom we have bi-weekly discussions. We have suggested to him that this can be improved."

"One area where BiZZdesign HoriZZon could use some improvement is in its REST APIs."

"The repository of duplicate objects is bad."

"The users of BiZZdesign should be able to enter their data or make modeling changes via HoriZZon."

More BiZZdesign HoriZZon cons

"There should be a MATLAB-specific toolbox added to the solution with better compatibility. The connections currently are good but in the future, it needs a huge improvement."

"It took me a while to figure out how to use the report generation features effectively. So, it would be really nice if they had a way to make that a little bit more interactive and a little bit more straightforward."

"It can be improved in the area of shared documentation. The idea is that the architecture tool can call back to an enterprise asset, pull that information, and link that as a sub-artifact."

"The solution's interface could be more straightforward."

"From a practical point of view, we need speed and reliability for creating a model and doing some really meaningful tasks such as application landscape, refactoring, etc. These are two primary criteria. Sometimes, when you import something, it creates the object duplicates, or it allows you to do something that you're not supposed to do. For example, validation is missing. This could be frustrating because when you work at a high speed, you need to come back and start fixing things that the tool allowed you to go with, which is not quite good. So, there should probably be some internal mechanisms to advise you about what you're doing and what is probably not the best idea."

"The elements of the modeling sets can have better customization and visual representation. It would be great to have a mobile version."

"The Business Process Modeling or BPM feature can be improved to make it more interactive and user friendly because it is a tool for technical people. My current use is only for business process modeling notation and putting in the icons etc. You need to take them in as a class, which makes things very complex. Because of this complexity, it is not an easy-to-handle solution. Enterprise Architect is not very good for mockups. We cannot create user screens and other similar kinds of stuff, which is bad. For these things, we prefer to use Axure RP and other similar solutions. They should either remove this feature from this product or provide some kind of connectivity with Axure RP so that people can do better mockups of screens and import them. They need to augment and strengthen the BPM feature, which is the main feature. They need to put in some elements like artificial intelligence and augmented reality. They should look into such features because these things are coming up."

"It really did not work for logical modeling. The look is very old-fashioned. You can't make the diagrams easy on the eye, so we ended up drawing them again in Visio anyhow."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"First and foremost within the scope of improvement for the solution would be the cost. It's very costly..."

"If one is very cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the product price as a seven out of ten."

"We were customers and bought licenses from them. We used their remote instance initially but upgraded to the on-device version due to lag. For pricing, we paid about 2200 pounds a year per seat for the client installation at an educational rate. I'm not sure about commercial rates. I managed to get a free copy at BBC since it was for evaluation purposes."

"The pricing model is slightly on the high side and could be more competitive for long-term partnerships."

"The price is reasonable."

"I haven't found any issues with the scalability and licensing parts that are access-related."

"In terms of this particular product usage, my clients currently only use per-user licenses."

"[The] Orbus... pricing model was based on every single functionality having a price. The pricing was comparable but if we wanted to scale, it would have ended up being a lot more expensive. BiZZdesign gave us one price with all of the functionality, and we could scale as much as we needed."

"Licenses are pretty low cost compared to, for example, ARIS."

"The licence has a costly upfront fee which gets you access. You have to pay an annual maintenance fee, which is less."

"It is cheaper than other solutions. Its cost is around $686 per year. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"There is no license required for this solution."

"The license for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is paid yearly, but I don't handle that area. It's good for its price, so I'm rating it a five out of five, but I'm not using it much. I also don't have information regarding additional costs apart from the standard licensing fees."

"We paid 1200 euros as a once-off cost. All add ons and integrations come at an additional cost."

"The Corporate Edition, or one of the bundles, is the way to go."

"Pricing and licensing are suitable even for small companies."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

35%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Educational Organization

17%

Government

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BiZZdesign HoriZZon?

This is one of the best tools, especially because of its collaborative nature. Anyone using it can access previous projects and related data. It's definitely a strong collaborative tool.

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What needs improvement with BiZZdesign HoriZZon?

The ability to generate charts and deal with a use case involving Kibana was quite difficult. We don't use the chart functionality much, and I think that is quite problematic at the moment. We have...

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What is your primary use case for BiZZdesign HoriZZon?

I use the solution in my company for all sorts of things, like enterprise and solution architecture. As part of our design process, BiZZdesign HoriZZon is used for road mapping. We also use it for ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?

The stability has been good and satisfactory. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?

One of the reasons many public sector institutions in the Czech Republic use it is that it provides a very good price-performance ratio. While it might be cumbersome to learn, it still delivers exc...

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What needs improvement with Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

Alfabet Enterprise Architecture Management vs BiZZdesign HoriZZon

Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 17% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

No Magic MagicDraw vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 10% of the time

Lucidchart vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 9% of the time

LeanIX vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 8% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

BiZZdesign HoriZZon

January 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

December 2024

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect report

Download Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect product report

Also Known As

HoriZZon

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BiZZdesign

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Sparx Systems

Overview

Make smarter decisions and optimize outcomes by unifying all your strategy, capabilities, operating models and change portfolios in a single platform.

With all the data about your business in one place you can see the big picture and make properly informed strategic decisions to drive growth. Bizzdesign Horizzon brings together strategy, IT architecture, operating models, data, capabilities, change portfolios and ideas into a single, intuitive collaborative business design platform. Real-time visibility of key metrics and trends allows you to take action more quickly. Accelerating the speed and accuracy of your operations now – and into the future.

Core Platform Capabilities:

Multi-discipline collaboration
Data Integration
Advanced analytics
Models and Roadmaps
Governance & Security
Business Insight Graph

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is an enterprise solution that helps streamline, accelerate, and integrate software, system, and business development. With this intuitive modeling and design solution, enterprises can stay in control of their workplaces, enable collaboration, support their teams and colleagues, and manage complex projects. Software architects, business analysts, project managers, developers, support staff, and testers can unite under a single repository. Through numerous view points and potential sub-systems, users are offered a unified view in a complex environment.

With Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, users are also offered a shared model option which can be accessed quickly and securely by in-office and remote team members through the Enterprise Architect’s Pro Cloud Server. Building a coherent, verifiable model can be done by connecting and integrating a variety of behavioral and structural information in visual form. As a result, Enterprise Architect offers high performance, flexibility, and the ability to model, manage, and trace every stage of the business development and modeling process.

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Features

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect assists in creating a unified and accessible vision in business development by offering a flexible platform with a unique set of rich features. These features include:

Test and debug - Streamline software development and visualize software with the simulation process. Users can test and confirm correct behavior, set and oversee test points, and debug and examine software.

Track tasks - Track, prioritize, and assign individual and group tasks to assist in the model’s development. Users can visually monitor their progress through the Gantt chart.

Open standards - Users can visualize and analyze running software with integrated custom tools. They can also run advanced simulations, team-based repositories, testing tools, and version control. In addition, the solution supports enterprise architecture frameworks such as UPDM and TOGAF.

Simulation - Create and debug embedded solutions by simulating behaviors and state models. Users can specify events, triggers, constraints, and more. Users can also specify extensive and complex structural systems and create custom domain-specific solutions.

Reviews from Real Users

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect merges high-end tools, online availability, a dedication to open standards, and accessible pricing so enterprises can stay in control of their workplaces, whether remote or in-office. Users particularly like the architectural frameworks and the scalability.

Marc L., a principal architecture enterprise solution adviser at Cronomagic Canada, notes, "The product offers very good support for all mainstream modeling notations and architectural frameworks."

An enterprise architect at a manufacturing company writes, "Scalable solution for modeling, project sharing, and collaboration. Support for it is good."

Sample Customers

T-Mobile, Shell, HSBC, Erasmus University, VIVAT Insurance

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Buyer's Guide

BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

January 2025

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