erwin Data Modeler vs iServer comparison

Quest Software and Orbus Software are both solutions in the Enterprise Architecture Management category. Quest Software is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.4, while Orbus Software is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.5. Quest Software holds a 8.4% mindshare in AM, compared to Orbus Software’s 4.7% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Quest Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Orbus Software users who would recommend it.

erwin Data Modeler

Read 47 erwin Data Modeler reviews

5,545 Views
3,771 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

iServer

Read 18 iServer reviews

2,505 Views
1,779 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

erwin Data Modeler

iServer

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 23, 2025

iServer and erwin Data Modeler are competitors in data modeling and enterprise architecture management. iServer leads in pricing and customer service, whereas erwin Data Modeler is favored for its extensive functionality.

Features: iServer supports integration and dashboard capabilities, handling multiple frameworks and facilitating collaboration. erwin Data Modeler offers robust data governance, metadata management, and reverse engineering features, essential for complex data environments.

Room for Improvement: iServer could enhance its data management capabilities and include more advanced modeling features. Improvements in template flexibility and analytics might also benefit iServer. erwin Data Modeler could improve its initial setup to be less technically demanding, include better customer training materials, and enhance integration with more databases.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: iServer is commended for its easy deployment process and reliable customer service. Its intuitive setup and responsive support provide a smoother user experience. erwin Data Modeler, while offering sufficient deployment support, may require more technical skills during initial setup.

Pricing and ROI: iServer offers a competitive pricing model with lower initial costs, making it appealing for budget-conscious organizations. erwin Data Modeler, although perceived as having higher costs, delivers significant ROI through its advanced features and enhanced data management capability.

To learn more, read our detailed erwin Data Modeler vs. iServer Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

erwin Data Modeler vs. iServer

February 2026

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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

erwin Data Modeler

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

2nd

Ranking in Business Process Design

7th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Governance (9th)

iServer

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

8th

Ranking in Business Process Design

15th

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 8.4%, down from 11.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of iServer is 4.7%, up from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Architecture Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
erwin Data Modeler	8.4%
iServer	4.7%
Other	86.9%

Enterprise Architecture Management

Featured Reviews

Sushree Panigrahi

Snowflake Data Engineer| Senior PLSQL Developer |Data Modeler|Assitant Vice Pre at Jp Morgan Chase & Co.

Data modeling has transformed regulatory reporting and collaboration across cloud environments

In erwin Data Modeler, areas that have room for improvement include performance improvements. I see that large models sometimes cause it to be slow when opening. Impact analysis can lag as well. Version control is another aspect. If we have developed a current version, it is not integrated with Git where we can easily compare different versions. UI modernization is also something we cannot utilize as it is primarily for development. Additionally, cloud-specific optimizations are needed when it comes to Snowflake or Databricks. When it comes to AI aspects, auto-suggestions for normalization or identifying primary, foreign, or surrogate keys are areas that can be improved.

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Antonios Lazanakis

Senior IT Solution Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Flexible, easy to use, and easy to import data

We use iServer to establish an enterprise architecture function in our organization iServer is a very flexible platform for defining your own enterprise architecture model. It is very easy to import data, and we also have good integration with Visual Drawing Tools and SharePoint. The solution is…

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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

"One of the best aspects of the tool is its reverse engineering capability."

"What has been useful, I have been able to reverse engineer our existing data models to document explicitly referential integrity relationships, primary/foreign keys in the model, and create ERDs that are subject area-based which our clients can use when working with our databases. The reality is that our databases are not explicitly documented in the DDL with primary/foreign key relationships. You can't look at the DDL and explicitly understand the primary/foreign key relationships that exist between our tables, so the referential integrity is not easily understood. erwin has allowed me to explicitly document that and create ERDs. This has made it easier for our clients to consume our databases for their own purposes."

"The fitting model is very intuitive."

"They have a lot of features and the most up-to-date technology integration, which I haven't seen in other products."

"Forward engineering, DDL generation, reverse engineering, and reporting are the most valuable features of the solution."

"One of the best aspects of the tool is its reverse engineering capability."

"The modeling portion of the tool is the most valuable. There are some notes, naming standards, and other functions that we use as well. There's a whole boatload of functionality in this thing and we use maybe 10% of it. It seems to be pretty common that not all the functionality is fully utilized. But it's just got gobs and gobs of stuff that you can implement if you so choose to."

"erwin has versioning so you can keep versions, over time, of those models and you can compare any version to any version. If you're looking at a specific database and you want to see what changed over time, that's really useful. You can go back to a different version or connect that to your change-control processes so you can see what was released when."

More erwin Data Modeler pros

"Integrating the Microsoft documents to the product and visualization matrix where we can see the end-to-end relationship of the network is of great importance to our company."

"This is a flexible tool compared to some other solutions."

"iServer is a solution that helps catalog enterprise architect solutions and catalog information."

"iServer is a very flexible platform for defining your own enterprise architecture model."

"The most valuable features of iServer are the integration with Microsoft Office and the interface is similar to Microsoft applications making them easy to use."

"The solution is easily modified to suit your needs."

"We like the governance."

"The most valuable feature is its reporting capability. It offers various packages for different types of reports, such as business and project management reporting packs."

More iServer pros

Cons

"The Bulk Editor needs improvement. If you had something that was a local model to your local machine, you could connect to the API, then it would write directly into the repository. However, when you have something that is on the centralized server, that functionality did not work. Then, you had to export out to a CSV and upload up to the repository. It would have been nice to be able to do the direct API without having that whole download and upload thing. Maybe I didn't figure it out, but I'm pretty sure that didn't work when it was a model that sat on a centralized repository."

"I would like the solution to be less rigid in terms of its theory."

"It does not have a cloud application."

"Erwin Data Modeler is a good product, but I recently experienced a problem where I was not able to open an erwin Data Modeler file because its version had automatically changed."

"The navigation is a little bit of a challenge. It's painful. For example, if you've got a view open and you want to try to move from side to side, the standard today is being able to drag and drop left and right. You can't really do that in the model. Moving around the model is painful because it doesn't follow the Windows model today."

"Although Quest Software has made tremendous strides in recent years, they need to evolve more in the big data arena; erwin Data Modeler could use a little more work when it comes to big database designs."

"One of the things I've been talking to the erwin team about through the years is that every data model should have the ability to be multi-language... When I was working at Honda, it became very difficult to work with the Japanese teams using just one model. You can have two models, one in English and one in Japanese, but that means you have to keep the updates back and forth, and that always increases the risk of something not being updated."

"The erwin ETL functionality has room for improvement when it comes to mapping databases with a classic entity-relationship model to a data warehouse model."

More erwin Data Modeler cons

"iServer is a solid tool. Occasionally, we needed to contact the vendor to clarify details such as porting issues, missing components, and model specifics."

"iServer should invest in enhancing the capabilities of the embedded drawing tool, draw.io."

"It definitely needs help to improve the visual aspect of the solution."

"The migration tool needs to be included in the main package, and not as a separate license."

"I haven't used this solution long enough to know what areas could be improved."

"There can be some performance issues using the solution that should be improved. When you make modifications modify to files there are embedded data within that can take a while to process."

"The product is more expensive than Spark."

"Enhancing integration options with ERP or ITSM-related solutions for triggering automated requests for process definitions, changes, and tracking them in the iServer."

More iServer cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"erwin is expensive compared to other solutions. We are paying almost $6,000 per seat a month."

"The tool is expensive."

"The pricing of the solution is cheap. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."

"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 primary reasons that erwin was selected were that it was much more affordable for us [than Embarcadero] and it was easily maintainable."

"This company had bought the license for three years, and it's not an individual license. While you can buy a license for each individual, that would be very expensive. There is something called concurrent licenses where you can purchase licenses in bulk and 15 to 20 people can access the license and model. Concurrent licenses are scalable to the number of users and are proportional to the cost."

"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."

"The solution is expensive."

More erwin Data Modeler pricing and cost advice

"They offer annual subscriptions for developing countries, which are not affordable for small or medium businesses."

"The price of iServer is reasonable compared to other solutions."

"Aim for the exact number of people who shall define/review approve and view the processes, as it will impact the cost."

"The solution is cheaper than its competitors."

"It's about 13K to set up and 9K for the license for three months. I think it's about 20K a year, but we haven't firmed up on pricing yet because the price depends on how long we commit to the solution."

"The product has a moderate pricing."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Performing Arts

Financial Services Firm

21%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	34

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	10

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

Regarding pricing, I am unsure what the exact price is for erwin Data Modeler, but I believe it is not useful for an individual. It is more targeted toward an enterprise level since organizations l...

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What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

I write code and I write code accessing erwin Data Modeler's API, the Application Programming Interface, so that I can use Excel to update erwin Data Modeler and then get those updates and put them...

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What is your primary use case for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

I work for CVS with a pretty big database as a data modeler on the PBMs, the Caremark PBM side, which is the Pharmacy Benefits Manager. There's a retail side too for all the stores, but our data wa...

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What needs improvement with iServer?

iServer should invest in enhancing the capabilities of the embedded drawing tool, draw.io. draw.io is a drawing tool used to draw architectural diagrams, flow diagrams, etc. It is an alternative to...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for iServer?

We use iServer to establish an enterprise architecture function in our organization.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering iServer?

I would recommend the solution to other users. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 41% of the time

IDERA ER/Studio vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 10% of the time

Lucidchart vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 6% of the time

Visio vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 5% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs erwin Data Modeler

Compared 4% of the time

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BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs iServer

Compared 14% of the time

MEGA HOPEX vs iServer

Compared 13% of the time

LeanIX vs iServer

Compared 11% of the time

OrbusInfinity vs iServer

Compared 9% of the time

Visio vs iServer

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

erwin Data Modeler

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Enterprise Architecture Management

January 2026

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Also Known As

erwin DM

No data available

Overview

Erwin Data Modeler provides an effective approach to visualizing and managing data models. It assists in creating, reversing, and synchronizing data models with ease, supporting logical and physical transitions while enhancing understanding across teams.

Erwin Data Modeler is a comprehensive tool designed for professional database management. It offers capabilities to organize and enforce standards, automating script generation with robust reverse engineering and DDL output. Users can manage complex data environments, capitalize on integration with data intelligence, and maintain large-scale databases smoothly. Despite its strengths, improvements in multi-language support, database integration, and reporting features are needed. Users benefit from extensive support for conceptual, logical, and physical database modeling, enhancing architectural design and data governance for platforms like SQL Server, Oracle, and Teradata.

What are the key features of Erwin Data Modeler?

Visual Representation: Facilitates clear visualization of data models, aiding comprehension.
Versioning and Editing: Enhance usability with versioning and bulk editing capabilities.
Reverse Engineering: Offers powerful tools for reverse engineering and DDL generation.
Integration: Aligns with data intelligence to streamline database management.
Naming Standards: Enforces consistency with automated script creation.

What benefits should users consider in Erwin Data Modeler reviews?

Collaboration: Promotes team understanding and collaboration through visual tools.
Automation: Reduces manual effort through automated processes and integration.
Scalability: Handles large database management efficiently, crucial for enterprise settings.
Data Governance: Facilitates effective data governance with structured modeling.

Erwin Data Modeler finds application in industries focused on robust data management, implementing it for enterprise data warehouses, business domain models, and operational systems. It supports architectural design and governance, aligning with business applications demanding precise data representation and visualization.

Quest Software

iServer is a unified software platform and enterprise modeling environment that extends and enhances the familiar, market leading Microsoft Visio and Office products. Core capabilities provided by iServer include an enhanced Microsoft Visio diagramming interface, a powerful central repository for all enterprise architecture or business process models and documentation, and a range of tools for visualization, analysis and decision making.

Orbus Software

Sample Customers

Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples

Barclays, Cathay Pacific, Deloitte, British Gas, MasterCard

Buyer's Guide

erwin Data Modeler vs. iServer

February 2026

Free Report: erwin Data Modeler vs. iServer

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