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erwin Data Modeler by Quest vs iServer comparison

erwin by Quest and Orbus Software are both solutions in the Enterprise Architecture Management category. erwin by Quest is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.1, while Orbus Software is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.4. erwin by Quest holds a 10.9% mindshare in AM, compared to Orbus Software’s 4.7% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of erwin by Quest users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Orbus Software users who would recommend it.
erwin Data Modeler by Quest
Read 39 erwin Data Modeler by Quest reviews
  • 4,005 Views
  • 2,219 Comparison Views
95% willing to recommend
iServer
Read 18 iServer reviews
  • 2,339 Views
  • 979 Comparison Views
85% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

iServer and erwin Data Modeler by Quest compete in data modeling and enterprise architecture. erwin Data Modeler by Quest has a competitive feature edge, while iServer is more attractive in terms of pricing and support.

Features: iServer offers seamless integration with various enterprise architecture frameworks, efficient reporting capabilities, and flexible deployment options. erwin Data Modeler by Quest has advanced data modeling, comprehensive metadata management, and powerful collaboration tools.

Room for Improvement: iServer could enhance its ease of use and speed of deployment and provide more user-friendly interfaces. It might also benefit from more advanced collaboration features. erwin Data Modeler by Quest could improve its pricing structure, adaptability to budget-conscious businesses, and offer simpler integration with non-Microsoft products.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: erwin Data Modeler by Quest provides a straightforward deployment process with robust customer service for smooth transitions. iServer's scalable deployment process may have a steeper learning curve, but it offers thorough support once understood.

Pricing and ROI: iServer is generally more affordable with quick ROI, appealing to budget-conscious buyers. erwin Data Modeler by Quest, with a higher initial cost, offers significant long-term ROI due to its extensive features.

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To learn more, read our detailed erwin Data Modeler by Quest vs. iServer Report (Updated: April 2025).
Buyer's Guide
erwin Data Modeler by Quest vs. iServer
April 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

erwin Data Modeler by Quest
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
3rd
Ranking in Business Process Design
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
iServer
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
7th
Ranking in Business Process Design
13th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler by Quest is 10.9%, up from 9.9% 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
 

Featured Reviews

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.
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Antonios Lazanakis - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We find that its ability to generate database code from a model for a wide array of data sources cuts development time. The ability to create one model in your design phase and then have it generate DDL code for Oracle or Teradata, or whichever environment you need is really nice. It's not only nice but it also saves man-hours of time. You would have to take your design and just type in manually. It has to take days off out of the work."
"Any tool will do diagramming but I think the ability to put the stuff up in a graphical fashion, then think about it, and keep things consistent is what's valuable about it. It's too easy when you're using other methods to not have naming consistent standards and column consistent definitions, et cetera."
"One of the best aspects of the tool is its reverse engineering capability."
"The product allows us to reuse entities and attributes."
"It is a scalable solution...The technical support team is fine."
"The logical model gives developers, as well as the data modelers, an understanding of exactly how each object interacts with the others, whether a one-to-many, many-to-many, many-to-one, etc."
"It's a safeguard for me because I'm always concerned that somebody is free handing it and will forget a key coming from the parent. The migrating keys are a great feature. Identifying relationships, non-identifying relationships, and being visually right there to understand the differences are great features. erwin is key to being able to visually understand whatever the customer is requesting. They'll give you words on a paper, but once they can actually view it as a picture, it really comes to life. The data comes to life to where they understand exactly what they're asking for."
"The most valuable features are the ability to reverse engineer and do model comparison. With the reverse engineering, I can understand the databases from third-party products. With the model comparison, I can track the differences between two versions of the same database."
More erwin Data Modeler by Quest 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."
"Tech support is very responsive. They solved issues within a prompt response time."
"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."
"This flexibility is the most helpful part in the standard version."
"iServer is a solution that helps catalog enterprise architect solutions and catalog information."
"It has helped having data lineage in the business cluster, which is used as control artifacts."
"I have to think less with this solution. It's simple."
"The initial setup is easy."
More iServer pros
 

Cons

"The report generation has room for improvement. I think it was version 8 where you had to use Crystal Reports, and it was so painful that the company I was with just stayed on version 7 until version 9 came out and they restored the data browser. That's better than it was, but it's still a little cumbersome. For example, you run it in erwin, then export it out to Excel, and then you have to do a lot of cosmetic modification. If you discover that you missed a column, then you would have to rerun the whole thing. Sometimes what you would do is just go ahead and fix it in the report, then you have to remember to go back and fix it in the model. Therefore, I think the report generation still could use some work."
"The interface must be improved."
"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."
"I would like the solution to be more user-friendly to deploy."
"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."
"I would like to see the reporting capabilities be more dynamic and more inclusive of information. The API is very sparsely understood by people across the user community."
"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."
"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."
More erwin Data Modeler by Quest cons
"There are other solutions out there that have a better user interface."
"The product is more expensive than Spark."
"iServer should invest in enhancing the capabilities of the embedded drawing tool, draw.io."
"We could allocate permissions to use only specific components to the users rather than the entire instance."
"Cannot see which activities are control activities."
"There could be features for process mining, process simulation, and analytics."
"The migration tool needs to be included in the main package, and not as a separate license."
"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."
More iServer cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of erwin Data Modeler is very expensive, in particular for this part of the world."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"erwin is expensive compared to other solutions. We are paying almost $6,000 per seat a month."
"The price should be lower in order to be on the same level as its competitors."
"Though the solution is not cheap, it's worth the money."
"Price-wise, erwin Data Modeler is okay. You can purchase a single license and it is not very expensive."
"We've continued to use the product for many years and compared it with others on the market. The pricing is reasonable considering what the solution offers and what we pay. There are cheaper tools, but they may not be as robust and easy to use, so it's worth the money."
More erwin Data Modeler by Quest pricing and cost advice
"Aim for the exact number of people who shall define/review approve and view the processes, as it will impact the cost."
"The product has a moderate pricing."
"They offer annual subscriptions for developing countries, which are not affordable for small or medium businesses."
"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 price of iServer is reasonable compared to other solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Educational Organization
32%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
See all answers
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.
See all answers
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...
See all answers
What do you like most about iServer?
iServer has valuable features for workflow and document management.
See all answers
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
 

Comparisons

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Compared 30% of the time
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IDERA ER/Studio vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest
Compared 18% of the time
Lucidchart vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest Logo
Lucidchart vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest
Compared 15% of the time
Visio vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest Logo
Visio vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest
Compared 8% of the time
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LeanIX vs iServer
Compared 26% of the time
OrbusInfinity vs iServer Logo
OrbusInfinity vs iServer
Compared 17% of the time
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs iServer Logo
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs iServer
Compared 15% of the time
ARIS BPA vs iServer Logo
ARIS BPA vs iServer
Compared 11% of the time
More iServer Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
erwin Data Modeler by Quest
April 2025
erwin Data Modeler by Quest reportDownload erwin Data Modeler by Quest product report
Buyer's Guide
Enterprise Architecture Management
March 2025
iServer reportDownload iServer product report
 

Also Known As

erwin DM
No data available
 

Overview

erwin pioneered data modeling, and erwin Data Modeler (erwin DM) remains trusted, award-winning software for data modeling and database design, automating complex and time-consuming tasks. Use it to discover and document any data from anywhere for consistency, clarity and artifact reuse across large-scale data integration, master data management, metadata management, Big Data, business intelligence and analytics initiatives – all while supporting data governance and intelligence efforts.

erwin by Quest

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 by Quest vs. iServer
April 2025
Free Report: erwin Data Modeler by Quest vs. iServer
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