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No Magic MagicDraw vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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 Business Process Design
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (3rd)
No Magic MagicDraw
Ranking in Business Process Design
14th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler by Quest is 2.2%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of No Magic MagicDraw is 3.2%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design
 

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.
DiegoRangel - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced team communication and design exploration with integrated simulation tools
I was using No Magic MagicDraw to model operations, such as using different kinds of operations with ships or crafts and other systems No Magic MagicDraw facilitated great communication within the team and allowed for the exploration of different designs and architectures, which was beneficial…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution’s code generation ensures accurate engineering of data sources, as there is no development time. Code doesn't even have to be reviewed. We have been using this solution for so long and all the code which has been generated is accurate with the requirements. Once we generate the DDLs out of the erwin tools, the development team does a quick review of the script line by line. They will just be running the script on the database and looking into other requirements, such as the index. So, there is less effort from development side to create tables or build a database."
"The principal feature that I liked is that the solution has a very graphic interface."
"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."
"We use the macros with naming standards patterns, domains, datatypes, and some common attributes. As far as other automations, a feature of the Bulk Editor is mass updates. When it sees something is nonstandard or inaccurate, it will export the better data out. Then, I can easily see which entities and attributes are not inline or standard. I can easily make changes to what was uploaded to the Bulk Editor. When taking on a new project, it can save you about a half a day on a big project across an entire team."
"The solution is good for organizing the data and the scripting part is very powerful. It's easy to create technical scripts for models."
"Quest can create conceptual and physical data models to facilitate effective communication between business and IT. It can also integrate expertise from various engineering and database systems within your organization to enhance data management and administration."
"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 provides flexibility with the code. You can change the code as you want. Basically, you can change SQL based on what's best for your project."
"I think one of the key things is the plugins for integration with requirements management tools like Doors"
"There is a lot of documentation available on the Internet to understand its functionality."
"It is very user-friendly, and the customer service is really good."
"When you look at it, No Magic is an all-encompassing tool. You can use it for business architecture design. You can use it for deploying an ERP system across your enterprise. However, it was initially designed and developed for model-based systems engineering. That's the systems engineering required to either produce an IP system or product. It takes away the mounds of paper and puts it into a model. It enables you to generate significant savings by modeling that new product or that system before you ever start developing a prototype."
"I like the traceability feature. Whoever is working with the product would be sure of the things that could be affected if they decided to affect one of the other companies. For example, let's say that an engineer starts a new project optimization problem by adjusting the thickness of metal sheets. However, the engineers only see a reduced number of affections, but when we use the requirement traceability, they can see the whole picture. That's the main aspect that we were promoting with this tool."
"Offers good standards compliance and is user-friendly."
"The technical support is very good."
"It is pretty easy to use. It is pretty versatile."
 

Cons

"I still use Visio for conceptual modeling, and that's mainly because it is easier to change things, and you can relax some of the rules. DM's eventual target is a database, which means you actually have to dot all the Is and cross all the Ts, but in a conceptual model, you don't often know what you're working with. So, that's probably a constraint with erwin. They have made it a lot easier, and they've done a lot, but there is probably still room for improvement in terms of the ease of presentation back to the business. I'm comparing it with something like Visio where you can change colors on a box, change the text color and that sort of stuff, and change the lines. Such things are a whole lot easier in Visio, but once you get a theme organized in erwin, you can apply that theme to all of the objects. So, it becomes easier, but you do have to set up that theme."
"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."
"The only real complaint I have is the time it takes to do a database comparison on a large model. If they could speed that up, that would be the only thing I can think of that needs improvement."
"As someone who has used it for a long time, I have seen stability vary from version to version."
"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."
"The erwin Data Modeler is quite complex to use."
"It would be nice to have it on the Linux platform, not just Windows. If they can support Linux, there would be a huge market for it."
"I am not so happy with its speed. Sometimes, it can have problems with connections."
"It's very focused on specific modern languages and it doesn't do necessarily general systems software engineering with diagrams. They should expand the diagram types for the languages."
"The cost of upgrading the product should be lower."
"There's lots of documentation. They process multiples of guides. They've got all kinds of guides and documentation out there, but it's kind of hard to find. There are a lot of videos. You can go to YouTube and find videos on how it's been used in different ways, but it just kind of scratches the surface."
"The documentation for MagicDraw and the video tutorials compared to other competitors is an area for improvement."
"The UI UX of the tool is not really user-friendly and needs to be completely reformed."
"They don't really support code engineering, and that's why we have to move to Enterprise Architect. MagicDraw is stuck at C++03 standards, whereas most C++ programs today want to use the latest definition of the C++ standards. We were at C++11, and we wanted to do code engineering with C++11 or 17, but they didn't support it. That pushed us into a different tool, which is Sparx Enterprise Architect."
"It would be better if the User Interface were updated. At the moment, it's a classic environment. It reminds me of the old Windows interface, for example, Windows 95. It would be better to make it more user-friendly. It would also be better if it could integrate with SAP solutions. It isn't easy to find experts in the field. It's hard to find people around the globe that have the necessary skills and expertise to manage this solution. For example, in our case, we needed someone with refrigeration knowledge that also knew how to use the tool, and that was a challenge. We also had issues relating to erasing. Sometimes, it kept it in the background and didn't erase it at all. We had to review the entire list to ensure that the item was deleted."
"The licenses are expensive compared to similar tools. At the moment, the user is open to using MagicDraw if it's 15% more than other solutions. If it were to cost any more, they wouldn't use it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of erwin Data Modeler is very expensive, in particular for this part of the world."
"The primary reasons that erwin was selected were that it was much more affordable for us [than Embarcadero] and it was easily maintainable."
"Though the solution is not cheap, it's worth the money."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"There is either a one-year or three-year license. It is not a pay-as-you-go license like a SaaS solution. It’s more of a traditional licensing. They are a little bit on the pricier side."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"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."
"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."
"In addition to the initial cost, you have to pay annually for support in order to get the upgrades."
"The price of No Magic MagicDraw could improve. The price of the solution is too expensive for smaller-sized companies. There should be a better pricing model."
"I rate the pricing a ten out of ten. It is an expensive product compared to software for model-based system engineering."
"I would say licensing would be anywhere from $3,500 to $6,500 per person or per seat (it's a per seat style license)."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis, and it's expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
20%
Government
15%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

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.
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.
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...
What do you like most about No Magic MagicDraw?
There is a lot of documentation available on the Internet to understand its functionality.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for No Magic MagicDraw?
Maybe the price is a little bit high for a small company to acquire this tool. However, they offer trial versions and trial licenses for members of INCOSE.
What needs improvement with No Magic MagicDraw?
I don't think there are areas that need improvement.
 

Also Known As

erwin DM
MagicDraw
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

 Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples
Northrop Grumman, Labcorp, Deposco, ClearView Training, IT Services Promotion Agency, Intelligent Chaos, Metalithic Systems Inc., Sodifrance
Find out what your peers are saying about No Magic MagicDraw vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.