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No Magic MagicDraw vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Blueworks Live
Sponsored
Ranking in Business Process Design
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
erwin Data Modeler by Quest
Ranking in Business Process Design
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (3rd)
No Magic MagicDraw
Ranking in Business Process Design
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of IBM Blueworks Live is 3.5%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of erwin Data Modeler by Quest is 2.3%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of No Magic MagicDraw is 3.3%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design
 

Featured Reviews

AjarMathur - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 5, 2023
An easily scalable and affordable solution that enables users to document and digitize processes with ease
IBM Blueworks is BPMN 2.0 compliant, but it does not adapt to the overarching BPMN 2.0 concepts. There is only one kind of BPMN 2.0 diagram. It is a process diagram. It doesn't have the concept of separate tools, which other products offer. If I had to do a hardcore BPMN 2.0 modeling, the product would have its own reservations. There were features we could not explore from a BPMN 2.0 perspective. Most of the time, people who are shifting from Microsoft Office tools to a digitized way of working still want the reporting capabilities to be strong. Some tools, like ARIS or Signavio, offer customized solutions from the reporting perspective. If I have documented my whole finance process and want to fetch out a complete SOP report in a very customized manner, IBM Blueworks cannot provide it. We have to rely on some other services. So that's one area in which we always struggled, how to really customize the reporting aspects. I understand that we need to keep the tool a little more asset-light. It's very difficult to keep adding many options, but at least a few BPMN 2.0 options were needed. We have been suggesting to IBM that we should have some way of customizing the reporting. At least we should get a custom way of reporting it into different formats like Excel or putting up a logo for one of the clients so that their SAP can be printed that way.
JorgeSanz - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 19, 2024
Streamline data modeling and automate network changes for increased efficiency
We are implementing erwin to streamline data modeling and automate network changes for increased efficiency and comprehensive data development. This option simplifies the need for better data indexing Quest can create conceptual and physical data models to facilitate effective communication…
DiegoRangel - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 30, 2024
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

"IBM Blueworks Live is cloud-based and provides easy access to all your processes in one place."
"The ease of documenting and digitizing the processes was valuable to us."
"The licenses are transferrable between different users."
"This solution is good at utilizing standards rules for connectivity."
"For me, what I find to be the most valuable is its simplicity and the association with Microsoft Office."
"It's very easy, very quick to create a process map. It has templates. The look and feel is very nice. What we want to achieve out of the process map, we can achieve it using Blueworks."
"In terms of the collaboration features, from the point of discovery, it was useful to go to load up the policies and the rule sets that the client had. And in terms of exploring options and being able to model a variety of different processes, that was incredibly useful as well."
"The business process discovery is excellent. The diagram or blueprinting functionality of the solution are very good. It's quite easy. You can link the sub-processes and get a big overview of the whole process then."
"We can create mappings in erwin and possibly data dictionaries."
"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 solution is excellent in providing a visual representation of a database and can generate DDL for implementing changes. We use DDL for logical purposes to review with business people, ensuring they have the required fields for processing. We also use it as a data dictionary for the physical data model to understand all the purposes of the terms. This helps us map the logical and physical terms with the business definition to understand our data."
"The product allows us to reuse entities and attributes."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the physical or visual representation of the database, showing the tables, the columns, the foreign keys, and the ability to generate DDL, so you can physically implement databases."
"It has centralized storage so that a data model can be shared by different teams."
"I would rate MagicDraw a nine out of ten because of the price. Enterprise Architect has a lot of bugs and MagicDraw is a lot more accurate and flexible. It's a level better."
"There is a lot of documentation available on the Internet to understand its functionality."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the amount of flexibility that one has to model, which is great for an individual."
"The technical support is very good."
"It is pretty easy to use. It is pretty versatile."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to quickly build multiple layers within the organizational and business process environments, as well as in the SysML product environments, and converting to files that can be accessed by clients who do not have a system and a teamwork server access."
"The most valuable feature of No Magic MagicDraw is the simulation capabilities and interface."
 

Cons

"The APIs are great, except the normal business user doesn't know how to create APIs. So it's hard because IBM comes to us as the business users and tell us to create reporting with APIs, except we don't know that, so we have to turn around and flip it to our IT people."
"Some of the import functionality was a bit restrictive, in terms of loading data in from other data sources. Something as simple as Excel, loading data tables from Excel, wasn't great. And vice-versa. Some of the export and import functionality with something like Visio - which, I know it's a slightly different tool - but being able to work seamlessly with those other tool sets would've been quite useful. I know it was something that was in the pipeline to be looked at. So that would be useful."
"It is BPMN-compliant but the tool needs to be more involved to get into a completely 2.0 oriented tool. It has a few things but it's not the complete BPMN model."
"The ability to create a very structured rule. With the capability that we have right now, Blueworks Live is more process focused. We should be able to enhance it to include a lot more of decisions as well."
"We'd also like to see it be Six Sigma or Lean compatible, a lot of people have asked about that."
"We haven't yet been able to dabble in case management with Blueworks Live, as it is not yet offered with the product."
"I would like to see integration with ERP systems. This would help us to simulate the process and see where the problems are. Though IBM Blueworks Live is a good tool for documenting, it is not good for simulating."
"IBM Blueworks is BPMN 2.0 compliant, but it does not adapt to the overarching BPMN 2.0 concepts."
"We can only get licenses through partners."
"The erwin Data Modeler is quite complex to use."
"We are planning to move, in 2021, into their server version, where multiple data modelers can work at the same time and share their models. It has become a pain point to merge the models from individual desktops and get them into a single data model, when multiple data modelers are working on a particular project. It becomes a nightmare for the senior data modeler to bring them together, especially when it comes to recreating them when you want to merge them."
"I love the product. I love the ability to get into the code, make it automated, and make it do what I want. I would like to see them put some kind of governance over the ability to make changes to the mart tables with the API, so that instead of just using the modeler's rights to a table -- it has a separate set of rights for API access. That would give us the ability to put governance around API applications. Right now a person with erwin and Excel/VBA has the ability to make changes to models with the API if they also have rights to make changes to the model from erwin. It's a risk."
"I would like the solution to be less rigid in terms of its theory."
"erwin is not as robust as a data warehousing project I've been on in the past."
"The reverse engineering in Oracle Databases needs improvement, as there are issues."
"In terms of new features, it would be great to have a cloud base. We should be able to put it on the cloud for better collaboration and data models sharing."
"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 price of the solution could be reduced."
"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."
"One potential area for improvement is the recommendation feature. At times, we face challenges in locating specific features, and we have to reach out for assistance in finding the information we need."
"Some of No Magic MagicDraw's most valuable features were its integration with other simulation tools, such as MATLAB, the seasonal plugin, and the Rangel simulation toolkit."
"There could be a trial version for students."
"The documentation for MagicDraw and the video tutorials compared to other competitors is an area for improvement."
"The cost of upgrading the product should be lower."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They have a free subscription model that gives a lot of power to the users."
"Making it less expensive would be good."
"The solution is very, very cost-effective."
"The solution is not very expensive."
"Based on the licenses purchased, from a footprint perspective, you can have as many people as you want. You have multiple different categories of licenses to keep the cost low."
"We are seeing ROI from this solution. The solution has saved us time."
"There are editor licenses that are around 50 euros per month, and contributor licenses that are around 30 euros per month."
"Price wise, IBM Blueworks Live is in the middle range, and I would give it a five out of ten."
"Price-wise, erwin Data Modeler is okay. You can purchase a single license and it is not very expensive."
"erwin has this option where you pay a one-time fee and you have the license for six years, which makes sense because I don't upgrade my database engine every other year. I have an application that depends on it. This is something weird about PowerDesigner. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"Though the solution is not cheap, it's worth the money."
"The primary reasons that erwin was selected were that it was much more affordable for us [than Embarcadero] and it was easily maintainable."
"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."
"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."
"The tool is expensive."
"erwin Data Modeler by Quest is an expensive solution."
"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 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."
"In addition to the initial cost, you have to pay annually for support in order to get the upgrades."
"I rate the pricing a ten out of ten. It is an expensive product compared to software for model-based system engineering."
"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%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
20%
Government
13%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
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 IBM Blueworks Live?
The solution is easy to operate. Also, there is an automatic mode to make the business flow. You don't have to put an...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Blueworks Live?
The solution costs around 600-700 dollars/year, which is quite affordable.
What needs improvement with IBM Blueworks Live?
Sometimes, the tool is automatic, which can complicate it, but once you're accustomed to manipulating it, you can use...
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?
The solution's model mark could be better because it crashes sometimes.
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...
What needs improvement with No Magic MagicDraw?
I don't think there are areas that need improvement.
 

Also Known As

IBM Lombardi Blueprint
erwin DM
MagicDraw
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cloudsoft Corp. Ltd., Bayer, S¾SS, Essex County Council
 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: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.