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No Magic MagicDraw vs erwin Data Modeler comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 23, 2025

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 Business Process Design
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (2nd), Data Governance (9th)
No Magic MagicDraw
Ranking in Business Process Design
14th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 2.6%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of No Magic MagicDraw is 2.6%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
erwin Data Modeler2.6%
No Magic MagicDraw2.6%
Other94.8%
Business Process Design
 

Featured Reviews

Sushree Panigrahi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer2080611 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Ease of use and real-time collaboration empower effective teamwork and streamlined development
For CAMEO, it's not only the ease of use, it's versatility, its communicability, but Rhapsody is the worst tool I've ever used. It is very difficult, not user-friendly, and very expensive. It works only with its IBM counterparts. SPARX Enterprise Architecture is very easy to use, but it's limited. It gives you an idea of how your model is developing, so this feature helps maintain integrity or correctness of system models. It's really a good feature to have. You've got to have the simulation toolkit installed to be able to do that, and that works really well. The MagicDraw or CAMEO system is good on its own, but it should be integrated and should come out of the box with the simulation toolkit because there are some things you can't do without it, making it very difficult to have to look for another license to be able to do that. I would prefer that it come with the simulation toolkit.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"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."
"I have used most of the modeling tools available, but I found that erwin Data Modeler is the most suitable data modeling tool in our current industry."
"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 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."
"We had some data integration projects, where we needed to integrate it for about 100 databases. Doing that manually is crazy; we can't do that. With erwin, it was much easier to identify which tables and columns could be used for the integration. That means a lot in terms of time and effort as well as my image to the customer, because they can see that we are providing value in a very short time."
"I love the way erwin Data Modeler creates data models and presents them for our users."
"The most valuable features are the visibility, standard compliance, and interface."
"I think one of the key things is the plugins for integration with requirements management tools like Doors"
"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 beauty of MagicDraw is that it has a simulation part, so you can simulate your model to validate it. The simulation allows you to bring in code off of an external code that you can write to set up the simulation and execute the code."
"There is a lot of documentation available on the Internet to understand its functionality."
"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."
"It is pretty easy to use. It is pretty versatile."
 

Cons

"I would like to see more support for working with the big-data world. There are so many new databases evolving and it's very hard for them to keep up with all of the new technologies. It would be good if they were able to dynamically support big-data platforms, other than Hive and Teradata."
"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."
"While I do not have knowledge about pricing for erwin Data Modeler, I think it could improve by having a feature that allows the publishing of models, similar to how Power BI allows for dashboard publishing for different users within an organization, not just data modelers."
"In terms of improvements, support could have been better in terms of installation, especially of workgroups. We struggled quite a bit to get it up and running. Collaboration could have been better from an installation perspective, but it is trivial as compared to what we use it for. Other than that, I don't have much feedback. It works pretty well, and the fact that we've been using it for more than a decade shows that it is quite solid."
"I would like to see the ability to support more NoSQL platforms more quickly. In addition, enhancing the graphics to render more quickly would be beneficial for any user."
"The reverse engineering in Oracle Databases needs improvement, as there are issues."
"It does not have a cloud application."
"I would like the solution to be more user-friendly to deploy."
"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."
"The documentation for MagicDraw and the video tutorials compared to other competitors is an area for improvement."
"There could be a trial version for students."
"When I am working with my Mac and I right-click to copy and paste, it doesn't work."
"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."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of the solution is cheap. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"Pricing is very high compared to any other product."
"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."
"Likewise, the solution is a little pricey."
"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."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The tool is 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."
"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."
"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 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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Performing Arts
5%
Manufacturing Company
24%
Government
11%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise35
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
Regarding pricing, it depends on the company. For a cloud or SaaS standard edition, it typically runs around two hundred to two hundred ninety-nine US dollars per month. For a workgroup edition, it...
What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
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. Ve...
What is your primary use case for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
My use case is mostly architectural design for our end-to-end deployment.
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?
For CAMEO, it's not only the ease of use, it's versatility, its communicability, but Rhapsody is the worst tool I've ever used. It is very difficult, not user-friendly, and very expensive. It works...
What is your primary use case for No Magic MagicDraw?
I deal with DOD lifecycle acquisition sorts of things as some of the main use cases currently, and I expect to continue using it for more than 25 years.
 

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 and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
882,813 professionals have used our research since 2012.