SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest comparison

erwin by Quest and SAP are both solutions in the Enterprise Architecture Management category. erwin by Quest is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.2, while SAP is ranked #24. erwin by Quest holds a 11.2% mindshare in AM, compared to SAP’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of erwin by Quest users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of SAP users who would recommend it.

erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Read 39 erwin Data Modeler by Quest reviews

4,367 Views
2,377 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

SAP Enterprise Architecture...

Read 1 SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer review

279 Views
186 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

erwin Data Modeler by Quest

SAP Enterprise Architecture...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between erwin Data Modeler by Quest and SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about SAP LeanIX, Sparx Systems, erwin by Quest and others in Enterprise Architecture Management.

To learn more, read our detailed Enterprise Architecture Management Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Enterprise Architecture Management

January 2025

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Helped 837,501 peers since 2012

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

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Design (9th)

SAP Enterprise Architecture...

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

24th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler by Quest is 11.2%, up from 9.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Architecture Management

Featured Reviews

JorgeSanz

Data Governance Senior Advisor at Abu Dhabi National Oil Company

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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Artur Chyziewicz

Co-Owner at Edusolution s.c.

Great training available with traceability a key feature

I use this solution to model enterprise software architecture. We are customers of SAP and an educational organization in Poland. Traceability is a fantastic feature. They should upgrade the algorithm. The solution currently has an old algorithm and there are now free tools on the market that…

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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

"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 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 generation of DDL saved us having to write the steps by hand. You still had to go in and make some minor modifications to make it deployable to the database system. However, for the data lineage, it is very valuable for tracing our use of data, especially personal confidential data through different systems."

"We use the Forward and Reverse Engineering tools to help us speed things up and create things that would have to be done otherwise by hand. E.g., getting a database into a data model format or vice versa."

"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."

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

"It supports a wide variety of databases, including the latest ones. We have chosen to go for a cloud-based database, and it supports that, which is very useful."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest pros

"Traceability is a fantastic feature."

Cons

"The reverse engineering in Oracle Databases needs improvement, as there are issues."

"I would like the solution to be more user-friendly to deploy."

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

"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."

"We can only get licenses through partners."

"This is a very complex product."

"As someone who has used it for a long time, I have seen stability vary from version to version."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest cons

"The algorithm is outdated and should be upgraded."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not a very expensive solution. Only the licensing and maintenance fee needs to be paid."

"The solution is expensive."

"There are two license options and the pricing is reasonable."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

Educational Organization

15%

University

13%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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.

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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.

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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...

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Comparisons

SAP PowerDesigner vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 28% of the time

IDERA ER/Studio vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 17% of the time

Lucidchart vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 16% of the time

Visio vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 9% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 8% of the time

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest Competitors

SAP PowerDesigner vs SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer

Compared 62% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer

Compared 38% of the time

More SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

erwin Data Modeler by Quest

February 2025

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Enterprise Architecture Management

January 2025

SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer report

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Also Known As

erwin DM

SAP EA Designer

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

The SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer Web application is a user-friendly, collaborative tool for creating and maintaining a complete landscape architecture that is easy to capture and understand visually. People in a wide variety of roles can readily use it, so all necessary stake-holders can participate directly in the planning and design of the architecture. You can manage change by providing effective governance of your architecture changes and calculating their costs and benefits, so that you can keep implementation efficient and cost-effective. Through robust traceability in this multirole, intuitive, collaborative environment, you gain the insight to support compliance at the outset and throughout architecture change cycles.

SAP

Sample Customers

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

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Buyer's Guide

Enterprise Architecture Management

January 2025

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