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Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect 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 Enterprise Architecture Management
2nd
Ranking in Business Process Design
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (9th)
Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
5th
Ranking in Business Process Design
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 8.4%, down from 11.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is 8.6%, down from 14.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
erwin Data Modeler8.4%
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect8.6%
Other83.0%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

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.
Milan Sterba - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Enterprise Architect at Deepview S.r.o.
Efficient documentation generation through organized model structure with a good price-performance ratio
Whenever I begin a new project with Sparx, I have to spend time training people on how to use it since it is not straightforward. Although it's a powerful product with plenty of features, it's not easy for even experienced users to find their way without guidance. This is not the most user-friendly solution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I love the way erwin Data Modeler creates data models and presents them for our users."
"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."
"The process of creating visual representations of data structures using erwin Data Modeler allows you to see everything you are doing, and you have visuals to see what you are going to do and what has been done so far."
"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."
"The principal feature that I liked is that the solution has a very graphic interface."
"Another feature of erwin is that it can help you enforce your naming standards. It has little modules that you can set up and, as you're building the data model, it's ensuring that they conform to the naming standards that you've developed."
"My favorite feature of erwin Data Modeler is that we can export and import tables directly from the databases, and it is easy to map from table to table and column to column."
"Drag-and-drop data modeling and reverse engineering out of databases are the most valuable features of erwin Data Modeler by Quest."
"The most valuable feature of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is the value streams."
"The solution allows us to quickly present designs and concepts to customers and get their feedback, thereby moving the project forward step by step."
"The solution is easy to use, supports SysML and UML, and is able to connect to MATLAB. This is very important for us."
"Artifact templates are most valuable."
"It has led some teams to do better code reviews - to be less focussed on coding conventions (syntax) and more focussed on the semantics because of the abstraction level clear design affords."
"The initial setup is easy."
"A feature I like most about Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is its ease of use."
"Sparx offers good flexibility."
 

Cons

"As erwin Data Modeler files get larger, the response time really slows down, and when I have multiple files open I sometimes get a glitch where a lot of the text fields get solid black and the first eight characters of column names might be blacked out with a rectangle."
"The interface must be improved."
"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."
"Sometimes when I want to open the attribute editor, it stops working and the whole application freezes."
"I would like to see improved reporting and, potentially, dashboards built on top of that. Right now, it's a little manual. More automated reporting and dashboard views would help because currently you have to push things out to a spreadsheet, or to HTML, and there aren't many other options that I know of. I would like to be able to produce graphs and additional things right in the tool, instead of having to export the data somewhere else."
"The reverse engineering in Oracle Databases needs improvement, as there are issues."
"The solution's reporting side needs to be improved."
"I would like the solution to be less rigid in terms of its theory."
"When collaborating with other people, it needs to be more user-friendly."
"In general, we now have a problem with Sparx Enterprise Architect because many analysts think it's too complicated to use in a giant environment."
"Because its easy to create diagrams one needs to be vigilant on the housekeeping of orphaned fragments - I have written my own scripts to do this, maybe they are available now."
"The window froze for five or ten seconds. You can click and click again and it takes a second to come up. It might have been specific to a version."
"Using EA involves a steep learning curve if you want to understand its capabilities and functionality."
"No way to implement data integrity and referential integrity constraints."
"One room for improvement in Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is that it's not very friendly. Another room for improvement in the tool is that it doesn't enable you to import the metadata from a database very easily, so reverse engineering of a database was very difficult. Its database modeling and entity-relationship modeling functions need improvement."
"In a future release, they should improve portfolio planning."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of erwin Data Modeler is very expensive, in particular for this part of the world."
"The tool is expensive."
"The price should be lower in order to be on the same level as its competitors."
"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."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"erwin is expensive compared to other solutions. We are paying almost $6,000 per seat a month."
"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 primary reasons that erwin was selected were that it was much more affordable for us [than Embarcadero] and it was easily maintainable."
"They have the price on their site for the enterprise version, and we do receive a small discount."
"There is no license required for this solution."
"We have an annual license, and it's very affordable."
"We paid 1200 euros as a once-off cost. All add ons and integrations come at an additional cost."
"This product has a paid license, with a yearly subscription option."
"It is very economical and low cost. You have to pay for a one-time license, and it is active forever."
"Licenses are pretty low cost compared to, for example, ARIS."
"It is cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Performing Arts
5%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
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 Business38
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise58
 

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 do you like most about Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
The stability has been good and satisfactory. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
One of the reasons many public sector institutions in the Czech Republic use it is that it provides a very good price-performance ratio. While it might be cumbersome to learn, it still delivers exc...
What needs improvement with Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
Whenever I begin a new project with Sparx, I have to spend time training people on how to use it since it is not straightforward. Although it's a powerful product with plenty of features, it's not ...
 

Also Known As

erwin DM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

 Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples
OmniLink
Find out what your peers are saying about Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs. erwin Data Modeler and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
882,479 professionals have used our research since 2012.