Visual Paradigm vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest comparison

erwin by Quest and Visual Paradigm are both solutions in the Business Process Design category. erwin by Quest is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.2, while Visual Paradigm is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.3. erwin by Quest holds a 2.2% mindshare in BPD, compared to Visual Paradigm’s 6.7% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of erwin by Quest users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Visual Paradigm users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

Visual Paradigm and erwin Data Modeler by Quest are data modeling tools competing in the data management category. Visual Paradigm appears to have an edge in cost-effectiveness and integration features, whereas erwin Data Modeler excels in sophisticated functionalities and data governance.

Features: Visual Paradigm offers a diverse range of diagrams, process modeling with animation, and seamless integration for unified modeling. erwin Data Modeler provides robust visualization, versioning for model management, and automatic database code generation, enhancing data handling capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Visual Paradigm could enhance its user interface for more intuitive use, improve real-time collaboration features, and expand its support for cloud integrations. erwin Data Modeler could streamline its setup process, enhance its user-friendly experience for non-technical users, and reduce complexity in deployment.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Visual Paradigm facilitates easy deployment with comprehensive online resources and effective customer support. erwin Data Modeler entails a complex setup but provides expert guidance to overcome deployment challenges, underscoring its specialized support capabilities.

Pricing and ROI: Visual Paradigm is budget-friendly, profitable for smaller projects with flexible solution needs. erwin Data Modeler requires a greater initial investment yet yields significant returns for large-scale organizations benefiting from its extensive features, justifying its higher cost with substantial data management value.

To learn more, read our detailed Visual Paradigm vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Visual Paradigm vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

IBM Blueworks Live

Mindshare comparison

As of December 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 2.2%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Visual Paradigm is 6.7%, up from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Process Design

Featured Reviews

AjarMathur

Global Innovation Director at Ernst & Young

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.

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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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DominicMackenzie

Senior data architect at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees

Very flexible and easy to use with a good pricing model

I have used erwin and Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect. The first time I used Visual Paradigm was when I was a university student. I didn't want to pay a lot of money and Visual Paradigm had a very good pricing model, so it meant that I could effectively pay for the level of sophistication that I was using at the time and dial it back down to a simpler version.

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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

"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."

"IBM Blueworks Live is cloud-based and provides easy access to all your processes in one place."

"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."

"It is a stable solution since there has not been any downtime. Everything loads fast."

"It enables decisions based upon processes that we do model, and ultimately move forward with."

"The solution is stable. All the refreshes run very well."

"Collaboration is most valuable. You can collaborate online with many people. People can comment, and you can comment back. It is just like a social network, and that, for me, is very good."

"The reporting that we can generate from IBM Blueworks Live has been interesting. We found the KPIs, risks, process modeling, format, and colors, to be very good. We use the EY template and it is interesting to generate reporting in this format."

More IBM Blueworks Live pros

"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."

"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."

"I have worked with erwin Data Modeler for quite some time and familiarity is its most valuable feature."

"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 product lets us import different types of models from various databases."

"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."

"It's important to create standard templates — Erwin is good at that — and you can customize them. You can create a standard template so that your models have the same look and feel. And then, anyone using the tool is using the same font and the same general layout. erwin's very good at helping enforce that."

"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."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest pros

"The Visual Paradigm business process forms for designing we good. There was not a lot of configuration for the process diagram."

"The initial setup is extremely straightforward."

"Using the Component Diagram, Visual Paradigm helps with design and control, reusing components."

"Stable design software with multiple functions and features. It's simple to install and easy to use."

"The application is easy to use and provides informative diagrams."

"It is easy and intuitive to use, not excessively rigid, and quite flexible."

"It is a scalable solution...The initial setup was straightforward."

"Visual Paradigm is simple and easy to use."

More Visual Paradigm pros

Cons

"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 font size is really, really small and it's really not useful to print out process models because you cannot read what's written in different boxes. This makes it necessary for people to have access to the tool. We view licenses to see how the printing or output is. It's not very good."

"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."

"The initial setup is neither straightforward nor complex however you do need to know what you are doing."

"We would like the ability to add additional custom colors. We would like to color additional items to add notes to the blueprint."

"We haven't yet been able to dabble in case management with Blueworks Live, as it is not yet offered with the product."

"We'd also like to see it be Six Sigma or Lean compatible, a lot of people have asked about that."

"Spaces are not well organized; space controls are lacking."

More IBM Blueworks Live cons

"This is a very complex product."

"The erwin Data Modeler is quite complex to use."

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

"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."

"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."

"erwin is not as robust as a data warehousing project I've been on in the past."

"The erwin ETL functionality has room for improvement when it comes to mapping databases with a classic entity-relationship model to a data warehouse model."

"One of the things I've been talking to the erwin team about through the years is that every data model should have the ability to be multi-language... When I was working at Honda, it became very difficult to work with the Japanese teams using just one model. You can have two models, one in English and one in Japanese, but that means you have to keep the updates back and forth, and that always increases the risk of something not being updated."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest cons

"From time to time, we experience some troubles when we work as teams."

"The solution can be heavy on resource usage."

"Visual Paradigm could improve many aspects. The performance could be better because it can be low. When we have large and complicated models, it has a low speed and many bugs. Sometimes the solution stops and you have to restart Microsoft Windows on your PC. The larger database modeling cannot be done properly, I have to use another solution called SAP PowerDesigner."

"Visual Paradigm can improve by having better process mining tools and model integration."

"I was looking to generate code from the diagrams, but it was not totally clear how to do it."

"There is a certain inherent complexity when creating UML diagrams."

"It's still early for me to comment since I've only been using it for two months, but the responsiveness when diagramming needs to be improved."

"I would like to see the ability to easily export to groupware, such as Atlassian Confluence."

More Visual Paradigm cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Making it less expensive would be good."

"The solution is not very expensive."

"We are seeing ROI from this solution. The solution has saved us time."

"Price wise, IBM Blueworks Live is in the middle range, and I would give it a five out of ten."

"The solution is very, very cost-effective."

"There are editor licenses that are around 50 euros per month, and contributor licenses that are around 30 euros per month."

"They have a free subscription model that gives a lot of power to the users."

"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."

"The price of erwin Data Modeler is very expensive, in particular for this part of the world."

"erwin Data Modeler by Quest is an expensive solution."

"I don't specifically know what we're paying now. About three years ago, in another organization, I have this memory of 6,000 AUD a seat or something like that, but I am not sure. In the mid-2000s, it was something like 1,200 AUD a seat. I get the impression that there was a price jump when it was spun off from CA as a separate company, which is understandable, but it could sometimes be a barrier in some organizations picking it up. I haven't talked to erwin people yet, but I'm going to suggest to them that they could perhaps think of having an entry-level product that is priced a bit lower, and then, you can buy the extra suite."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Pricing is very high compared to any other product."

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

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest pricing and cost advice

"Pricing for Visual Paradigm is a four out of five for me. I'm happy with its pricing."

"Over the years I've seen an increase in price, and it makes it difficult for a single person company, like me, to decide whether to extend the license."

"Visual Paradigm's pricing is not expensive."

"I rate Visual Paradigm's pricing a five out of ten."

"In terms of pricing, I find Visual Paradigm's subscription services reasonable, especially for the modern and standard editions. However, the premium products can be a bit pricey, especially considering our location in the Middle East. Currently, paying around a hundred dollars per user translates to almost six hundred Egyptian pounds, which can add up. For enterprise licensing, I think the perpetual license option could be more affordable. If it were cheaper, say around five hundred dollars, I would have invested in multiple perpetual licenses long ago. Sometimes, to manage costs, we share accounts among team members or switch access on and off for certain members who aren't actively working on projects. As for additional costs, there are charges for cloud services, which I'm considering because I've already exceeded the free capacity."

"You can move between the tiers from month to month so you are not restricted to one pricing model."

"This is an open-sourced solution, it is free to use."

"This product is fairly cheap, but if you want more complex features, e.g. integration with other products, it does require an additional cost."

More Visual Paradigm pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

19%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

Educational Organization

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Blueworks Live?

The solution costs around 600-700 dollars/year, which is quite affordable.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

The solution's model mark could be better because it crashes sometimes.

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What do you like most about Visual Paradigm?

The solution is the best application for data modeling. It helps to architect business processes. Its best features a...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Visual Paradigm?

I mentioned using the free version. The free version of Visual Paradigm does not incur any setup costs and offers a s...

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What needs improvement with Visual Paradigm?

I didn't use it so deeply that I found areas that needed improvement or features that were missing. So far, its exist...

See all answers

Comparisons

Visio vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 37% of the time

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 17% of the time

Lucidchart vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 15% of the time

ARIS Cloud vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 9% of the time

Camunda vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 8% of the time

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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 15% of the time

Visio vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 10% of the time

No Magic MagicDraw vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 2% of the time

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Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs Visual Paradigm

Compared 38% of the time

Visio vs Visual Paradigm

Compared 19% of the time

Lucidchart vs Visual Paradigm

Compared 15% of the time

Bizagi vs Visual Paradigm

Compared 8% of the time

IBM System Architect vs Visual Paradigm

Compared 2% of the time

More Visual Paradigm Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Blueworks Live

December 2024

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Buyer's Guide

erwin Data Modeler by Quest

December 2024

Download erwin Data Modeler by Quest product report

Buyer's Guide

Visual Paradigm

November 2024

Download Visual Paradigm product report

Also Known As

IBM Lombardi Blueprint

erwin DM

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IBM

erwin by Quest

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Visual Paradigm

Overview

IBM Blueworks Live is a cloud-based business process modeling tool that helps you discover, map and document your processes. It is easy to use, allowing you to learn and perform business process modeling in minutes.

With Blueworks Live you can:

Simplify business process modeling
Quickly build business processes in a straightforward, cloud-based interface designed for both IT and business users.

Improve process efficiency and accuracy
A central process repository eliminates version control and consistency issues by providing users real-time access to process workflows.

Enhance cross-team collaboration
A shared team workspace engages all business process owners, encouraging cross-team participation and continuous process improvement.

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.

Visual Paradigm is a UML tool. The tool is designed for a wide range of users including software engineers, system analysts, business analysts and system architects, or for anyone who is interested in reliably building large-scale software systems using an object-oriented approach. In addition, Visual Paradigm supports the latest standards of UML notation.

Sample Customers

Cloudsoft Corp. Ltd., Bayer, S¾SS, Essex County Council

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

Adobe, Apple, at&t, Caterpillar, Intel, NASA, Nokia, Toyota

Buyer's Guide

Visual Paradigm vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest

December 2024

Free Report: Visual Paradigm vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Find out what your peers are saying about Visual Paradigm vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.

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