Visio vs erwin Evolve by Quest comparison

erwin by Quest and Microsoft are both solutions in the Business Process Design category. erwin by Quest is ranked #18 with an average rating of 9.0, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.9. erwin by Quest holds a 0.8% mindshare in BPD, compared to Microsoft’s 12.6% mindshare. Additionally, 81% of erwin by Quest users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

Visio and erwin Evolve by Quest are both competing in the data and process modeling category. Visio seems to have the upper hand due to its user-friendly features and integration with Microsoft Office, while erwin Evolve offers more robust model management and metadata interchange capabilities.

Features: Visio offers a wide array of templates, seamless Office integration, and features like BPMN 2.0 validation, which aids in standardizing business processes. It is highly regarded for its shape libraries and vendor vectors, ensuring accurate modeling. erwin Evolve excels with features such as comprehensive model management, impact analysis, and reverse engineering, allowing for detailed data models and effective enterprise architecture.

Room for Improvement: Visio needs enhancements in XPDL import/export capabilities, improved pen input support, and simplified layering functionality. Users suggest better cross-platform integration. erwin Evolve could improve its NoSQL support and enhance its user interface to improve accessibility and ease of use.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Visio provides various deployment options, including on-premises and cloud, benefitting from Microsoft's ecosystem. Its customer support is seen positively, but users sometimes rely on community resources. erwin Evolve also supports cloud and on-premises deployment, with customer service generally well-regarded, though personalized interactive support could be enhanced.

Pricing and ROI: Visio offers flexible pricing with options like Office 365 integration, which is cost-effective for regular users, although the initial cost can be high for smaller teams. It offers high ROI through user-friendly documentation. erwin Evolve is expensive, with complex licensing requirements that may be hard to justify without large-scale use. Its value lies in efficiently managing complex data environments in the long term.

To learn more, read our detailed Visio vs. erwin Evolve by Quest Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Visio vs. erwin Evolve by Quest

October 2024

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Categories and Ranking

IBM Blueworks Live

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 Evolve by Quest is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Visio is 12.6%, down from 13.5% 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

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.

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ScottLawson

Director IT Architecture at QAD

Jun 22, 2023

Enables us to present data and objects visually, in diagrams, and to make them available via the web. Also enables web-based editing of data.

We tried their collaborative web modeling and we used it with a few people but we tend to not use that piece. We tend to collaborate with the people and then my team of architects draws up the diagram using the modeling tool. We then iterate through those. I would like to use it, but it was a little clunky when they first rolled it out. Overall, it's more about the company having room for improvement. What they need to do is to consolidate more of their products. For example, I was just looking and I couldn't figure out what erwin DT is. It's on the website but it would help if they could put information together and make it more clear as to what products they have and how they work with other things. I hear them talking in the support forums and, when I talk to the representative, they say they're going to do a bunch of stuff but it seems the progress is slow. The changes they need to make are to take their old, legacy product, which we use, and focus a lot on it so they can transform it into a modern cloud tool so that we have fewer little pieces to deal with. They could also fix their security model. It's very confusing to get new people onto the tool and to make sure that your content isn't being exposed to the wrong people.

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Enas Selim

Product Manager at Diyar United Company

Nov 2, 2023

A software for drawing a variety of diagrams which include flowcharts, org charts, building plans, floor plans, data flow diagrams

Indeed, Visio should progress beyond its current stage of solely drawing diagrams and transition into a more advanced phase, possibly integrating with different packages or aligning with Microsoft's offerings. It could potentially evolve into a comprehensive business process management solution, comparable to tools like Addis or Signavio, thereby competing in the realm of process management tools. It might be advantageous to explore functionalities such as process simulations or benchmarking, introducing simulators to discern potential bottlenecks or errors within complex flow diagrams. This addition would prove valuable for business analysts seeking insights into the intricacies of their diagrams, aligning with the evolving trends observed over the past six years.

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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

"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."

"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."

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

"Valuable features include real-time modeling and design work, the ability to perform workshops with clients in real-time with the tool, and getting instant output."

"It has the ability to document in different formats. It is not tied to a specific model. You can look at it from different angles and see the intuitive nature of it. It always generates a valid diagram. You cannot create something that is not BPMN compliant."

"The stability is pretty good. It is highly available, which is key. You don't lose your work and can autosave."

"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."

More IBM Blueworks Live pros

"The ability to share and collaborate on the solution is its most valuable feature."

"Forward and reverse engineering were valuable features."

"You can use different kinds of diagrams to represent the architecture setting."

"By placing the data and the metadata into a model, which is what the tool does, you gain the abilities for linkages between different objects in the model, linkages that you cannot get on paper or with Visio or PowerPoint. That is a huge discriminator."

"Workgroup Repository collection of data models allows research across models without worry about platform incompatibilities and provides easy KPIs about corporate data assets."

"The initial setup was really straightforward and the deployment was done within one day."

"I have not seen capabilities for web-sharing and interaction with the architecture from any other supplier. It's a great capability..."

"I really liked that it mapped out processes and was able to attach the data model to the appropriate process. You could map out the process, then when you got down to a specific couple of data elements, you could attach the table in the database that supported that process. You could connect it with erwin Data Modeler for that."

More erwin Evolve by Quest pros

"Visio is outstanding because it has features that are useful for project management."

"The fact that you could program in VBA is most valuable."

"It's a very flexible solution."

"It is a scalable solution."

"The solution makes it very easy to make exciting pictures and designs. Everything is very intuitive and simple to figure out."

"It's a very meat and potatoes type of product and isn't overly designed. It's very easy to find your way through the solution, as it's not too complicated."

"The solution is very user-friendly."

"Visio makes it easy to communicate your ideas from several areas of your imagination across several domains."

More Visio pros

Cons

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

"IBM Blueworks is BPMN 2.0 compliant, but it does not adapt to the overarching BPMN 2.0 concepts."

"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."

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

"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 can't insert any images. For example, within the process map, if I want to put it in the box or rectangle, or circle. If I have to use one image or icon, that's not possible."

"The user interface is quite easy at first but process analysts soon run into roadblocks of limited functionality, which is disappointing."

More IBM Blueworks Live cons

"They have improved the search engine a little bit but it can always be improved more. The more data you put inside it, the more you want to use it."

"There might be improvement required to better support some of the MPP databases for non-relational data structures and NoSQL databases."

"The solution needs to focus on allowing for more integrations."

"Business process modelling could be improved."

"Add some ability to do conditional Visualization on the models and in reports (some ideas) – maybe as a specialized Theme or Diagram or Display."

"What they need to do is to consolidate more of their products. For example, I was just looking and I couldn't figure out what erwin DT is. It's on the website but it would help if they could put information together and make it more clear as to what products they have and how they work with other things."

"The way that we are using it for application management, we have several KPIs. We want to follow and monitor them regarding a number of solutions. We cannot calculate this today. We would like real-time calculations along with the KPIs in order to improve the user experience. We would like the tool to be able to display this, not only as signals, but as charts."

"I feel that the UML drawing capability needs to be improved."

More erwin Evolve by Quest cons

"When you use a BPA solution you can open an end-to-end process in one window, go down, or go up between layers to different places. You should be able to see descriptions of the steps of the process."

"The application grid seems to be unreliable which makes simple tasks complicated."

"Microsoft should include Visio as part of their Office 365 offering."

"Transferring data was one of the issues that I expected Visio to have resolved. I use the older version."

"I would like to see better integration with external data sources."

"The price could be better."

"The improvement I want to see in Visio is being able to edit it more quickly, particularly when pulling it out of another software and then editing it on that non-Visio software. Currently, the process affects the overall performance because it's not as quick as I want it to be."

"There should be more items available from a variety of other products that can be integrated."

More Visio cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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 not very expensive."

"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."

"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 cost is something like $15,000, per license. But I haven't looked at those numbers in three years. It was over $100,000 to initially set everything up and get it all configured."

"The licensing enables you to differentiate between people who edit the content and the people who consume it. We are able to keep the licensing costs down by keeping the "contributor" licenses to a minimum, and we then just roll out the content in a read-only version for the rest of our users."

"Yearly, our cost is €100,000."

"I estimate that we pay between $40,000 and $50,000 a year for the solution, not including the upfront costs to buy things the first time."

"On a yearly basis, our licensing costs are 50,000 euro. There are no additional costs because we are on a SaaS model."

"I think erwin is quite expensive. I have difficulty selling the portal, in fact."

"Unless you are a one person shop – always go with the Workgroup edition and Concurrent licensing."

"The pricing is reasonable and I would rate it 6 out of 10."

"The popularity of a product is an indicator of its price. Because of the popularity of Visio, its price is on the higher side. We need better pricing for it."

"I haven't looked at the prices lately. We have an older copy, and it was a couple of hundred dollars for this software. That's a huge expense."

"We probably have an M-365 E3 license."

"The product is expensive, but it is cheaper if you buy it as a part of a bundle or an enterprise-level agreement."

"There are some cheaper as well as free solutions."

"I believe Visio to be priced pretty reasonably."

"Visio is included with our Microsoft enterprise license."

More Visio 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

18%

Computer Software Company

17%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

12%

Computer Software Company

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.

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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...

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What advice do you have for others considering erwin Evolve?

I rate erwin Evolve by Quest a nine out of ten.

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What do you like most about erwin Evolve by Quest?

We can efficiently deploy business models into the databases and generate SQL scripts.

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What needs improvement with erwin Evolve by Quest?

erwin Evolve by Quest could have additional features to manage the architecture of enterprises and businesses.

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How easy is it to migrate process flow charts (modeled using tools like Visio) into Bizagi?

I have been using Bizagi with a major project for a state government agency for about four years now. It is pretty st...

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What do you like most about Visio?

The diagrams Visio creates are quite impressive in the sense that we can cooperate with more colleagues in one task a...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Visio?

I purchased an older version of Visio and pay about twelve or thirteen dollars a month, but this subscription does no...

See all answers

Comparisons

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 7% of the time

ARIS BPA vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 5% of the time

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Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs erwin Evolve by Quest

Compared 28% of the time

LeanIX vs erwin Evolve by Quest

Compared 24% of the time

SAP PowerDesigner vs erwin Evolve by Quest

Compared 12% of the time

IDERA ER/Studio vs erwin Evolve by Quest

Compared 11% of the time

erwin Data Modeler by Quest vs erwin Evolve by Quest

Compared 9% of the time

More erwin Evolve by Quest Competitors

Bizagi vs Visio

Compared 15% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs Visio

Compared 14% of the time

Visual Paradigm vs Visio

Compared 10% of the time

Camunda vs Visio

Compared 8% of the time

Lucidchart vs Visio

Compared 7% of the time

More Visio Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Blueworks Live

October 2024

Download IBM Blueworks Live product report

Buyer's Guide

erwin Evolve by Quest

November 2024

Download erwin Evolve by Quest product report

Buyer's Guide

Visio

October 2024

Download Visio product report

Also Known As

IBM Lombardi Blueprint

erwin EA, erwin Business Process, erwin Enterprise Architecture

Microsoft Visio

Learn More

IBM

erwin by Quest

Microsoft

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 is used by more than 50,000 professionals in 60+ countries to get big results from their enterprise data initiatives. erwin is the #1 choice in virtually every industry, from government and healthcare to retail and finance.

erwin Modeling provides a collaborative environment to manage enterprise data through an intuitive, graphical interface. With a centralized view of key data definitions, you can leverage information as a strategic asset and more efficiently manage your data resources to save time and money.

Visio is an innovative collaborative solution that enables users to quickly visualize data-connected business process flows with a host of integrated intuitive features that bring the power of Microsoft 365 to Visio. Visio allows users to easily create professional diagrams, graphs, and other visual data, easily anywhere, anytime, and with anyone. Users are able to confidently and easily transform data into creative powerful visuals. Visio provides dozens of easy-to-use templates along with thousands of customizable colorful shapes that bring a user's best ideas to life. Visio is available for all Microsoft 365 commercial users and is available on desktop and Web applications.

Visio Features

Visio can easily create visual data for today’s business needs. Some of its most useful visual data include:

Flowcharts: Users can easily bring business concepts to fruition with Visio’s robust flowchart features. Visio provides a huge library of shapes, stencils, and templates to transform numbers and data into impactful, easy-to-understand business stories.
Organizational charts: Visio makes it easy to design articulate org charts to better visualize team, reporting, and hierarchy structures. Users are then able to seamlessly share the charts with stakeholders, teams, and employees.
Network diagrams: Users are able to creatively display how a system design processes function and visually illustrate how devices and networks interact with each other using a variety of network shapes, templates, and connector tools.
Brainstorming: Visio makes brainstorming simple and actionable with a wide range of templates designed specifically for interpreting problems and mapping out solutions, including fishbone and Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) diagrams.
Floor plans: Users can design ergonomic workspaces, retail store layouts, new homes, and more with accurate, scalable templates and tools to help them better visualize function, flow, and overall aesthetic appeal.
Accessible: Visio is able to integrate with a wide variety of accessibility tools, such as Narrator, Accessibility Checker, and high-contrast support, to ensure Visio diagrams are available to your entire team.

Reviews from Real Users

“Visio has improved my workflow by making it easy to create charts, diagrams, and essential illustrations to use in my client reports and proposals. It has saved me a lot of time I would otherwise spend creating visuals for clients manually.” - Michael B., Principal Consultant at Lexington Consulting

“I use it for diagramming networks, racks, data centers, data flow applications, etc. It is a useful tool to map data flows, network objects, and computer science technology and to show to clients. It does what I need it to do. It's a tool I've used the longest, so I know it the best, and that's probably the claim to fame.” - Greg S., Director of Solution Architecture at Winslow Technology Group

“We use Visio for architecture modeling. We also use it to facilitate communication with other people. The feature I like most about Visio is that it acts as a facilitator of communication, as it displays information in a way that's easier to understand.” - Guy M., IT/Business Architect at a financial services firm

Sample Customers

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

AT&T, Bank of America, Chevron, Duke University, ESPN, Fidelity, GE, JP Morgan Chase, KPMG, McGraw Hill, NASA, Pfizer, Royal Bank of Scotland, Teradata, Union Pacific, Vodafone, Wells Fargo.

Thomas College, Hamburg Port Authority, Portigon AG, Conseil G_n_ral du d_partement des Hautes-Alpes, AAA Auto a. s., Commonwealth Financial Network, ICA, Abu Dhabi National Energy Company

Buyer's Guide

Visio vs. erwin Evolve by Quest

October 2024

Free Report: Visio vs. erwin Evolve by Quest

Find out what your peers are saying about Visio vs. erwin Evolve by Quest and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.

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