Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

LeanIX vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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

LeanIX
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of LeanIX is 15.9%, up from 12.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is 14.5%, down from 19.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

Umit Sengul - PeerSpot reviewer
A platform that facilitates efficient IT architecture management and integration, improving organizational coordination and decision-making
LeanIX is primarily used to create and manage architectural models, link capabilities, activities, and products and generate comprehensive reports. It serves as a central platform for overseeing the IT landscape within EON, a large organization, streamlining operations and enhancing governance…
Milan Sterba - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"The most valuable features include the reporting capabilities and the LeanIX Academy's educational resources."
"The most valuable feature would be application portfolio management, which is where they came from, but over time, they have got artificial intelligence. They built up a very good repository. If I identify a system by name, from historical information, oftentimes, they can tell me that this is deployed with this number of CPUs and they can give me a really good profile of the application for me to put it into a change management database with very little effort."
"Interfaces well with downstream systems of data."
"I like LeanIX's ease of use in general."
"LeanIX has a great application information architecture."
"My favorite feature of LeanIX is its ability to induct attribute-driven surveys."
"LeanIX has good usability and stability. This SaaS is intuitive, easy to use, and comes with a nice reporting feature."
"The ability to import data and generate reports from it. That's where its power lies."
"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 solution is easy to use, supports SysML and UML, and is able to connect to MATLAB. This is very important for us."
"Features good reporting facilities coupled with a concrete database."
"Some of the business processes are very easy to compare when you have the diagrams."
"The product offers very good support for all mainstream modeling notations and architectural frameworks."
"The advantages of Enterprise are that it's cheaper and much more practical than MagicDraw."
"The company has become more efficient and reduced its budget."
"Its ease of use and the breadth of the toolkit are most valuable. It has an incredible repository of artifacts to work with, and they're all cross-referenced. It works with a whole bunch of different standards. It works with BPMN, which is Business Process Modeling Notation, and it also works with something called TOGAF, which is the Open Group Architecture Foundation. There are different layers when you're dealing with architecture. There is the user interface, application, data, data servers, and all that kind of stuff. You have the infrastructure, hardware, and software layers, and then you have the application and business capability layers. You can model a business process and decompose it into all of the applications, data, and hardware to support it."
 

Cons

"Improvements in user interface simplicity could be made, particularly with the reporting and filtering capabilities."
"Not a ten because you always have that gap between complexity and easy to use. And the more complex the tool becomes, the more difficult it is to get the usability."
"The initial setup has room for improvement."
"The solution uses Gartner's time-based framework for application rationalization. One more thing that you can consider is having some add-on frameworks for the same, not just Gartner."
"I find LeanIX's pricing expensive for the functionality it offers. However, with the acquisition by SAP, the pricing might become more affordable due to scale and tiered application pricing. Currently, it offers different tiers for the first 400 applications: 400 to 600 and 600 to 1,000, making it expensive from a pricing standpoint."
"LeanIX should improve its support services."
"The solution’s API integration needs to improve. I would like to see a digital screen watch feature also in the solution."
"LeanIX experiences a lot of server timeouts. Nearly every transaction needs to be done twice due to these issues."
"If you just want to create some diagrams with shapes and arrows, then use Visio."
"It would be great if we could decrease the use of different parts of the Toolbox."
"It would be nice to have it supported on the Linux operating system."
"It really did not work for logical modeling. The look is very old-fashioned. You can't make the diagrams easy on the eye, so we ended up drawing them again in Visio anyhow."
"The database management area was not usable."
"I would like to see integration with Confluence or any other TRM, and the capability to integrate with the data storage, such as a repository similar to GitHub."
"I would like it to be less of a general tool. Currently, it is not a Swiss army knife that can do everything. It is not specialized for our purposes. We are a civil engineering company. We build things. We work mostly in what is known as Infra world in the Netherlands, which comprises objects such as bridges, locks, and water management. We would like to see more focus on such types of projects. It would be nice if it has more specializations. At the moment, it is very generic, and you have to create everything yourself. Our focus is more on user requirement management, which is currently very basic. I would like to see a lot more functionality in this area. Its basic functions for adding user requirements are perfect, but we need more features. Currently, it has limited possibilities for our requirements. I would also like to see better contract management and have it managed in a certain way."
"The areas of improvement should be focused on utility service such as producing better graphics, perhaps having a wider image library set and producing better models for working directly with customers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool needs to include more flexible licensing options. We do not use the tool all the time. So pricing should be considered only when we use the tool."
"I would rate the pricing a one out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"There is a sweet spot of where they need to be on pricing right now. They could go up a little bit in pricing, but it has to do with the cost savings, and it has to do with the practitioners using it. I use it where I get cost savings and I can justify it, but they probably have the ability to flex a 10% up channel on their sales on that. So, they could increase their settle price, not their offering price, when they sell. They can probably hold that up a little bit higher than it is because there are cost savings that we can drive from it."
"The solution's pricing is based on a licensing model that is competitive and in line with other products."
"It cost me $91,000 a year for 300 applications. For any enterprise, 300 applications are minimal, as many have well over 1,000 applications."
"The pricing is very good. We definitely get good value for the money."
"LeanIX uses application-based account licensing, where the cost is multiplied by the number of applications in the software implementation."
"As the tool is cloud-based, its cost is more affordable."
"The license for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is paid yearly, but I don't handle that area. It's good for its price, so I'm rating it a five out of five, but I'm not using it much. I also don't have information regarding additional costs apart from the standard licensing fees."
"Enterprise licensing is competitive. What would be helpful if they load the pricing for consultants, you know, people who are consultants for clients. So the license is fine for end-user organizations. Still, they should consider lowering the license to support this adoption, particularly for people who are consultants like myself."
"Licenses are pretty low cost compared to, for example, ARIS."
"It is very economical and low cost. You have to pay for a one-time license, and it is active forever."
"I use my own license. So, I just bought the professional version, which costs $800 or something like that. In the company where I am working, we have floating licenses. They are probably more expensive. Its licensing is affordable, but we are talking about a large organization, and there could be modelers or viewers of the models. We don't know how much that would cost us."
"It's affordable. The only additional cost that we haven't yet figured out is the floating license. If you buy a floating license, you have to have a license management server, which comes at an additional cost that's not discussed. So, we haven't yet used the floating license. That’s because I haven't had a chance to figure that out."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"It is cheaper than other solutions. Its cost is around $686 per year. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Architecture Management solutions are best for your needs.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
18%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Any experience with Strategic Project Portfolio Management Solutions?
Hi @Cheryl Joseph ​Looking at the crossover between Project and Portfolio management with EA, then Planview could be a good choice. If looking at Portfolio Management from an EA perspective then Le...
What do you like most about LeanIX?
The ability to import data and generate reports from it. That's where its power lies.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for LeanIX?
LeanIX is associated with high costs. It cost me $91,000 a year for 300 applications. For any enterprise, 300 applications are minimal, as many have well over 1,000 applications. The first pricing ...
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 ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

adidas, Bosch, Chico's, Haworth, Helvetia, KuKa, Osram, Telekom, TUI, Santander, Swarovski, Vaillant, 7Eleven, and Zalando.
OmniLink
Find out what your peers are saying about LeanIX vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.