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SAP PowerDesigner pros and cons

Vendor: SAP

4.0 out of 5

40 reviews
86% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

SAP PowerDesigner is renowned for its comprehensive data standardization and modeling capabilities, boosting operational efficiency. Its reverse engineering feature aids in database analysis, while customizable features enhance adaptability. Some drawbacks include synchronization issues, high costs, and an obsolete interface lacking modern technology support. Users note concerns about technical support and inadequate data governance integration, affecting usability for tech buyers seeking comprehensive solutions.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

SAP PowerDesigner stands out for its comprehensive data standardization, lineage tracking, and modeling capabilities.

Technical support for SAP PowerDesigner is effective, contributing positively to user experience.

The reverse engineering feature in SAP PowerDesigner facilitates a thorough analysis of database structures and relationships.

SAP PowerDesigner significantly improves operational efficiency, leading to substantial time savings for companies.

The extensible and customizable features make SAP PowerDesigner adaptable to individual and organizational needs.

CONS

Synchronization issues can lead to mismatched models and manual DDL handling.

The tool is not actively developed, resulting in an outdated user interface and lacking support for modern technologies like open-source databases.

High cost and lack of competitive pricing are concerns, especially for small consultancies.

Technical support is seen as needing improvement and is described as not being very human.

Lack of integration with other tools like Collibra and insufficient features in data governance and glossary tools make it less of a comprehensive product.

SAP PowerDesigner Pros review quotes

Enterprise Architect at a tech services company with self employed

May 20, 2017

Technical support is good... for a price.

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Data Architect/Data Scientist with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jul 21, 2017

The publicly accessible meta-model is the foundation for utility scripts, report, and general model-to-model or model-to-text generation.

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Enterprise Architect at a consumer goods company with 201-500 employees

Sep 29, 2018

It has helped me to develop the as-is state, design its to-be state, and track the capital investment according to gap analysis.

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SAP PowerDesigner

Free Report: SAP PowerDesigner Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about SAP PowerDesigner. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2026.

892,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Founder at Rozhmaan

May 22, 2019

This solution has good tools for big data, where you can manage large and complex databases.

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Senior Consultant at Mibcon DIMA

Jul 2, 2019

It can automate many routine tasks and save human resources to focus on real problems.

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PV

Team leader and Data / Information Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Feb 18, 2020

The solution is a very pragmatic tool. It's quite easy to use.

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PowerDesigner and ER/Studio Consultancy and Training Specialist at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Jun 3, 2020

The most valuable feature is the way you can extend it and customize it. With most modeling tools, you fit your modeling process to fit the tool. In PowerDesigner, you can make the tool fit the way you want to work.

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CV

Carel Van Der Merwe

CEO at Abellard

May 27, 2020

I do a data-centric design, so for me, the data analysis and design tools are the most valuable features.

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reviewer1365882

Senior Principal IT Architect -- MDM Architecture at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Jun 30, 2020

I like the property sheet capability and the user-defined attributes that you can set up.

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reviewer1318779

Data Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jul 13, 2020

The most valuable feature is that it is a very fast reverse engineering process. It does a very expansive comparison.

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SAP PowerDesigner Cons review quotes

Enterprise Architect at a tech services company with self employed

May 20, 2017

The meta-model (a.k.a. how objects are supposed to be connected to each other) seems to be proprietary.

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Data Architect/Data Scientist with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jul 21, 2017

Reverse-engineering of late JDK and .NET. Use third party parsers and enhance Object-Oriented metamodel to cater for newer language features.

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Enterprise Architect at a consumer goods company with 201-500 employees

Sep 29, 2018

The data governance should be improved, like ER/Studio.

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SAP PowerDesigner

Free Report: SAP PowerDesigner Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about SAP PowerDesigner. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2026.

892,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Founder at Rozhmaan

May 22, 2019

This product does not have a good BPMN Modeler.

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Senior Consultant at Mibcon DIMA

Jul 2, 2019

There should be a better usage of current hardware including multicore CPUs, higher resolutions, and multiple displays.

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PV

Team leader and Data / Information Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Feb 18, 2020

It would be helpful if there were glossary, catalog and governance tools. It would help make it a true end-to-end product.

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PowerDesigner and ER/Studio Consultancy and Training Specialist at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Jun 3, 2020

Pricing for small consultancies needs improvement. They sustain prices to competing tools. The competing tools tend to do special offers. PowerDesigner SAP doesn't pay much attention to the pricing of it and there are no special offers.

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CV

Carel Van Der Merwe

CEO at Abellard

May 27, 2020

In the future, I would like to see data manipulation capability where you can actually write SQL queries and manipulate data from directly within the tool.

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reviewer1365882

Senior Principal IT Architect -- MDM Architecture at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Jun 30, 2020

Checking-in models to the repository, especially when working remotely, is a slow process than can sometimes have problems with models being corrupted.

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reviewer1318779

Data Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jul 13, 2020

In terms of improvement, the pricing is a bit high.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 37)

Product Categories

Product Categories

Enterprise Architecture Management

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Product Categories

Product Categories

Enterprise Architecture Management

Metadata Management

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs SAP PowerDesigner

Collibra Platform vs SAP PowerDesigner

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs SAP PowerDesigner

erwin Data Modeler vs SAP PowerDesigner

LeanIX vs SAP PowerDesigner

MEGA HOPEX vs SAP PowerDesigner

Alation Data Catalog vs SAP PowerDesigner

Planview Portfolios vs SAP PowerDesigner

BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs SAP PowerDesigner

IDERA ER/Studio vs SAP PowerDesigner

iServer vs SAP PowerDesigner

erwin Evolve vs SAP PowerDesigner

Avolution ABACUS vs SAP PowerDesigner

QualiWare X vs SAP PowerDesigner

Ardoq vs SAP PowerDesigner

See all alternatives

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