Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Reviews

We're still investigating it on the structural side. Our primary focus is on CCML and UML, the creation of documents, and requirement management. After that, we will teach our company about how we're going to use the product. I am using its latest version. It is deployed on-premises on the company cloud.

It is a very flexible product. It can do a lot. It is also a reliable product. 

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. 

I have been using this solution for a year.

It is very stable. I've had no problems or issues.

I'm using a database-based client of Enterprise Architect, and it is very scalable. 

We are testing it at the moment. I am working with four or five people in that area. After we have enough confidence in the product and we have a new project, we would most likely roll it out to a hundred plus people. There are two projects that are currently using Enterprise Architect within the company. One of them already has more than 100 users. The company I work for has 30,000 employees. It will be used by quite a lot of people.

In the Netherlands, the support for this solution is very limited. You have to rely on some consultants, but at the moment, the knowledge of these consultants is also quite limited. They quote a quite high price for their knowledge, but the impression that we get is that they're learning on the job. They call themselves specialists, but they're not really specialists. When I look at other countries, particularly the United States, the consultants are a lot more knowledgeable, and they know more about the product. We don't have that in the Netherlands.

I have tried different packages. VCL is a very well-known package, which can also generate code to a certain extent and create documents, but it is limited. I have used a number of open-source tools, such as Star UML. There are a lot of different packages that are good in a certain area, but you can't combine things very easily. They require a lot of work and a lot of people to collect the information by using Excel tables or databases.

We are also looking at another tool that is very much focused on CCML, which makes it limited. It is certainly not as flexible as Enterprise Architect. We also have to look at the knowledge of the engineers working on the project, and most of them are not software engineers. They have a background in civil engineering. Enterprise Architect is certainly a product with potential, and we would like to introduce it, but it is very difficult to implement it in our project. Most likely, a few users will use Enterprise Architect. The remaining users would continue to use Word or Office products to create their documents, and a few will add the required information to the model.

Overall, I would rate Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect an eight out of ten. If I was rating it specifically for our business, I would rate it a five out of ten. It is very difficult to use it in our company. It is a good product, but it is difficult to implement in a non-software company.

Architecture Design (component, deployment), Reference Architecture (enterprise, technology) and Solution Management (external artifacts) accessible globally to all of IT via AWS cloud.

Improved cross-functional team collaboration. Dynamic visual activity models improved communication and understanding with the business. Shared repository enabled reuse of model elements by users. Established a well-defined structure to manage whole solutions. Ability to ingest external document artifacts became a viable alternative to SharePoint. UML based modeling enable model-first approach in lieu of document-first approach to solutioning (alternative to Microsoft Office - Word, Excel, Visio, Powerpoint) 

Version 14 menu organization is much better. Ability to ingest external artifacts with added metadata coupled with UML based modeling is moving the organization to a more digital way of working while preserving legacy artifacts.

A better deployment model for the enterprise without relying on HKEY_CURRENT_USER in the registry.

Very stable. Rarely a crash.

In general, performance and scalability is solid. There are times when communication to the shared repository in AWS would be inconsistent, but I think that was due to the corporate network connection

Customer service / technical support is via email only so is constrained to 24 hour turnaround. Otherwise good responses. 

The Solution Architect team used a combination of Visio (UML), Word (Document Templates), Excel (Requirements) and SharePoint (Repository). Sparx replaced all of this while retaining all of the prior tool features and enabled cross-functional team collaboration for solutioning.

There was a learning curve to deployment constrained by needing to install as the user until we figured out how to deploy using MSI scripts, elevated privileges and a standard REGEDIT file containing a Sparx configuration.

Implementation using in-house team.

We gained 10 - 20 percent improvement to productivity (measured by time to complete solution) and improved quality (measured by reviews)

Setup a shared RDBMS repository (SQL, Oracle, etc.), acquire shared license keys and deploy using MSI scripts.

Considered Visio Professional (has a repository), ArchiMate (too high-level), Rational (too costly)

Establish best practices for solutioning including standardized stereotypes. Drive adoption using a hybrid approach of modeling and ingesting external documents since not everyone will learn to model equally using UML.

The solution is used for Modeling enterprise architecture artifacts, and also for project delivery artifacts as well. So solution architectures, designs. Sometimes I've used it for requirement gathering for functional and non- functional.

Working with the solution being right around keeping an asset repository that various projects and programs can utilize. So it's about reusability of assets and making sure that a baseline can be achieved against which a target can be models. So it allows the baseline to be models and maintained well.

Sparx has got a range of modeling features, and I am comfortable with all its offering. I've used a lot of tools over the phone. I found EA Spark, probably the most feature rich product all in all compared to other products. The solution is very cost-effective and that is its best feature. It's a very good delivery architecture tool, which also has enterprise architecture capabilities, and it's got full life cycle processes and software development. So for me, it's a pretty comprehensive tool

The Portfolio Management features can be added in the next release. As it helps you to manage more portfolio of projects and architectures of cost projects on a portfolio level. This would be an important feature in the next release.

I have been using the solution for fifteen years. 

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution. I have used it for large organisations.

The technical support team is good. 

The initial setup is easy because you could use it in a single license on a desktop, or you can get the server license SaaS solution, which is equally as good, but it's a it's a very simple and easy product to adopt for embedding. I have used the Client Data Environment for deployment. The deployment takes a couple of week's time. Depending on who supports it and how the service operating model is, it's  easy to maintain the support.

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.

The solution is a very intuitive product for me. It has a lot of capabilities and covers enterprise and solutions architecture. It also has a lot of ability to integrate with third-party products, which is good, and they focus it on being a modelling tool, which is very helpful. It has a very adaptable and usable tool tool tool within enterprises.

I would advice people to use the trial versions and assess its functionality, and then from that, decide on the suitable adoption model and embedding model in the organisation depending on the requirements.

I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten

Enterprise architecture: Capabilities and business services modeling, business processes mapping and analysis, project prioritization and planning (using ArchiMate and BPMN notations); 

Information architecture: Business information model (Information Entities modeling and Security Classification of entities (Availability, Integrity, Confidentiality)  (using UML notation and specific TAG values);

Solution architecture: Conceptual components architecture (using ArchiMate or UML notation);

Integration of all models in a central collaborative with multi-users, multi-domains, and a multileveled architecture repository structured and organized following the TOGAF 9.x Content model.

Supporting all of the important architecture modeling notations and all types and levels of architecture modeling in a secure, collaborative, and well-integrated model repository is really unifying and beneficial.

Having the possibility of integrating and sharing all architecture models inside a centralized repository for all architecture stakeholders provides immense and cohesive insight into all architecture domains and dimension interrelationships. 

The capability to analyze interdependencies between architectural elements makes for a very reliable comprehension of all architectural interactions, as opposed to trying to figure it out from a pile of Visio and PowerPoints (or any other diagramming tool) independent documents.

The product offers very good support for all mainstream modeling notations and architectural frameworks. It has a very complete and coherent environment for business, architecture, and solution modeling. If what you need is not directly available, you can extend the modelings capabilities to suit your specials needs (TAG values, metamodel extensions (MDG), scripting, API interfaces, ...).

It has a very stable and performant environment. This a necessary capability for supporting a large number and varied kinds of modelers (Business architects & Business analysts, Enterprise architects, Information architects, Domain & Solution Architects, Security Architects, ...), all working at the same time on shared and live models. 

The constant evolution of usability and integration capabilities: Nothing is perfect, but constant polishing and enhancement are reassuring. 

Even if there are web-based tools in the Enterprise Architecture tool ecosystem (like Prolaborate), the main modeling application is still a fat client application. For some organizations, it is still a concern and a significant disqualification criterion for adoption.

The capability to model and analyze while maintaining coherent traceability within different variants (variations or versions) of a future architecture has been greatly enhanced in the recent versions of Enterprise Architect. It requires a very mature, systemic, and methodic approach that is not easy to grasp for junior modelers. 

I have been using Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect for eight years.

In eight years of enterprise-wide modeling with multiple architects and business analysts working day-in-day-out with the environment, we have never had a single major problem and we never lost integrity.

The tool is very robust but assuring complete integrity over time requires competent quality control.

Enterprise Architect is a very flexible and scalable tool. It can be set-up different ways to accommodate capacity, volume, and a number of simultaneous modeling users. 

Almost never have to go through customer service/technical support but, the few times I needed it, they were very responsive and supportive. 

In different contexts and organizations, I have tried and used different modeling tools. That said, when I have the choice of tool to use for architecture modeling I always select Enterprise Architect for its usability (even though it is a complex tool), completeness, and extensibility.

It is usually very simple and straightforward. The real work is setting the standard for collaborative work between teams and projects.

For Enterprise Architect, it is usually very simple and I do it myself easily.

For efficient integration with other tools, I usually suggest going through a vendor team.

It was not measured recently, but being able to analyze traceability and architectural dependencies doing impact analysis has tremendous value. 

Avoiding multiple duplicated elements and being coherent and avoiding confusion about naming or modeling notations from different models or symbols from different modeling tool is very reassuring.

Define your immediate needs and objectives, start small and focused.

Identify some motivated champions inside your organization and find a coach to help them get to know the tools. 

Initially, get comfortable and efficient with the vanilla setup of the tool. Do not try to personalize or extend the tool unless you are confident that it will bring more benefits than confusion. 

Define templates and model examples to set the organizational standards for modeling. Evaluate your progress, adhesion to standards, and quality of models regularly. 

Identify other domains of modeling opportunities that could bring benefits to your organization. With experts and senior architects define a mid/long term vision and costs benefits for integrating all aspects of modeling that are important to you over time.

Annually, revised your mid/long term vision.

In my career, I was involved in many modeling tool selection exercises in many organizations and had the chance to compare most of the available tools on the market (Rational Rose, RSM, RSA, IBM RDA, CaseWise, Mega, Aris, ...). To date, I haven't the opportunity to try and evaluate BiZZdesign.

Hang around in the user's community to gain a perspective of what others do and don't do.

We use Sparx to create enterprise-level architecture in high-level environments and ticketing IT landscapes.

The solution saved a lot of time, about 30%.

I like that this tool contains all of my needs. I have AWS, GCP, and Azure icons. The tool assures collaboration, where my diagrams and graphics are automatically shared amongst the team. I also like the maturity of this tool, where I can present different layers depending on the audience. For example, is this a board or at the IT director level? or is it a developer? I can organize my graphics accordingly.

Another thing I like about the tool is the notation. Features like UML are available, so the tool checks things for me.

The dashboard and connectivity could be improved.

I've used Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect for more than eight years.

I rate the solution's scalability an eight out of ten, and we have 25 users using it.

I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten.

I recommend Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and rate it a nine out of ten.

I have used the solution for BPMN Modeling for a German Bank where regulatory processes were required to model for around 24 countries. After process modeling, process harmonization, process standardization was also included. SPARX EA, with a variety of notations and custom attributes, helped track the process delivery for each center smoothly. 

We have also created application, information, and data models linked them with BPMN process models. So net-net, process modeling, process improvement, and process optimization were the primary use cases.

We could capture the process models around 24 countries with all their local variations. After process modeling, we have depicted the similarities and differences in SAPRX for process harmonization, process standardization. 

SPARX EA, with a variety of notations and custom attributes, helped track the process delivery for each center smoothly. We have also created applications, information, and data models linked with BPMN process models. 

SPARX EA is well suited for a client that does not have an Enterprise Architecture or Business Process and that needs to get started, so you can leverage the product right from scratch. You can import from Word and Excel. That is the best feature. The information is available in Excel and you can get started by importing the artifacts in the proper structure. Word documents can also be imported by using the proper plugins. It can be used as a jump-start for a team of five people that can share a common repository. This import/export reduced a lot of licensing requirements too.

When the model is large, it is a bit slow to render. Also sometimes it is difficult (selecting and holding it) to move a single attribute from one entity in the diagram to another. At times check-in and check-out procedures are slow. 

Navigating from EA Models to Business Process Models becomes a nightmare if the repository is heavily loaded. I have worked on some other tools which work pretty well in this area. SPARX Systems should consider improving on this point in their upcoming releases.

I have used the product for around two years.

I use Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect (EA) in many situations where I need to structure thoughts. Primarily, it is an EA tool. I use it when I have projects where I am in the Architect role. Modeling systems in EA is far superior to doing it in Excel or Word documents. Especially in Software Development projects, it is a neat feature that you can create code from UML-Models and that you can import source code and EA creates classes from the code.

I use it on a fast Workstation in diverse modeling situations within Enterprise Architecture, but also Software Architecture projects. 

Sparx EA is a good tool to model any system on. It is based on UML, but it provides the ability to create your own metamodels, so you can implement/model anything.

The tool comes in the Ultimate version with tons of predefined perspectives which are suited for plain UML, Strategy, Structured Analysis, Requirements, Database, and Enterprise Architecture Modelling to name just a few.

It is possible to mind map and wireframe and also to create roadmap diagrams. That said, to be honest, some of these diagrams could be improved.

The best thing about the tool is that its database is open. It provides an integrated scripting framework for automation and it can be automated via COM with Delphi, Visual Basic, C++, or any other programming language capable to do COM automation. It is also possible to develop your own add-ons, so the tool is very well suited as a basis for your company-wide Enterprise Architecture tooling. You can integrate data from web applications or specialized FAT clients which you develop for Enterprise Architecture Management requirements.

The tool is, to some extent, clumsy and in some areas slow (especially on mid or low-performance workstations). 

Quite a lot of data entry would be very tedious if you could not develop your own automation or data entry tooling (or have it developed for you).

The automatic creation of reports based on the model elements could be improved and overall the diagrams could be more beautiful (or more visually appealing content could be added) to the toolbox. The wireframing support could also be improved and the roadmap capability is not ideal.

We've used the solution for approximately 5 years.

DB connections can hang, however, that might not be the product's fault. The product was developed ages ago and it rarely has a hickup. Almost never.

The scalability is fair. If you are a mega-corporation (like worldwide and hundreds of thousands of configuration items), it boils down to the sizing of the DBserver on which the model is hosted. I've already worked with quite big model repositories and at some point, you might need to partition into different repositories and consolidate whatever you need a unified view on, but if you are willing to treat Sparx EA as the focal tool within a partly self-developed framework of architecture tools you are good to go.

I know some of the other web-based solutions - but not as good as Sparx EA. For UML modeling, I used (since 2000) Modelmaker which could create C# and Delphi code (which was sadly discontinued). First, I moved to Sparx because Modelmaker was discontinued, but as my projects shifted more and more from Software Development to Enterprise Architecture, it was a better-suited tool for the challenges I faced. 

The initial setup is not really easy. Especially if you use the cloud server. You need to set up a licensed server, and, if you work on a relational database (which is recommended for large repositories and necessary if you want to collaborate on models), you need to have some DB knowledge (DBMS Based Repositories For Enterprise Architect | Sparx Systems)

We handled everything in-house. 

I cannot really tell if we've seen an ROI. It is more that the quality of my work is much better and that I have a more pleasant experience working with it. It would take much effort to really calculate an ROI on this. It really is pretty cheap and you only pay the maintenance renewal, so it is worth every dime.

The tool has a lot of "bang for your buck" - especially if you can develop extensions yourself it has an unmatched price/performance ratio. That said, beware that you really need to become an expert in the tool or hire one to leverage the benefits of the tool.

I did not evaluate other solutions. I heard of Sparx EA to be one of the best - even though it is a challenging tool - and that is why I took it.

Go for it. Whichever team in your company that will integrate the tool into your Enterprise Architecture Management toolchain should read the books from Thomas Kilian (leanpub.com)

My job is about helping the organization to create a functional solution. I build models for the organization at the business layer, application layer, etc. It also involves integration with other tools, such as erwin, for data modeling.

Its traversability is most valuable. I can use ArchiMate, and I can create a UML model. ArchiMate is for logical enterprise architecture, UML is for software engineering, and BPMN is for business processes. I can build it to have multiple models, and they are also traversable, which is not something that every tool allows. If there is a huge organization, you can segment it and have separate models for business technology or internal resource management system. You don't need to keep them in one model, and you can decide to segregate them.

Its model-centric approach makes it very easy to create documentation based on a template. Every company says that maintaining documentation is a very tedious task, and it usually requires subject matter experts. That's why companies rarely maintain documentation, but when you maintain the model, and you have the right processes and the right roles assigned, it can be naturally maintained. You can just simply produce a document by selecting whatever you need and in a format that you need. It is a very powerful feature.

From a practical point of view, we need speed and reliability for creating a model and doing some really meaningful tasks such as application landscape, refactoring, etc. These are two primary criteria. Sometimes, when you import something, it creates the object duplicates, or it allows you to do something that you're not supposed to do. For example, validation is missing. This could be frustrating because when you work at a high speed, you need to come back and start fixing things that the tool allowed you to go with, which is not quite good. So, there should probably be some internal mechanisms to advise you about what you're doing and what is probably not the best idea.

For example, you can do many things with ArchiMate, which is modeling language, but people can interpret many things incorrectly. They start modeling and then realize that it is not a good idea. So, it is not the tool itself. It is probably a combination of the modeling language and the tool that validates it. It would be very good if validation mechanics are embedded in the tool to, at least, advise people that a particular thing is allowed to be done in this way, but doing it would also mean something else that you may not want. The languages themselves are not perfect. In a large company, you have many people doing the modeling. If they interpret things differently and the tool allows them to do that, then you would have to do some rework.

I have been in and out. I have probably been using this solution for seven or eight years.

When I use it, it is stable. I do not have any problems. I really love the tool, and I have friends who work with this. They simply admire it. So, it is very popular in this area.

I didn't use their tech support much.

I tried to build a design with another solution two or three years ago, but there was something wrong and it was very slow. It was called Business Design. So, basically, I just said that I cannot use it for the scale of the task that I have. I simply cannot use that tool. They could maybe tune it up. I'm not blaming the tool itself, but my experience with it was really negative. I expect that the Sparx program will be faster.

I am asking my IT to install version 15 on my laptop. I have submitted a request, and I want to have it set up and then try it. I will play with this a little bit and figure it out.

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.

Currently, I am using a different tool, which is open-source, because the company didn't want to pay. It looks like they have changed their mind, and I have now started looking into the tool. I will also be looking at other cloud-based tools, including Sparx. We haven't yet made a decision. We will compare all the options, and Sparx has very good chances. We are quite positive about it, but there is also competition.

My task right now is to create a model for the entire organization with thousands of NMLs and tens of thousands of relationships. It is very big, so the speed of the process in it is very important. My superiors are thinking about a cloud version because they don't really want to maintain it. They're talking about something like DevOps so that in the development, they have the continuous promotion of the code, automated testing, etc. We are not building the executable code. If you look into a modeling language, it is a language. It is not a programming language, but it comes under the same category as the programming language. For many people, it is much easier to understand than Enterprise Architect. They try to stay away because of the complexity.

I would rate Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect an eight out of 10. My experience is a little bit outdated, but I was very pleased with it.