Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Reviews

I use it for enterprise architecture.

It helps in centralizing data or putting our data in one place.

Artifact templates are most valuable.

It can be improved in the area of shared documentation. The idea is that the architecture tool can call back to an enterprise asset, pull that information, and link that as a sub-artifact.

Shared environments are a little bit tricky. Looking at it from an enterprise perspective, there should be a much better shared environment. I've got multiple people in different business units. Once I model an object, others should be able to reuse that same object multiple times. Currently, it's a lengthy process to set that up from scratch.

I last used it six weeks ago. Before that, I used it for about a year.

It is stable.

It is scalable. We have a really small team. I've got three licenses that we're using, and it's all on the desktops.

I haven't yet interacted with them.

We used to use MagicDraw, and the switch was due to cost. MagicDraw was about $32,000.

Its initial setup was straightforward. In terms of the implementation strategy, our organization doesn't have a lot of architects. This is the beginning of doing this the proper way. There is not really a plan in place. We have just put the software in place, and I have started to collect information and put it into the tool.

I've installed it on a local machine. We could also install it on the server. It has fairly low complexity. It comes with the binary. You just install it.

We implemented it ourselves. We had only one person for this.

We have not yet seen an ROI. It's too early.

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.

I had a long list. I had about 15 different enterprise-grade architecture tools. I got a bunch of them off the PeerSpot site.

When using this product in a shared environment, in terms of multiple different aspects of the business, it's not really tied together well at the top or out of the box. It takes some configuration. So, you need to understand how to use shared resources to build architecture so that if you are doing architecture on one object inside the enterprise, somebody else should be able to recreate it independently. What you do should be available to those who need to model it. 

I would rate it a seven out of ten.

We use the product to design and develop databases, leveraging its features to create robust database models.

The product's most valuable features are the database design and development capabilities. These features are adequate for my needs, allowing me to create detailed and efficient database models.

The product could be improved in terms of its ease of use and documentation. While it offers a lot of functionality, it can be difficult to grasp how to utilize these features effectively.

I have been using Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect for over five years. 

The platform is stable and reliable.

My experience with customer service and support has been positive. They generally respond within a reasonable time when I have questions or issues.

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward.

The pricing is reasonable, with the ultimate version costing around 290 Euros for renewal and the initial purchase around 600 Euros. There are no additional costs for maintenance or support, as these are included.

I would recommend this solution for those who work in diverse environments and need a versatile tool.

I rate it a seven. 

The primary use cases are electronic signature design. The electronic signature is typically the NETLOCK, and the electric number is a secret, so it's the NETLOCK electronic signature.

The solution is deployed on-premises.

The advantages of Enterprise are that it's cheaper and much more practical than MagicDraw.

The model integrity is not the same as MagicDraw, so MagicDraw is a bit better as a tool.

The integration could be improved.

I have been using this solution for one year, but I don't use Enterprise Architect on a daily basis.

The solution is stable. It doesn't require any specific maintenance.

It's scalable.

I have also used MagicDraw. We changed from MagicDraw to Enterprise Architect because the client has Enterprise Architect, and we have tried to export all the delivery products to the Enterprise Architect, and more or less, it should be possible.

My understanding is that setup is easier than MagicDraw.

We had a yearly license.

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10. 

That tool is still alive. We recognize that 10 years back, it was the same product, and at the moment it seems to be still alive. That means the background of the product is okay, and it can be in life for the next 10 years.

Our customers are using Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect for enterprise architecture modeling, where interrelationship among different enterprise entities.

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is very flexible and it is simple to define the metamodel. Additionally, it is lightweight on resources.

The solution could improve by having more aggressive working sessions with other product vendors. It would be a benefit to have demo sessions where users of the solution can ask questions to product experts and receive answers. For example, people who are struggling with the initial setup.

The team setup is very crucial for the success of a tool like this. I don't know if we looked into it properly. However, if some part of it, such as user setup can be automated, then it would be great for adoption.

In a future release, they should improve portfolio planning.

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

The solution is stable.

The scalability is fairly good. However, I do not have, for example, 100 users to be able to fully determine the scalability.

In my organization, we have the chief, enterprise, architect, infrastructure, and security architect that are supposed to use the solution. However, only one or two people are using it at this time.

We are pushing for evolving tools but I am not sure if we are going to increase the usage.

I have never used technical support.

We were using other solutions and we switched to Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect because it is lightweight, simple to use, and inexpensive.

The initial setup is easy to do. However, with the implementation, people struggle with how multiple people can work in a collaborative structure. That doesn't come easily. You have to define many things. There is room for improvement because people do not understand the solution.

The solution is not fully deployed but individual people are using it. The beauty of enterprise modeling tools is to collaborate into a single workspace. A single workspace means a single model where everything is interrelated. People have traceability.

If you are using Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect as an individual contributor, then it's not a great choice. It's not implemented in the current organization effectively. If Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect can provide demonstrations or a checklist it would be very useful.

We do not have a separate team that manages the solution. We all manage the solution.

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is priced well. The price we pay is approximately $20 per month. Other solutions I have found to be much more expensive.

We evaluated other solutions before choosing Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect. Most of the other solutions had very big footprints and were very heavy tools. Our use cases were mostly related to EA modeling. For that, this tool was good.

The customer that is using this solution has not implemented it in the right way, but they are expected to. It's not fully utilized. If you start putting the model together, it's definitely a great thing to improve the overall ecosystem. If you put tools, such as Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect everything is always up to date.

If we will have this fully implemented, our productivity will increase. Since I work as an architect, most of the time we spend understanding as-is state and current state. If somebody is utilizing this solution, you don't need to spend a lot of time. You will always have an up-to-date depiction of the current state.

I rate Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect a seven out of ten.

There are other use cases that cover enterprise architecture, which is not part of the tools. This tool does what it is built for, which is modeling the enterprise architecture. I gave the seven ratings based on the overall ecosystem which is required.

We use it for model-based system engineering (MBSE).

I think having some of the profiles and ready-made templates is an extremely helpful feature. This is one of the biggest features that I find very useful in Sparx.

The documentation and the help center within the tool are very helpful as well. They are written in much simpler terms. The examples are very clear, and the video tutorials are there. You can find a lot of video tutorials that can definitely help you to understand how to do certain tasks that you want to accomplish in Sparx.

I think it's very stable and scalable as well. It is also an affordable solution.

The UI is a little bit outdated. It should be more fresh and clean.

The other thing that I would really love to see improve is the roadmap capabilities. They advertise that you can use Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect to do roadmapping, but I don't think that this is really accurate because the roadmapping capabilities are very basic and you can't really do a lot with them.

Also, the Veeva Forms Management capabilities, which are built-in, could be improved. They are okay, but they could be much better as well.

I would love to see more emphasis on Agile product development within the tool itself. So, if I am managing an Agile project or a scrum project, I would love to be able to plan my sprints within the tool and manage user stories, use cases, and test cases within the tool itself without the need to use any other tool.

I've been using Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect for approximately two years now.

It is a very stable product.

It is a scalable solution, and we currently have three system architects who use it.

We hope to increase usage in the future. We are a consulting company, and if we got a project that required the use of any of the features available in Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, then it would be the tool that we will be using.

We used MagicDraw and switched to Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect because it has a better UI and also has profiles and ready-made templates.

The initial setup was very straightforward; very easy. It took a very short amount of time, and we were able to have things up and running in less than a day.

I implemented it myself.

We absolutely feel that Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect provides a good ROI.

We have an annual license, and it's very affordable.

It's a very good starting point and a very affordable solution with a lot of features. I would rate it at nine on a scale from one to ten.

I was using this solution to document a Business Architecture, and including BPMN 2.0 Process Models that were then used to create Process Design documents. We were running V13.0 in an internal network with the then third-party product, and Prolaborate. The implementation of Prolaborate was in a test environment and this became an increasingly frustrating problem.

We were able to produce a range of Process-based reports that were published to Confluence reports, as well as our Business and Processes Architectures, for use by a large internal program. The Business end-users and external vendors seemed happy with the outcomes, although some members of the program management team struggled to understand the importance of these documents. 

The most valuable features are the flexibility and adaptability of Sparx Enterprise Architect. However, these aspects come at a cost of complexity in configuration and management of customization. 

Using EA involves a steep learning curve if you want to understand its capabilities and functionality.

Providing more detailed information about how to configure and adapt EA for consumption by users with less technical knowledge or experience would be helpful. Plus, provide online training that covers the basics of as well as more advanced topics. An introduction on how to do the basic configuration for the non-technical users would also be of benefit.

I was employed on contract by this company, but I had previously used Orbus iServer for Process modeling and developing Business and Enterprise Architecture artifacts. This company had previously used Visio. 

You can search for Business and Process Architects, who have limited technical expertise, and that can be a challenge. In that sense, we were very lucky to have a fantastic team of consultants, who had vast experience and knowledge in how to configure and adapt to meet our needs. They were also able to give us guidance when we were going down the wrong path.

In terms of cost, Sparx EA is probably one of the cheapest tools I have ever used. However, study the most important versions of EA before you buy it. I'd also recommend that you buy the edition up from the version you think you need, as we found that was an issue in our early days.

I wasn't involved in the selection and acquisition process. Since I began in this role, I have been working with SaaS products, such as Signavo's suite of products. In my view, these products are far more usable than client-server products, in terms of getting projects underway and using them in workshops. However, I think that they are not as versatile and functional as products such as EA, although they are rapidly catching up with desktop products.

1. Modeling to the Open Group’s Archimate specification
2. Model objects stored to a database for analytical purposes
   
3. TOGAF and Zachmann frameworks reinforce method-specific content models, etc.
   

1. Sparx EA is used to capture the current state of technology systems as it pertains to the business infrastructure and application components, and how they combine to support the business needs and goals
2. Similarly, it captures the planned state for projects that are delivering change
3. Similarly, it captures the planned state for projects that are delivering change

1. The product inherently does not support analysis of the models. For example, to determine what business processes will be impacted by work on a specific server requires a person knowledgeable in the notation to manually perform the analysis.
2. Documents generated from the product leave a bit to be desired.
   

Over one year

There are various add-on components depending on what features/version you buy. Trying to install all products as a non-admin did create challenges. Otherwise, installation with admin privileges was uneventful. Installation of the product’s database schema to the database was simple and the subsequent use of the database as a store for modeling data was easy.

No the product is generally very stable.

No. This product is a desktop tool and generally would not have any scalability issues unless using a centralized service, such as a database server.

No customer service has been needed in the one year of service.

No technical support has been needed in the one year of service.

Other solutions in earlier years. This product was an initial purchase for this need and did not replace any other product within this context.

Installation was straightforward for all components and configurations.

In house implementation.

The nature of this product did not justify an ROI but given a typical fully burdened rate for employee time, the sub-$1000 price tag is quickly recovered.

List price for EA Ultimate Edition was just under $1000/seat perpetual license. Use of a shared Microsoft SQL Server as a repository adds approximately $2.00/day for all EA users based on the company’s negotiated license fee.

Archimate from the Open Group as well as other more robust EA products, both open source and proprietary.

This is really just a modeling tool. Despite its name it does not really compare to to other “enterprise architecture” tools from companies such as Orbus, and Troux. That said the product offers full development life-cycle modelling in addition to some project management tie-ins.

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.