We performed a comparison between SAP PowerDesigner and Visio based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about LeanIX, Sparx Systems, erwin by Quest and others in Enterprise Architecture Management."The feature I found valuable in SAP PowerDesigner is extraction. I also like that my company hasn't faced any issues because of the clear documentation about SAP PowerDesigner."
"It allows us to have proper documentation in terms of the databases."
"I do a data-centric design, so for me, the data analysis and design tools are the most valuable features."
"In PowerDesigner, I primarily use BPM and modeling standards. I find it beneficial for process analysis, although I use data modeling to a lesser extent."
"The solution is a very pragmatic tool. It's quite easy to use."
"Has a specific template that's very helpful for importing metadata."
"Very good repository features."
"I've used the reverse engineering feature a lot. I can take a look at the structure of the database and what relationships it has."
"The solution makes it very easy to make exciting pictures and designs. Everything is very intuitive and simple to figure out."
"This is a very straightforward product and I don't think that anything needs to be simplified."
"It is pretty easy to use if you are looking for this type of solution."
"Process modeling is a good feature."
"It has a lot of great features."
"It's very agile and user friendly with a lot of templates."
"The solution is user-friendly."
"The thing I like most about Visio is the stencils. As the product has matured over time, it comes with more stencils and objects that you can just pick out of the menu and go with."
"Technical support needs improvement."
"There are many areas of this solution that needs to be changed."
"The user interface could be more user-friendly."
"It would be helpful if there were glossary, catalog and governance tools. It would help make it a true end-to-end product."
"This product lacks artificial intelligence that should be very good in terms of automatically identifying the classification of elements."
"Regarding improvements, I suggest enhancing the connection between objects in process and data models. It's crucial to define the structure of objects, especially when dealing with standard frameworks like VMM. There should be better visualization of arrows between BPM and data modeling objects, specifying their structure and impact. For future versions, a feature similar to Bizagi, allowing users to see forms or SQL representations of objects, would be valuable for demonstrating and presenting project details to stakeholders."
"One disadvantage of SAP PowerDesigner is that you cannot reverse engineer the ALTER statements, so that's an enhancement or area for improvement I'm looking forward to seeing from the SAP team in the future. That should directly reflect on the physical data models my company builds."
"SAP PowerDesigner can improve the ease of use. It is not the best tool on the market because it is tough to navigate and use. A beginner would not be able to use it well, it requires some experience. If the solution was more user-friendly it would be able to be used by more audiences. I do not think many people are aware of this solution and they should use it."
"The product's installation phase can be a difficult process if you don't have the deployment script with you since it is very important to know what you are doing when you are dealing with the setup process."
"The database modeling has deteriorated significantly in the more current versions."
"The performance sometimes lags and has room for improvement."
"Visio is not as scalable as other tools due to the proprietary restriction. You cannot customize it or scale it up like the way you do with Trello or Jira. Microsoft places restrictions on things that you can do with Visio."
"The solution could improve by having more integration."
"Visio could be improved by adding more features. If you look at draw.io, they have more features. Also, if you want to design something for the cloud, Microsoft Azure still isn't enabled, so you need to install the plugin. This prototype is easily available, though."
"The user interface could be simplified and easier to use."
"Inventory feature could be improved."
SAP PowerDesigner is ranked 5th in Enterprise Architecture Management with 34 reviews while Visio is ranked 1st in Business Process Design with 100 reviews. SAP PowerDesigner is rated 7.8, while Visio is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of SAP PowerDesigner writes "Effective in terms of validating everything, but sometimes they don't allow us some flexibility and GUI could improve". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Visio writes "A software for drawing a variety of diagrams which include flowcharts, org charts, building plans, floor plans, data flow diagrams". SAP PowerDesigner is most compared with erwin Data Modeler by Quest, Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, IDERA ER/Studio, LeanIX and BiZZdesign HoriZZon, whereas Visio is most compared with Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, Bizagi, Visual Paradigm, IBM Blueworks Live and iServer.
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