We compared Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and No Magic MagicDraw based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
The key differences between Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and No Magic MagicDraw lie in their strengths. Enterprise Architect is praised for its robust support for industry-standard modeling languages, advanced visualizations, and powerful customization capabilities. On the other hand, MagicDraw stands out for its comprehensive modeling capabilities, intuitive user interface, and efficient collaboration tools. While both have received positive feedback on customer service, pricing, and ROI, Enterprise Architect users have suggested improvements in user interface, collaboration features, and performance, whereas MagicDraw users have highlighted the need for a more intuitive interface and better performance.
Features: Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect's valuable features include a comprehensive modeling repository, seamless integration with development tools, support for modeling languages, advanced visualizations, powerful customization, and extensive documentation. No Magic MagicDraw excels in its comprehensive modeling capabilities, intuitive interface, efficient collaboration tools, and support for multiple modeling languages.
Pricing and ROI: The setup cost for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect has been deemed reasonable and straightforward, with a flexible licensing process. On the other hand, users have found No Magic MagicDraw to be affordable with a hassle-free setup process and fair and flexible licensing terms., Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect offers substantial ROI based on user experiences, while No Magic MagicDraw receives positive feedback for its effective modeling capabilities, collaboration tools, ease of integration, and responsive customer support.
Room for Improvement: Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect needs improvements in user interface, collaboration features, performance, integration with other tools, and intuitive functionalities. No Magic MagicDraw needs enhancements in user interface, user-friendliness, performance, and loading times.
Deployment and customer support: The user reviews for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect indicate that users may have spent separate timeframes on deployment, setup, and implementation. In contrast, the reviews for No Magic MagicDraw show more variation in the duration needed for these phases, with some users completing deployment in three months and others in one week. The setup phase for MagicDraw also varied from one week to an additional week after deployment., The customer service and support for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is highly praised for its prompt, helpful assistance. Users have found the support team responsive, knowledgeable, and efficient. On the other hand, No Magic MagicDraw also receives high appreciation for its excellent assistance. Users commend the responsive, knowledgeable, and friendly support team. Both products offer prompt and thorough responses to queries and timely assistance. Overall, users express satisfaction with the level of help and guidance provided by both customer service teams.
The summary above is based on 16 interviews we conducted recently with Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and No Magic MagicDraw users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"The most valuable feature is the ability to quickly build multiple layers within the organizational and business process environments, as well as in the SysML product environments, and converting to files that can be accessed by clients who do not have a system and a teamwork server access."
"The MBFC capability of MagicDraw is higher than the other competitors."
"The technical support is very good."
"The beauty of MagicDraw is that it has a simulation part, so you can simulate your model to validate it. The simulation allows you to bring in code off of an external code that you can write to set up the simulation and execute the code."
"It is pretty easy to use. It is pretty versatile."
"The most valuable feature of No Magic MagicDraw is the simulation capabilities and interface."
"When you look at it, No Magic is an all-encompassing tool. You can use it for business architecture design. You can use it for deploying an ERP system across your enterprise. However, it was initially designed and developed for model-based systems engineering. That's the systems engineering required to either produce an IP system or product. It takes away the mounds of paper and puts it into a model. It enables you to generate significant savings by modeling that new product or that system before you ever start developing a prototype."
"I think one of the key things is the plugins for integration with requirements management tools like Doors"
"We have found the stability to be very reliable."
"Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is very flexible and it is simple to define the metamodel. Additionally, it is lightweight on resources."
"We use it to develop and maintain the Enterprise Conceptual Model, migrated from erwin a couple of years ago."
"Modeling is a part of my work, and it has a lot of standard modeling languages. It is quite wide, and a lot is possible in it. We are not programming it ourselves, but if you are into programming and developing software yourself, you can go further and do a lot with Sparx. You can work from the framework and go into the details. With this solution, you get a lot of value at a low cost. It is also quite intuitive in terms of use. I like the use of it."
"It's a stable and scalable solution. I like that it's similar to Rational Rose."
"I like Sparx's BPM features and the way it lets you create the diagram."
"It's easy to search within the solution."
"Features good reporting facilities coupled with a concrete database."
"There could be a trial version for students."
"For the next releases, I would like to have them import requirements from other sources. They could make it very easy to do that because there are a lot requirements management tools like DOORS, D-O-O-R-S, Dynamic Object Oriented Management. A lot of folks use DOORS to create a requirement. For those requirements you allocate them to a component in the architecture and a verification method for that requirement. It would be good if we could import those into MagicDraw as components so you don't have to manually do these things."
"One potential area for improvement is the recommendation feature. At times, we face challenges in locating specific features, and we have to reach out for assistance in finding the information we need."
"The licenses are expensive compared to similar tools. At the moment, the user is open to using MagicDraw if it's 15% more than other solutions. If it were to cost any more, they wouldn't use it."
"When I am working with my Mac and I right-click to copy and paste, it doesn't work."
"It would be better if the User Interface were updated. At the moment, it's a classic environment. It reminds me of the old Windows interface, for example, Windows 95. It would be better to make it more user-friendly. It would also be better if it could integrate with SAP solutions. It isn't easy to find experts in the field. It's hard to find people around the globe that have the necessary skills and expertise to manage this solution. For example, in our case, we needed someone with refrigeration knowledge that also knew how to use the tool, and that was a challenge. We also had issues relating to erasing. Sometimes, it kept it in the background and didn't erase it at all. We had to review the entire list to ensure that the item was deleted."
"There's lots of documentation. They process multiples of guides. They've got all kinds of guides and documentation out there, but it's kind of hard to find. There are a lot of videos. You can go to YouTube and find videos on how it's been used in different ways, but it just kind of scratches the surface."
"It's very focused on specific modern languages and it doesn't do necessarily general systems software engineering with diagrams. They should expand the diagram types for the languages."
"The integration could be improved."
"They should make the Save button easier to find. A simplified user interface for a lighter user would probably be useful. I am not sure if such an interface is already there."
"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."
"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."
"Its best features are not intuitive or easy to learn. Most companies I have worked with, when I see what they are doing with it , are not using more than 5% of what they could and should be doing with it."
"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."
"Inconsistent UI elements must be tidied up with the toolbox gaps removed."
"Sparx can be a bit slow. If you are trying to design software architecture, sometimes we run into issues and need to refresh."
More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Pricing and Cost Advice →
No Magic MagicDraw is ranked 10th in Business Process Design with 17 reviews while Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is ranked 3rd in Business Process Design with 97 reviews. No Magic MagicDraw is rated 8.2, while Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of No Magic MagicDraw writes "Pretty easy to use and versatile, but doesn't support code engineering and can be overly complicated at times". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect writes "Easy to set up and had no issues with stability, but it's not a very friendly tool, and its database modeling and entity-relationship modeling functions need improvement". No Magic MagicDraw is most compared with Visio, Visual Paradigm, Lucidchart, erwin Data Modeler by Quest and IBM System Architect, whereas Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is most compared with Visual Paradigm, Visio, Lucidchart, LeanIX and ARIS BPA. See our No Magic MagicDraw vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect report.
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Sorry, don’t know about NIEM differences, but there are related online materials: www.sparxsystems.com
www.nomagic.com
Glen
I’m not sure about the question. Is it about the difference between No Magic and Sparx or about the Niem Plugin? Niem UML is an OMG standard and the two tool vendors have developed plugins for their tools to enable the Niem UML specification for the communities using it.
From Sparx:
National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) provides a common framework that is used to define how information can be shared between systems, government agencies and organizations. Enterprise Architect's MDG Technology for NIEM helps you to:
* Create and develop UML-based Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD) models, by providing starter models, model patterns and a number of toolboxes for creating IEPD models and schema models,
* Generate complete IEPDs from your IEPD model
* Generate NIEM conformant schemas from your information models
* Import NIEM Reference Schema into your model
* Create NIEM subset namespaces, composed from elements of the NIEM Reference Schemas
* Create PIM, PSM and Model Package Description (MPD) diagrams, using the NIEM Toolbox pages
From No Magic:
NIEM-UML is a new standard being completed in the Object Management Group (OMG) with the support of the NIEM program management office, key NIEM experts and experts in modeling and model driven architecture.
NIEM-UML leverages the highly successful Unified Modeling Language (UML) standard to facilitate NIEM information sharing, reducing cost, time and risk while improving stakeholder engagement and reuse. NIEM-UML enhances the NIEM suite of specifications by providing a standard for:
· High-level and business focused representations of NIEM using UML
· A UML "Profile" which tailors UML tools to precisely represent NIEM
· The NIEM domain and core reference vocabularies as UML models
· Automated generation of NIEM exchange specifications (Called IEPDs –Information Exchange Package Documentation and MPDs – Model Package Descriptions) from NIEM-UML models, complete with XML Schema, catalogs and documentation
· Constraints to validate NIEM conformance
· Support for NIEM naming and design rules (NDR) 1.3 and NIEM Model Package Description (MPD) specification 1.0.
· Reverse engineering of existing NIEM assets into UML
Please rephrase the question if this does not help.
Best regards
Icky
I only worked in testing Sparx Enterprise Architect as a replacement for ERwin data modeler. I did not work with No Magic so I don’t know the differences. However, I found this pdf: www.uwm.edu.pl
I searched on differences between no magic and sparx enterprise architect.
Hope this helps. Good luck!
I do not know about plug-in but Sparx has six NIEM tagged values (architecture meta data)