Avolution ABACUS vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect comparison

Cancel
You must select at least 2 products to compare!
Avolution Logo
2,760 views|1,395 comparisons
87% willing to recommend
Sparx Systems Logo
7,678 views|5,731 comparisons
87% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Avolution ABACUS and Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Enterprise Architecture Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Avolution ABACUS vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Report (Updated: May 2024).
771,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"There are plenty of features available such as the ability to test applications for issues and a user-friendly dashboard.""Scalable and stable tool for roadmapping and modeling, with a good dashboard, end-to-end impact analysis, and portfolio management.""It's more than just an enterprise architecture tool as it has a lot of nice features, e.g. messaging, simulation, etc.""The most valuable feature is that it has a customizable meta-model, which is key.""The product is easy to use and well-structured for the integrations we need it to make.""You can design using a diagram tool installed on your desktop, a key difference from other vendors.""The tool's implementation is straightforward as everything is readily available. For instance, setting up a portal is seamless, allowing easy publishing and access to data. However, integrating with other tools like BI, Power BI, or Grafana requires setting up pipelines between them.""The technical support is very good. They are responsive and the answers they provide are detailed."

More Avolution ABACUS Pros →

"Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is very flexible and it is simple to define the metamodel. Additionally, it is lightweight on resources.""Customizable and tailored to the environment. Several template frameworks are provided.""The most valuable feature is the integrated data model, so if I change the name of an item, all models using that object are automatically updated.""A feature I like most about Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is its ease of use.""The features I find most valuable is the ability to create a document and then put it into a OneCare artifact.""It has led some teams to do better code reviews - to be less focussed on coding conventions (syntax) and more focussed on the semantics because of the abstraction level clear design affords.""We can easily use it with our new customers.""It provides good utilization and it's a convenient tool for building exact architectural work."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Pros →

Cons
"It is vastly scalable but you can't run it on a Mac or Linux so it has limitations.""The company needs to update the UML version they are using for the product as it is quite old.""If they want to expand in the European market then they are going to have to improve their technical support.""The usability of the tool is an area with shortcomings that need improvement.""While this is one of the most powerful tools on the market it does not integrate well with Microsoft Office or others.""The tool doesn't have any intelligence built in. We have to design the dashboards ourselves, which is a challenge because we have to depend on the vendor for customizations.""It doesn't have the simulation capability, which would be helpful in doing some business process analysis and improvements.""Their local presence in the Middle East could be scaled more, particularly in customer service. It would be good if they'd also have mobile dashboards for executive management out of the box."

More Avolution ABACUS Cons →

"Not visually appealing.""Greater OMG UML and XMI compliance""Insufficient control of metadata and standards.""Its usability needs to be improved. For non-technical users, it is a little difficult to understand how Enterprise Architect works. Users who are not engineers find it difficult to understand how this tool works. This is something they need to work on. They can develop a BPM model to simulate processes.""The Business Process Modeling or BPM feature can be improved to make it more interactive and user friendly because it is a tool for technical people. My current use is only for business process modeling notation and putting in the icons etc. You need to take them in as a class, which makes things very complex. Because of this complexity, it is not an easy-to-handle solution. Enterprise Architect is not very good for mockups. We cannot create user screens and other similar kinds of stuff, which is bad. For these things, we prefer to use Axure RP and other similar solutions. They should either remove this feature from this product or provide some kind of connectivity with Axure RP so that people can do better mockups of screens and import them. They need to augment and strengthen the BPM feature, which is the main feature. They need to put in some elements like artificial intelligence and augmented reality. They should look into such features because these things are coming up.""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.""It really did not work for logical modeling. The look is very old-fashioned. You can't make the diagrams easy on the eye, so we ended up drawing them again in Visio anyhow.""In a future release, they should improve portfolio planning."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "This solution is expensive for some people's budgets and they need to offer a Lite version at a cheaper price"
  • "To get a fairly extensive license for Enterprise Architects from Spark is approximately US $400.00, maybe less, but with Avolution Abacus it was approximately US $2000.00 per year, and that includes maintenance with the Abacus tool."
  • "It is competitive. It is not chump change. I am just using the studio version. I am not using the full enterprise version, which would probably cost me three times more for single-use, but it gives a lot more capability and analysis. It is server-based as well, and it is reasonably priced compared to a lot of the other tools. There are other tools that have other sorts of capabilities, but in order to use them, you'd really have to have like 50 users for the price to become justifiable."
  • "There is a subscription for this solution. We are on an annual subscription because you sometimes receive special offers the longer you subscribe."
  • "I'm paying on a yearly basis. I don't know whether it's a highly expensive tool or not. I'm getting a single version of it, and I don't have the enterprise part on it because I don't need the server component, and I don't need a web browser component. My estimate would be that it's a very reasonably priced tool given that you don't need to have licenses with everyone in order to get the information and the decision support capabilities out of the tool. You use the enterprise edition on top of the studio, which is the heart of the tool. I am not aware of any additional costs."
  • "The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."
  • "The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
  • "My company makes annual payments toward the licensing costs of the solution. Considering the product's capabilities, its prices are very reasonable."
  • More Avolution ABACUS Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The Corporate Edition, or one of the bundles, is the way to go."
  • "Use floating licenses strategically."
  • "The pricing for ultimate version is steeply high."
  • "Licenses are pretty low cost compared to, for example, ARIS."
  • "It’s the best deal in town, by far."
  • "Pricing and licensing is very attractive, simple, and straightforward."
  • "Pricing and licensing are suitable even for small companies."
  • "In terms of cost, Sparx EA is probably one of the cheapest tools I have ever used."
  • More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Architecture Management solutions are best for your needs.
    771,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The tool's implementation is straightforward as everything is readily available. For instance, setting up a portal is seamless, allowing easy publishing and access to data. However, integrating with… more »
    Top Answer:Avolution ABACUS has the drawback of needing data filtering at the development level, unlike some tools that offer filtering at deployment. Two areas where Avolution ABACUS could be improved are… more »
    Top Answer:The stability has been good and satisfactory. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.
    Top Answer:It's reasonably priced for large organizations, though it may be perceived as expensive for individual users.
    Top Answer:In general, we now have a problem with Sparx Enterprise Architect because many analysts think it's too complicated to use in a giant environment. So, two years ago, it was used very, very often, and… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    2,760
    Comparisons
    1,395
    Reviews
    2
    Average Words per Review
    445
    Rating
    8.5
    Views
    7,678
    Comparisons
    5,731
    Reviews
    8
    Average Words per Review
    513
    Rating
    6.9
    Comparisons
    Learn More
    Sparx Systems
    Video Not Available
    Overview

    ABACUS is the enterprise architecture tool designed to have the quickest time-to-value. You can use it to build and maintain rich visual models from existing company data. ABACUS comes with standard industry frameworks as well as advanced analytic tools and best-in-class roadmapping and reporting functionality.

    With Avolution ABACUS You Can:

    • Strategize and analyze your organizational architecture with ease using data-driven diagrams
    • Enjoy connected data, models, and metrics across your whole enterprise
    • Work directly and securely in your browser, which is ideal for global teams and remote working

    Avolution ABACUS Features:

    • Modeling and roadmapping: ABACUS offers a fully provisioned modeling environment for enterprise and IT architecture, strategic planning, and digital business management.
    • Digital collaboration: Avolution ABACUS includes a feature that allows you to set up dashboards so you can tell data stories using business-friendly visualizations.
    • Portfolio management: Anyone can update their own data, which, in turn, reduces the workload of the enterprise architecture team.
    • Data-driven architecture: ABACUS’s data-driven architecture gives you the opportunity to design and automate key calculations using out-of-the-box or simple no-code algorithms.
    • Collaborative data management: Using this feature, you can save time with single sign-on (SSO) and AD Integrations; You can embed directly in MS Teams, Confluence, or other workplace social software.
    • Dynamic data visualizations: ABACUS’s graph view allows you to navigate through systems in a dynamic environment, as opposed to static diagram views.

    Avolution ABACUS Benefits:

    • Time efficient: Models and roadmaps automatically stay up-to-date, saving your organization a lot of time so you can focus on other priorities instead.
    • Centralized location: With Avolution ABACUS, you can connect all data in one place, keeping everything both consistent and accurate.
    • Full flexibility: ABACUS gives you full flexibility to adapt and configure your own metamodels with ease.
    • Complete visibility: Your whole enterprise can have visibility of the architecture through the use of digital collaboration and visually clear dashboards.
    • Machine learning: With Avolution ABACUS, you can employ machine learning to speed data management and analysis.
    • Spot dependencies: ABACUS helps your organization spot dependencies and impacts that might trip up your projects.
    • Fully customizable: Avolution ABACUS is fully customizable; Select, configure, or adapt your repository and metamodel. You can also automate metrics and analytics specific to your business.

    Reviews from Real Users:

    Andre W., Enterprise Architect at Enterprise Architecture Perspectives, says, "The most valuable feature is that it has a customizable meta-model, which is key.”

    The Lead Enterprise Domain Architects at a financial services firm feels that "The product is easy to use and well-structured for the integrations we need it to make.”

    "There are plenty of features available, such as the ability to test applications for issues and a user-friendly dashboard,” says Suresh T., Enterprise Digital Solution Architect at a tech services company.

    Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is an enterprise solution that helps streamline, accelerate, and integrate software, system, and business development. With this intuitive modeling and design solution, enterprises can stay in control of their workplaces, enable collaboration, support their teams and colleagues, and manage complex projects. Software architects, business analysts, project managers, developers, support staff, and testers can unite under a single repository. Through numerous view points and potential sub-systems, users are offered a unified view in a complex environment.

    With Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, users are also offered a shared model option which can be accessed quickly and securely by in-office and remote team members through the Enterprise Architect’s Pro Cloud Server. Building a coherent, verifiable model can be done by connecting and integrating a variety of behavioral and structural information in visual form. As a result, Enterprise Architect offers high performance, flexibility, and the ability to model, manage, and trace every stage of the business development and modeling process.

    Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Features

    Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect assists in creating a unified and accessible vision in business development by offering a flexible platform with a unique set of rich features. These features include:

    • Test and debug - Streamline software development and visualize software with the simulation process. Users can test and confirm correct behavior, set and oversee test points, and debug and examine software.
    • Track tasks - Track, prioritize, and assign individual and group tasks to assist in the model’s development. Users can visually monitor their progress through the Gantt chart.
    • Open standards - Users can visualize and analyze running software with integrated custom tools. They can also run advanced simulations, team-based repositories, testing tools, and version control. In addition, the solution supports enterprise architecture frameworks such as UPDM and TOGAF.
    • Simulation - Create and debug embedded solutions by simulating behaviors and state models. Users can specify events, triggers, constraints, and more. Users can also specify extensive and complex structural systems and create custom domain-specific solutions.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect merges high-end tools, online availability, a dedication to open standards, and accessible pricing so enterprises can stay in control of their workplaces, whether remote or in-office. Users particularly like the architectural frameworks and the scalability.

    Marc L., a principal architecture enterprise solution adviser at Cronomagic Canada, notes, "The product offers very good support for all mainstream modeling notations and architectural frameworks."

    An enterprise architect at a manufacturing company writes, "Scalable solution for modeling, project sharing, and collaboration. Support for it is good."

    Sample Customers
    Barclays
    OmniLink
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Government75%
    Financial Services Firm25%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm17%
    Government14%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Educational Organization6%
    REVIEWERS
    Government16%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Energy/Utilities Company9%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization14%
    Government11%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Computer Software Company10%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise56%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business13%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise71%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise62%
    Buyer's Guide
    Avolution ABACUS vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Avolution ABACUS vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    771,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Avolution ABACUS is ranked 8th in Enterprise Architecture Management with 14 reviews while Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is ranked 2nd in Enterprise Architecture Management with 97 reviews. Avolution ABACUS is rated 8.0, while Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Avolution ABACUS writes " An out of the box tool that creates reports on the fly that can help your client make better decisions". 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". Avolution ABACUS is most compared with LeanIX, MEGA HOPEX, Visio, ARIS BPA and BiZZdesign HoriZZon, whereas Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is most compared with Visual Paradigm, Visio, No Magic MagicDraw, Lucidchart and erwin Data Modeler by Quest. See our Avolution ABACUS vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect report.

    See our list of best Enterprise Architecture Management vendors.

    We monitor all Enterprise Architecture Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.