Alfabet Enterprise Architecture Management vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect comparison

Alfabet Enterprise Architecture Management vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Download the complete report

Helped 787,061 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

Alfabet Enterprise Architec...

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

14th

Average Rating

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

2nd

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Design (4th)

Market share comparison

As of June 2024, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the market share of Alfabet Enterprise Architecture Management is 2.1% and it decreased by 10.3% compared to the previous year. The market share of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is 14.7% and it decreased by 32.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Architecture Management

Unique Categories:

No other categories found

Business Process Design

9.8%

Featured Reviews

it_user1060512

IT Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Sep 3, 2019

A stable, scalable solution with good management functionality

We only used the solution for a few months because it was only a proof of concept and since it was really expensive, we decided to choose another solution. We tested the solution for three months. Our organization used the private cloud deployment model from the software agent. In terms of advice, I would say, that, as for any other product like this, to start slow. You should start with a small data model, and focus on improving it step by step. I would rate the solution eight out of ten. If it weren't for the pricing, I would probably rate it higher.

Read full review

Piotr Olechno

IT Project Leader at Bank Millennium SA

Feb 20, 2024

Powerful tool when it comes to modeling features and traceability

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 it was a basic tool in the organization. Now, there's a discussion. Is it worth using Enterprise Architect in the company? We need a better, lighter tool to create, for instance, user storage. So, our company is at a specific stage in our product development or software development, where there are some people who want to use it in connection with something like Papyrus, for instance. For engineering, it's not a good description because it's complicated and for analysts in a dry environment. In the agile environment, the analyst focuses on use cases or creating user stories for support. It's not user-friendly for them. It is not not user-friendly. But in general, it's complicated for very simple activities. For example, when we know and use Enterprise Architect well, and we can use all these features for such analysts, it's no problem to use it. But new analysts, modern analysts who work in a giant environment, don't want to learn how to use Enterprise Architect in the environment because they think it's too complicated and has too many functions. There should be ways to find what you need easily and use only the functions relevant to our project. For example, if we're just analyzing a small project, we don't necessarily need tracing or tons of diagrams. We've also had issues installing the Proof of Concept (POC) for Sparx Prolaborate. Many people found it overly complicated and needed improvement. Overall, user-friendliness is a major pain point for Sparx in my company. So, Sparx could look at similar products with a more user-friendly interface in the industry. There are people who use Enterprise Architect religiously, and there are others who prefer simpler tools like point UML for just drawing diagrams. It depends on the needs of the project. Another point for improvement would be enhancing the versioning of models. Although there's a way to establish timelines, it's not as powerful as it could be.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The most valuable features of this solution are its customizability, and flexibility in the configuration."

"The taxonomy support across all the phases is the most advantageous feature."

"The initial setup was straightforward. It takes two to three days to set up the environment. One person was able to handle the implementation."

"Using Sparx Enterprise Architect allowed my customer to detail and make the company's IT strategy visible and accessible to all. The system provided clear roadmaps for IT development and helped to keep up-to-date documentation of systems and processes."

"Sparx offers good flexibility."

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

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

"Provides a single repository for all architecture work."

"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."

"It's a very practical solution. You don't need to do an advanced course to start using this tool."

"It's like a repository. So far, we use it only for Information Modelling."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect pros

Cons

"The user experience, the layout and the different technologies behind the presentations are a bit old. These need to be updated. They should focus on web development. It's simply not supporting the current user experience guidelines."

"The product is not great at implementing security frameworks across an end-to-end supply chain."

"We would like to see the visualization of assets, as well as artificial intelligence techniques to assist us in making our decisions."

"The solution's interface could be more straightforward."

"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."

"Inconsistent UI elements must be tidied up with the toolbox gaps removed."

"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."

"I think the product is good. When I'm trying to do something specific for some part of project documentation, it's hard to get it figured out if you don't use it all the time. It's such a massive tool, it's hard to figure out how to dig in and get to the documentation where you have to be to get some idea of what to do. There are not a lot of examples that I'm aware of to be able to do that."

"The fact that you can do a lot yourself is a plus point, but it also becomes a challenge because you need an understanding of the programming languages to get things to work. It becomes challenging for those who are not very good at programming. You have standard reports, but if you want to make your own reports, you have to program it. Similarly, if you want validations rules, you have to take care of them yourself."

"Because its easy to create diagrams one needs to be vigilant on the housekeeping of orphaned fragments - I have written my own scripts to do this, maybe they are available now."

"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."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"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."

"We had a yearly license."

"They have the price on their site for the enterprise version, and we do receive a small discount."

"The pricing for ultimate version is steeply high."

"We paid 1200 euros as a once-off cost. All add ons and integrations come at an additional cost."

"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."

"Use floating licenses strategically."

"The solution is quite expensive."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Architecture Management solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

787,061 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Educational Organization

14%

Government

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Alfabet Enterprise Architecture Management?

The taxonomy support across all the phases is the most advantageous feature.

What needs improvement with Alfabet Enterprise Architecture Management?

The ability for Alfabet to acknowledge use cases that are specifically business-based and not technology-based and better integrate those process designs across the spectrum could be improved. The ...

What is your primary use case for Alfabet Enterprise Architecture Management?

I work for a systems integrator and we are end users. Organizations using this product are enterprise-size, our largest customer has 30,000 users. One customer had use cases built on sourcing raw m...

What do you like most about Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?

The stability has been good and satisfactory. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?

It's reasonably priced for large organizations, though it may be perceived as expensive for individual users.

What needs improvement with Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?

LeanIX vs Alfabet Enterprise Architecture Management

Comparisons

Compared 38% of the time

MEGA HOPEX vs Alfabet Enterprise Architecture Management

Compared 15% of the time

BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs Alfabet Enterprise Architecture Management

Compared 14% of the time

iServer vs Alfabet Enterprise Architecture Management

Compared 13% of the time

More Alfabet Enterprise Architecture Management Competitors

Visual Paradigm vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 16% of the time

Visio vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 12% of the time

No Magic MagicDraw vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 10% of the time

LeanIX vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 8% of the time

Lucidchart vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 8% of the time

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Competitors

Product Reports

Enterprise Architecture Management

Download Alfabet Enterprise Architecture Management product report

Alfabet Enterprise Architecture Management report

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Download Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect product report

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect report

Learn More

Software AG

Video not available

Sparx Systems

Overview

Software AG's Alfabet Enterprise Architecture Management Platform provides a collaborative platform for aligning the IT landscape with the business to guide competitive transformation. You can describe complex IT systems in terms of their business, application, information and technical layers, and develop standards for change. Build the foundation for business-IT transformation with an accurate, real-time picture of the IT landscape, including all applications and technologies, the inter-relationships between them, the information they exchange as well as the business organizations and processes they support.

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

Metro Bank, Credit Suisse

OmniLink

Alfabet Enterprise Architecture Management vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect