We performed a comparison between erwin Data Modeler by Quest and IDERA ER/Studio 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.
"The generation of DDL saved us having to write the steps by hand. You still had to go in and make some minor modifications to make it deployable to the database system. However, for the data lineage, it is very valuable for tracing our use of data, especially personal confidential data through different systems."
"erwin has versioning so you can keep versions, over time, of those models and you can compare any version to any version. If you're looking at a specific database and you want to see what changed over time, that's really useful. You can go back to a different version or connect that to your change-control processes so you can see what was released when."
"Forward engineering, DDL generation, reverse engineering, and reporting are the most valuable features of the solution."
"When you're getting down to the database level, where you're building a design and you're creating DDL out of it, or you're going in the other direction where you're reaching into system catalogs and bringing things back, that starts to really require specialization. Visio isn't going to reverse-engineer that for you. Those features in erwin are valuable."
"It allows us to create logical data models. We can represent a database model in business terms, which is very useful for us."
"It provides flexibility with the code. You can change the code as you want. Basically, you can change SQL based on what's best for your project."
"The logical model gives developers, as well as the data modelers, an understanding of exactly how each object interacts with the others, whether a one-to-many, many-to-many, many-to-one, etc."
"The solution's ability to compare and synchronize data sources with data models is fantastic. We use it for that on a regular basis to make sure that changes haven't been made to the database outside of the modeling process. I can take existing databases and reverse engineer them and understand their structure within 15 minutes. If I didn't have Data Modeler it would take hours. It increases our productivity and helps in understanding our legacy application."
"We are able to document the data lineage and data flows of our data from one system to another."
"It's much easier to develop the database structure and change it on the fly, rather than doing it manually in SQL Server itself. That saves time."
"We have been able to quickly create models for our enterprise-wide databases, even when some of them are third-party databases."
"It does the job."
"It's easy to model and has a user-friendly interface. I like the team portal because, once we upload, the entire team can see the model."
"Using this product has improved the way we maintain our models because they have a place where we can keep all of them, and they can be viewed using the web interface."
"The data modeling and reverse engineering features are most important to us."
"The interface is really simple to use and it allows me to pick and choose which tables I want to reverse engineer."
"It would be nice to have it on the Linux platform, not just Windows. If they can support Linux, there would be a huge market for it."
"It does not have a cloud application."
"The report generation has room for improvement. I think it was version 8 where you had to use Crystal Reports, and it was so painful that the company I was with just stayed on version 7 until version 9 came out and they restored the data browser. That's better than it was, but it's still a little cumbersome. For example, you run it in erwin, then export it out to Excel, and then you have to do a lot of cosmetic modification. If you discover that you missed a column, then you would have to rerun the whole thing. Sometimes what you would do is just go ahead and fix it in the report, then you have to remember to go back and fix it in the model. Therefore, I think the report generation still could use some work."
"There is a lack of local support in the China region."
"I love the product. I love the ability to get into the code, make it automated, and make it do what I want. I would like to see them put some kind of governance over the ability to make changes to the mart tables with the API, so that instead of just using the modeler's rights to a table -- it has a separate set of rights for API access. That would give us the ability to put governance around API applications. Right now a person with erwin and Excel/VBA has the ability to make changes to models with the API if they also have rights to make changes to the model from erwin. It's a risk."
"I'd really like to see the PDF function become available. It would make my life much easier than what it is at the moment because whenever I need to collaborate with people that do not have erwin, I have to go through the wonkiness of going to Word and then save it from Word into PDF. There's a lot of differences between erwin 4.4 and 2020."
"I would like the solution to be less rigid in terms of its theory."
"I would like to see the reporting capabilities be more dynamic and more inclusive of information. The API is very sparsely understood by people across the user community."
"When building the relationships there should be a little more flexibility."
"One limitation I have found in ER/Studio is that when you want to make some changes to the table definitions, you have to go item by item. You cannot do it globally. Another issue concerns defining the foreign keys between the different tables. It is a little more tedious in the ER/Studio than in ERrwin. With ERwin it is direct."
"The number of options can be overwhelming at times. That is not necessarily a bad thing but for a newbie, it can be daunting."
"when there are some links to the external databases, if this database is not structured it is not uploaded. It gives me errors and I cannot see the view that was created on this structure and I cannot change those views, even manually. It skips the views. I have to ignore those views. I cannot re-upload them because it gives me an error."
"Tech support is a sticking point with me. I am really disappointed in the tech support. We pay for the Platinum level. It takes hours to get a response."
"The model diagram because very clumsy when you save it on the team server and the models are very big."
"The screens are a bit outdated. They could use a new look and feel."
"What I would like to see improved is the reliability of the releases, releases that are a little less buggy."
erwin Data Modeler by Quest is ranked 3rd in Enterprise Architecture Management with 37 reviews while IDERA ER/Studio is ranked 10th in Enterprise Architecture Management with 34 reviews. erwin Data Modeler by Quest is rated 8.6, while IDERA ER/Studio is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of erwin Data Modeler by Quest writes "The product lets users import different types of models, but it is expensive, and the interface must be improved". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IDERA ER/Studio writes "The solution has important reverse engineering features, but it needs a single sign-on feature". erwin Data Modeler by Quest is most compared with SAP PowerDesigner, Lucidchart, Visio, Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and AWS Well-Architected Tool, whereas IDERA ER/Studio is most compared with SAP PowerDesigner, Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, Toad Data Modeler, erwin Evolve by Quest and LeanIX. See our IDERA ER/Studio vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest report.
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