We performed a comparison between Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and Visio based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Visio comes out slightly ahead in this comparison. Sparx users mention performance difficulties when dealing with large volumes of data. Sparx does come out ahead in the pricing category, however.
"It's a stable and scalable solution. I like that it's similar to Rational Rose."
"Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is very flexible and it is simple to define the metamodel. Additionally, it is lightweight on resources."
"Scalability is not a problem. You can always increase the footprint of what the thing can do because it's so powerful."
"We use it to develop and maintain the Enterprise Conceptual Model, migrated from erwin a couple of years ago."
"Its ease of use and the breadth of the toolkit are most valuable. It has an incredible repository of artifacts to work with, and they're all cross-referenced. It works with a whole bunch of different standards. It works with BPMN, which is Business Process Modeling Notation, and it also works with something called TOGAF, which is the Open Group Architecture Foundation. There are different layers when you're dealing with architecture. There is the user interface, application, data, data servers, and all that kind of stuff. You have the infrastructure, hardware, and software layers, and then you have the application and business capability layers. You can model a business process and decompose it into all of the applications, data, and hardware to support it."
"Ability to maintain cross-references for all models in all levels - great tractability."
"We use it to develop and maintain the Enterprise Conceptual Model, migrated from erwin a couple of years ago."
"Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect was easy to set up and it took just twenty minutes."
"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."
"What I like about it is that the templates are easily findable and usable, and they are usually created for other software packages. It seems to be pretty much widely adopted in the industry."
"I like that once you create what you need, you can group that, at least within that drawing, and you have access to that new stencil object or that custom object throughout that drawing."
"The most valuable feature is that it is integrated with other tools in the Microsoft Office suite, as well as at the backend with products like SharePoint and Microsoft Teams."
"The solution is easy to scale."
"A good designation feature."
"Visio has allowed us to create good diagrams for our technical employees to consume. The solution provides templates, is straightforward, and has tools for the easy creation of diagrams."
"It's a very flexible solution."
"Weak in regards to data modelling. No logical or physical modelling or migration from conceptual to physical."
"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."
"The Portfolio Management features can be added in the next release. As it helps you to manage more portfolio of projects and architectures of cost projects on a portfolio level. This would be an important feature in the next release."
"For data modeling, it is not very mature when comparing with other data modeling tools."
"This solution has some limitations from a business perspective."
"The areas of improvement should be focused on utility service such as producing better graphics, perhaps having a wider image library set and producing better models for working directly with customers."
"The reporting needs improvement."
"The documentation needs a bit of improvement. What I find is that when I'm trying to do something specific for some part of a project, in terms of documentation, it's kind of hard to get at figuring out if you don't use it all the time."
"Inventory feature could be improved."
"An area for improvement in Visio is pricing. It's a costly tool for my company because it only uses Visio occasionally."
"The solution's flexibility can be perceived as both a strength and a weakness."
"The solution could improve by having more integration."
"Its support team could be well-equipped with the required information."
"When you use a BPA solution you can open an end-to-end process in one window, go down, or go up between layers to different places. You should be able to see descriptions of the steps of the process."
"The platform has limitations in managing aspects like repositories."
"Sometimes, there is a little bit of a learning curve with it, especially while doing complex network diagrams and getting the lines to snap the way you want them and not overlap or be confusing. It would be great if there was a built-in tutorial. It is not that you can't YouTube, but it would be nice if they gave you some free training. I've been using it forever, but every now and then, I got to do something complicated with it and I wonder how do I do that again. Maybe they do have such information, and I don't know. I have not done research on it because a bunch of people work for me, and some of them are better at it than I am, so I just ask them to do this for me."
More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Pricing and Cost Advice →
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is ranked 4th in Business Process Design with 97 reviews while Visio is ranked 1st in Business Process Design with 100 reviews. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is rated 8.0, while Visio is rated 7.8. 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". 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". Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is most compared with Visual Paradigm, No Magic MagicDraw, Lucidchart, LeanIX and ARIS BPA, whereas Visio is most compared with Bizagi, Visual Paradigm, IBM Blueworks Live, Lucidchart and SAP Signavio Process Manager. See our Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs. Visio report.
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