We performed a comparison between erwin Data Modeler by Quest and Sparx Prolaborate 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."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."
"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."
"It reduces monthly savings by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Think about a company like Costco and all of the points of sale systems in Costco, all of the systems, the applications, but if all the applications in Costco all had their own data model, trying to integrate those, upgrade them and manage their different versions of the same model throughout the store, is an absolute nightmare. It's phenomenally expensive. This helps reduce that cost significantly. I'm talking on the orders of hundreds of thousands of dollars."
"The modeling portion of the tool is the most valuable. There are some notes, naming standards, and other functions that we use as well. There's a whole boatload of functionality in this thing and we use maybe 10% of it. It seems to be pretty common that not all the functionality is fully utilized. But it's just got gobs and gobs of stuff that you can implement if you so choose to."
"We had some data integration projects, where we needed to integrate it for about 100 databases. Doing that manually is crazy; we can't do that. With erwin, it was much easier to identify which tables and columns could be used for the integration. That means a lot in terms of time and effort as well as my image to the customer, because they can see that we are providing value in a very short time."
"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."
"What has been useful, I have been able to reverse engineer our existing data models to document explicitly referential integrity relationships, primary/foreign keys in the model, and create ERDs that are subject area-based which our clients can use when working with our databases. The reality is that our databases are not explicitly documented in the DDL with primary/foreign key relationships. You can't look at the DDL and explicitly understand the primary/foreign key relationships that exist between our tables, so the referential integrity is not easily understood. erwin has allowed me to explicitly document that and create ERDs. This has made it easier for our clients to consume our databases for their own purposes."
"Sparx Prolaborate is user-friendly, easy to use, and has good documentation."
"What is really powerful in Sparx is the way in which you can model business processes. You can link business processes to organizational objectives. You can also take those business processes and link them to specific product features that you want to deliver."
"It allows us to give a better description of our project than using the written word."
"Its extensibility is most valuable."
"It is valuable to have diagrams available in real time."
"In terms of improvements, support could have been better in terms of installation, especially of workgroups. We struggled quite a bit to get it up and running. Collaboration could have been better from an installation perspective, but it is trivial as compared to what we use it for. Other than that, I don't have much feedback. It works pretty well, and the fact that we've been using it for more than a decade shows that it is quite solid."
"Although Quest Software has made tremendous strides in recent years, they need to evolve more in the big data arena; erwin Data Modeler could use a little more work when it comes to big database designs."
"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."
"Complete Compare is set up only to compare properties that are of interest to us, but some of the differences cannot be brought over from one version of the model to another. This is despite the fact that we are clicking to bring objects from one place to another. Therefore, it's hard to tell at times if Complete Compare is working as intended without having to manually go into the details and check everything. If it could be redesigned to a degree where it is easier to use when we bring things over from one site to another and be sure that it's been done correctly, that would be nice to have. We would probably use the tool more often if the Complete Compare were easier to use."
"I would like to see the ability to support more NoSQL platforms more quickly. In addition, enhancing the graphics to render more quickly would be beneficial for any user."
"I would like to have more data sources from other, different vendors. In recent years, the vendor has reduced the number of data sources, and I would like to have more data sources for every brand. For example, with Oracle, I would like to have compatibility for many versions, including old ones, not just the most recent."
"In terms of new features, it would be great to have a cloud base. We should be able to put it on the cloud for better collaboration and data models sharing."
"The reverse engineering in Oracle Databases needs improvement, as there are issues."
"The product is not very user-friendly."
"A lot of product teams use a lot of visualizations for mapping out the product roadmap, brainstorming, or understanding the vision of the product, but Sparx is not a great visualization tool. Sparx has to improve the way for visualizing processes, journeys, software designs, etc. It would really benefit the product management teams or even enterprise architects."
"The solution could offer different sources for design."
"There should be more cloud capabilities."
"In the next release, there should be more editable objects. We find Sparx Prolaborate very user-friendly, and having more features that are in the Enterprise Architect would be great, such as managing different versions of diagrams."
erwin Data Modeler by Quest is ranked 3rd in Enterprise Architecture Management with 37 reviews while Sparx Prolaborate is ranked 19th in Enterprise Architecture Management with 5 reviews. erwin Data Modeler by Quest is rated 8.6, while Sparx Prolaborate is rated 7.2. 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 Sparx Prolaborate writes "Diagram are available in real time but edits sometimes require a manual refresh". erwin Data Modeler by Quest is most compared with SAP PowerDesigner, IDERA ER/Studio, Visio, Lucidchart and Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, whereas Sparx Prolaborate is most compared with Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, LeanIX and Sparx Pro Cloud Server. See our Sparx Prolaborate vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest report.
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