We performed a comparison between SAP PowerDesigner 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."The initial setup was very easy."
"The solution is a very pragmatic tool. It's quite easy to use."
"Has a specific template that's very helpful for importing metadata."
"It's a stable system. It never crashes."
"In PowerDesigner, I primarily use BPM and modeling standards. I find it beneficial for process analysis, although I use data modeling to a lesser extent."
"The most valuable feature is that it is a very fast reverse engineering process. It does a very expansive comparison."
"It offers a lot of features in one solution. You would have to get multiple other products to bundle together all of the capabilities that you get in just this product."
"The most valuable features of SAP PowerDesigner are the creation the flow charts and folders. It is a powerful tool."
"Some of the business processes are very easy to compare when you have the diagrams."
"The solution is easy to use, supports SysML and UML, and is able to connect to MATLAB. This is very important for us."
"I have found the Meta Model tuning feature useful as it provides me with an overview of all my work needs."
"Scalable solution for modeling, project sharing, and collaboration. Support for it is good."
"Sparx technical support is good."
"Provides a single repository for all architecture work."
"For the most part, we find that it is remarkable how inexpensive it is."
"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."
"One disadvantage of SAP PowerDesigner is that you cannot reverse engineer the ALTER statements, so that's an enhancement or area for improvement I'm looking forward to seeing from the SAP team in the future. That should directly reflect on the physical data models my company builds."
"The focus is more on mainstream development environments, and I see a lack of focus on the open source world. I think SAP PowerDesigner probably interfaces better with SQL Server and Db2 but not with open source databases like PostgreSQL and MySQL."
"Connectivity can be improved because it's not very good."
"Checking-in models to the repository, especially when working remotely, is a slow process than can sometimes have problems with models being corrupted."
"The portal of SAP PowerDesigner could be better. The tool also needs more features and integration with other products, such as Collibra. It would be interesting for SAP PowerDesigner to have more integration."
"SAP PowerDesigner could improve by making the repository easier to understand. It is difficult to understand how the repository works because when I used logical models as part of the team, we wanted to use them together and update the older versions of the data model version but it was confusing. The repository needs to be explained."
"This product does not have a good BPMN Modeler."
"The solution itself does not need to be improved. However, they could add support for different languages."
"This solution should have better ease of use for the uninitiated."
"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."
"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."
"They should make the Save button easier to find. A simplified user interface for a lighter user would probably be useful. I am not sure if such an interface is already there."
"It would be great if we could decrease the use of different parts of the Toolbox."
"More challenging than other tools to maintain documents and document versions for an architecture board review."
"This solution has some limitations from a business perspective."
"I would like to see integration with Confluence or any other TRM, and the capability to integrate with the data storage, such as a repository similar to GitHub."
More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Pricing and Cost Advice →
SAP PowerDesigner is ranked 4th in Enterprise Architecture Management with 32 reviews while Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is ranked 2nd in Enterprise Architecture Management with 97 reviews. SAP PowerDesigner is rated 8.0, while Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of SAP PowerDesigner writes "Difficult to operate, long process to publish, but scalable". 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". SAP PowerDesigner is most compared with erwin Data Modeler by Quest, Visio, IDERA ER/Studio, LeanIX and MEGA HOPEX, whereas Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is most compared with Visual Paradigm, Visio, No Magic MagicDraw, Lucidchart and Avolution ABACUS. See our SAP PowerDesigner 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.
