Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Valuable Features
I didn't have any problems in terms of the stability of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect. I also found the tool easy to set up.
View full review »PO
Piotr Olechno
IT Project Leader at Bank Millennium SA
I personally find the tool quite powerful tool and benefical, especially given its modeling features and traceability. However, I rarely use this tool now due to my management position.
View full review »AH
andhdo
Software Architect at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
If you compare the price of MEGA HOPEX with Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, Sparx is cheaper.
It's a very practical solution. You don't need to do an advanced course to start using this tool.
It offers great intricacy. You can really do many kinds of models. You don't have to design certain designs in another tool. It even allows enterprise architecture to be modeled within it.
The solution is very user-friendly. When you draw a diagram to model the architecture, it's very flexible. If you have a double standard, you can use the tool. You can use UML Ultimate if you like. If you have a different set of standards for certain models, you can put those in.
The documentation and the articles they have on offer are pretty decent.
Buyer's Guide
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
767,995 professionals have used our research since 2012.
TW
Terry Watts
Software Developer at RowdenSoftwareSolutions Ltd.
- Mind mapping as a top-level tool for conceptual brainstorming and identification of key concepts in the conceptual model.
- Use cases / scenarios / activity diagram generation
- The fact that it’s very easy to create child diagrams in diagrams and so keep each diagram clear, focussed, and not bloated. This is very important and a powerful aid in clarifying the model
- Easy forward and reverse engineering - to code and DB design/implementation is an iterative process so there is a real use case for a tool like EA to make the update process very easy
- It's possible to write stored procedures in the EA SQL database to extract steps that can be used as code comments to structure the code directly from activity diagrams. This is something I find really useful to speed up the coding and keep it aligned with the low-level design.
- There are some powerful ideas code generation templates and transforms. Sparx has made the EA object model available so you can add your own popup menu items etc. It is very customizable for the power user.
PK
Peter Krall
Solution Architect at Rewe Group (toom Baumarkt GmbH)
The solution offers different types of models and features apart from diagrams. It also supports giant patterns for software systems with a high level of extraction independent from implementation networks.
View full review »SM
ShahidMahmood
Enterprise Solution Architect at Freelancer
Sparx has got a range of modeling features, and I am comfortable with all its offering. I've used a lot of tools over the phone. I found EA Spark, probably the most feature rich product all in all compared to other products. The solution is very cost-effective and that is its best feature. It's a very good delivery architecture tool, which also has enterprise architecture capabilities, and it's got full life cycle processes and software development. So for me, it's a pretty comprehensive tool
View full review »LZ
Luke Zhao
consultant at Government of Saskatchewan
I like Sparx's BPM features and the way it lets you create the diagram.
View full review »EN
Edward Nicholson
Director at Intelligent Enterprise Products
The features I find most valuable is the ability to create a document and then put it into a OneCare artifact. This feature allows me to share the visual I bring about with other communities that are not system analysts because not everyone can afford to have a copy of Enterprise Architect.
Additionally, the solution operates well as a whole and has very comprehensive capabilities.
View full review »RK
Roland Kossow
Entrepreneur-Consultant-Developer-Freelance at Dipl.-Ök. Roland Kossow
The best thing about the tool is that its database is open. It provides an integrated scripting framework for automation and it can be automated via COM with Delphi, Visual Basic, C++, or any other programming language capable to do COM automation. It is also possible to develop your own add-ons, so the tool is very well suited as a basis for your company-wide Enterprise Architecture tooling. You can integrate data from web applications or specialized FAT clients which you develop for Enterprise Architecture Management requirements.
View full review »IM
Igor Malik
Senior Solutions Architect Lead at a wholesaler/distributor with 1,001-5,000 employees
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.
Its model-centric approach makes it very easy to create documentation based on a template. Every company says that maintaining documentation is a very tedious task, and it usually requires subject matter experts. That's why companies rarely maintain documentation, but when you maintain the model, and you have the right processes and the right roles assigned, it can be naturally maintained. You can just simply produce a document by selecting whatever you need and in a format that you need. It is a very powerful feature.
View full review »RM
reviewer1763514
Product Manager at a construction company with 51-200 employees
Artifact templates are most valuable.
View full review »MH
reviewer1479141
Director, Strategy and Consulting at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
I think having some of the profiles and ready-made templates is an extremely helpful feature. This is one of the biggest features that I find very useful in Sparx.
The documentation and the help center within the tool are very helpful as well. They are written in much simpler terms. The examples are very clear, and the video tutorials are there. You can find a lot of video tutorials that can definitely help you to understand how to do certain tasks that you want to accomplish in Sparx.
I think it's very stable and scalable as well. It is also an affordable solution.
View full review »ML
Marc Lampron
Conseiller principal en architecture d’entreprise et de solution at Cronomagic Canada
The product offers very good support for all mainstream modeling notations and architectural frameworks. It has a very complete and coherent environment for business, architecture, and solution modeling. If what you need is not directly available, you can extend the modelings capabilities to suit your specials needs (TAG values, metamodel extensions (MDG), scripting, API interfaces, ...).
It has a very stable and performant environment. This a necessary capability for supporting a large number and varied kinds of modelers (Business architects & Business analysts, Enterprise architects, Information architects, Domain & Solution Architects, Security Architects, ...), all working at the same time on shared and live models.
The constant evolution of usability and integration capabilities: Nothing is perfect, but constant polishing and enhancement are reassuring.
View full review »JL
John Lamb
Director Enterprise Architecture at Stanley Black & Decker, Inc.
Version 14 menu organization is much better. Ability to ingest external artifacts with added metadata coupled with UML based modeling is moving the organization to a more digital way of working while preserving legacy artifacts.
View full review »DM
Daniel Michaud
Architecte fonctionnel at AAnnex
The pricing of the solution is pretty good. It's reasonable.
Overall, It works pretty well.
It's easy to create all diagrams.
It's easy to search within the solution.
It's very good software.
View full review »KD
Kim Dijkstra
Technical manager at Koninklijke Bam Groep N.v.
It is a very flexible product. It can do a lot. It is also a reliable product.
View full review »AJ
AnkushJain
Principal Consultant - DPA at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
SPARX EA is well suited for a client that does not have an Enterprise Architecture or Business Process and that needs to get started, so you can leverage the product right from scratch. You can import from Word and Excel. That is the best feature. The information is available in Excel and you can get started by importing the artifacts in the proper structure. Word documents can also be imported by using the proper plugins. It can be used as a jump-start for a team of five people that can share a common repository. This import/export reduced a lot of licensing requirements too.
AP
PalcsoAttila
CEO at SEP Consulting kft.
The advantages of Enterprise are that it's cheaper and much more practical than MagicDraw.
View full review »SR
reviewer1405377
Sr. Solutions Architect at a insurance company with 501-1,000 employees
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is very flexible and it is simple to define the metamodel. Additionally, it is lightweight on resources.
View full review »DS
Diana Small
Solution Architect at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
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.
View full review »DJ
DBJones_Aus
Process Architect at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The most valuable features are the flexibility and adaptability of Sparx Enterprise Architect. However, these aspects come at a cost of complexity in configuration and management of customization.
- Modeling to the Open Group’s Archimate specification
- Model objects stored to a database for analytical purposes
- TOGAF and Zachmann frameworks reinforce method-specific content models, etc.
MA
Muhammad Ashfaq
IM Consultant at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
It is a very rich tool in terms of the functionality and the types of diagrams that you can create in this tool.
It gives us many options to create many other types of diagrams.
View full review »NB
reviewer1383339
Enterprise Architect, Coach and Owner at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Sparx offers good flexibility.
View full review »IS
IvanSchotsmans
Principal at Mire Consulting
The most valuable feature of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is the value streams.
View full review »JL
reviewer1582014
IT Architect at a government with 10,001+ employees
This solution provides us with good integration between different notations. It also features good reporting facilities coupled with a concrete database.
View full review »IK
Ivan Karev
Business Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
The most valuable feature is that it provides tuning for multiple layers of enterprise in the business application architecture.
We can use the same tool for a different audience. It helps our enterprise architects in building their diagrams. It helps with the handling of the application architect when it comes to the development team.
It provides good utilization and it's a convenient tool for building exact architectural work.
View full review »RA
Riaz-Ahmed
FileMaker Developer, Agile Software Quality Analyst, Consultant, Trainer & UML / BPMN Modeller at ICONIX
The Business Process Modeling or BPM part is the most valuable. Its ability to simulate scenarios is also very useful.
It can also create descriptions of the workflows. It has a feature in which if you create some BPMN process, a workflow diagram, and the description inside, you can actually simulate the whole scenario, and you get the description. That's very handy.
View full review »AS
Anuj Shahi
Enterprise Architect at CCandC Solutions
I like it because it is very economical. Price-wise, Sparx EA is very low cost.
It is easy to use. Connecting entities is very easy in this.
It is an EA tool that is approved by Open Group. It is in the tool register of Open Group.
View full review »MS
MichaelSukachev
Sr. Enterprise Architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
The most valuable feature is the ability to keep an inventory of reusable blocks, and use them in different diagrams with views of various templates that are also available. It also has the ability to work as an add-on with Zachman Framework and a variety of other frameworks adapted to this product. It's a good UML tool.
MS
MichaelSukachev
Sr. Enterprise Architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
- Great adaptability to modeling needs of all organization departments: Business, Architecture, Software Development, and Systems Support.
- Kind of all-in-one solution (in a good meaning of it), through support for many standard modeling notations used in most of domains of the IT/IS. The list of supported notation grows constantly.
- Effective for Enterprise, Solution, and Software architectures.
- Ability to maintain cross-references for all models in all levels - great tractability.
- Versioning for all elements.
- Very attractive pricing and simple licensing model.
- Good set of the add-ons that grow and improve.
There are many, but the most important is traceability, and having the option to quickly drill down from a birdseye view to the little details, and back.
View full review »PG
Pawel-Gawronski
Enterprise Architect at Cloudera
I like that this tool contains all of my needs. I have AWS, GCP, and Azure icons. The tool assures collaboration, where my diagrams and graphics are automatically shared amongst the team. I also like the maturity of this tool, where I can present different layers depending on the audience. For example, is this a board or at the IT director level? or is it a developer? I can organize my graphics accordingly.
Another thing I like about the tool is the notation. Features like UML are available, so the tool checks things for me.
It's a stable and scalable solution. I like that it's similar to Rational Rose.
View full review »DH
reviewer1539018
IT Professional at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The TOGAF ADM model is most valuable. It is also very cheap as compared to other options in the market.
View full review »JS
Joshua Shoresh
Management Consultant & Architect at Contextual Focus Limited
For us, the solution is evolving still.
I find it performs as well as other solutions that I've used, like QualiWare's Rational System Architect. It performs quite well.
For the most part, we find that it is remarkable how inexpensive it is.
Overall, the solution offers very good packages.
The initial setup is easy.
View full review »PP
Paul Parisi
Enterprise Architect at Mobiliser
- Ability to manage a meta-model that support a single source of truth for models
- Ability to capture concept thinking diagrams (referred to as white boarding)
- Reverse engineering capabilities
- Collaborative functionality
- Ability to trace through from a requirement statement to impacted logic was extremely powerful to us
JH
Jean-François Houzeaux
Enterprise Architect at a consumer goods company with 501-1,000 employees
The variety of diagrams available is excellent.
You are able to combine different diagrams together and to use a UML component in a different diagram, for example. It's quite flexible.
The initial setup was pretty easy.
The solution is scalable.
We have found the stability to be very reliable.
The solution is affordable.
View full review »Automated document generation is a real time saver , no more cut and paste, no more keeping track of which diagrams are in which reports, no more last minute update panics. Just click a mouse and you've got an up to date report.
Customized profiles allow you to create entities that are custom engineered to your organization. Do you want to separate non-functional requirements into two types, say high and low priority, with each one having custom tags such as owner, why needed, history, date needed and authorizer for the high priority you can have it all built in to a tool set.
View full review »The document generation tool. The ability to define templates based on our corporate documentation standards and automatically generate documents at a click of a button is such a productivity booster.
View full review »UML modelling, XML generation import/export, design patterns, automated generation of documentation, XMI import/export. Benefits to the business accrue from adoption of model-driven architecture principles and practices. The tool and its features make application of these principles productive, efficient and shared by the architects community, thus helping achieve the benefits in practice
View full review »KS
Ken Sayers
Senior Systems Engineer at Elbit Systems Australia
The most valuable feature is the integrated data model, so if I change the name of an item, all models using that object are automatically updated.
View full review »Initially, I used the temporary license for capturing some initial requirements on a new project restricting my use to the Desktop Edition. This worked very well and was intuitively easy to use and produced some nice reports.
View full review »MJ
Maja Jakobik
Solutions architect at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees
Modeling is a part of my work, and it has a lot of standard modeling languages. It is quite wide, and a lot is possible in it. We are not programming it ourselves, but if you are into programming and developing software yourself, you can go further and do a lot with Sparx. You can work from the framework and go into the details.
With this solution, you get a lot of value at a low cost. It is also quite intuitive in terms of use. I like the use of it.
View full review »ED
Endre Domiczi
Owner & CEO at mentorITe
I like that there is support for software patterns. The reverse engineering part is a feature that I like. Not so much the code generation, but the reverse engineering and also that it can be extended.
You can extend Enterprise Architect by using JavaScript to extend the tools. I like the ability to make metamodels and some kind of domain-specific language.
There is something called Agent-Oriented Modeling and a student for which I was a silent supervisor created an extension for this in his Master's thesis. He was able to extend the tools by scripting.
View full review »RR
Richard Reiter
IT-Consultant at DXC
Its most valuable feature is the Zachman Framework.
MR
Michael Roytman, MBA Global Management
Senior Enterprise Architect at a individual & family service with 1,001-5,000 employees
- Available architecture frameworks
- Ability to generate documentation
- Forward and reverse engineering capabilities
- Extensibility
NA
reviewer1671987
Digital Asset Intelligence Lead at a construction company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Sparx has good functionality to tie back the requirements coming all the way up to the balance score card. The connection is good as well being reusable so you can tweak the system and change different elements in it, which actually cascade down and see the connections with the other elements.
KB
reviewer1632210
Owner at a marketing services firm with 11-50 employees
There are a couple of things. Price is one thing, but we also like the scriptability of it. We got into scripting it and automating tasks with it, and it is super duper easy to do and helpful. The API has improved over the years. We automate everything, and I love the automation aspects of it.
View full review »RH
reviewer1599021
IT Project Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
A feature I like most about Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is its ease of use.
View full review »- Data Modeling (conceptual modeling)
- XML schema design
- We use it to develop and maintain the Enterprise Conceptual Model, migrated from erwin a couple of years ago.
Outside of the diagram and project repository at an affordable prices the actual features included UML and re-engineering to build up documentation on existing code bases and databases for my clients. Later it became the ability to customize and support client and industry frameworks – the tools coverage. Now it is being able to support Enterprise level Architecture across all the domains from business to technology.
XMI Import and Export – allows for rapid extraction of model fragment to support reusable assets and model element transfer to other tools & platforms.
View full review »MV
ManonVan Rooijen
Innovative ICT Architect at a tech company with 201-500 employees
It has been a useful tool for modeling and testing automated processes.
View full review »JF
reviewer1355997
Business Owner at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
The product overall is quite good.
The initial setup is easy.
The solution is quite robust.
View full review »GM
George Mitchell
Data Architect at Élections Canada | Elections Canada
It is customizable, which allows it to be tailored to our environment. It provides several template frameworks. We can customize them based on control parameters to be used by all staff.
View full review »The RTF document generator and profiles.
The RTF document generator allows me to focus more of my time on architecture and less on word processing. I can produce up-to-date reports anytime at the push of a button and that is a (huge!) time saver.
The profiles allow me to customize the tool to the corporate environment instead of the other way around saving huge amounts of time and energy on trying to turn dozens of individuals into TOGAF, ArchiMate or Zachman experts, or even Sparx EA experts.
View full review »FP
Francis Pascual
Systems Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
- Support for UML diagrams – use cases and behavioral model
- Logical models
- Excellent documentation templates, like what you see is what you get
AK
AllanKowalski
Enterprise Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Automated reporting saves me a kazillion hours a week of cutting, pasting and editing.
Profiles and Stereotypes allows me to reduce the learning curve for newbies by 95%
The automated charts and graphs hold great appeal for business types and its ability to connect with so many other tools (DevOPs, Jira, etc) make it a great enterprise level hub.
View full review »- Open API, published database schema
- Report generation: Makes the tool easy to configure and easy to extract analytics/reports
- A large community with many examples and modeling standards supported, including UML, BPMN, and ArchiMate
- ArchiMate
- UML
- ArchiMate - motivational modeling for requirements management
- ArchiMate - business modeling
- Achrimate - information system modelling
- UML - data modeling and use case modelling
- BPMN - business process modelling
The UML modeling, Use Case Modeling, ability to import custom graphics and map to UML objects, document templates and generation. I would rate the solution as 9/10 as a "project team UML documentation" platform.
5/10 as an "Enterprise Architecture" requirements platform. Mainly as it lacks the ability (or I lack knowing how to) lock specific objects to specific uses.
View full review »DS
reviewer1468590
Software Engineer / Application Developer & Systems Engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
There are a lot of features in Enterprise Architect. It allows us to take on a lot of tasks.
The product has an easy initial setup.
The product is fairly stable.
View full review »MD
reviewer1441938
Process specialist at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
ArchiMate is a good feature.
This is a useful tool for IT people who need to design their solution architecture.
There are other features that would be good for Architecture.
View full review »We use it mainly for business process modelling, data modelling, and requirement specifications.
View full review »The possibility to use a common architect repository with a standard SQL server. Working with Archimate standards on the new open group Archimate Exchange format (XML) that allows us to use Archi for distributed archimate modeling in every important project and import those Archimate model to the common Sparx based repository and building a reference architecture for the whole company.
View full review »The way one can set up relationships between components. When doing architecture this helps to determine impact on the IT landscape when components are removed, moved and changed.
For software architecture the UML components are a great help. It also helps when creating code from the diagrams.
View full review »There are many of them. I like the graphical appearance of the elements. It is easy to group them and see the relations between them. The most valuable part is the code engineering, both for databases and source code. Using it, I can see the relationship between tables or classes.
View full review »- Teamwork support
- Price policy
- Support of many modelling languages
- Documentation generation incorporation
In terms of product features, I'm very happy with the support for UML 2 diagrams, Archimate, TOGAF and the collaboration capability using a RDBMS back-end. Because EA supports multiple models, the whole architecture team can collaborate using the same tool and develop our models from requirements to deployment on a shared repository.
View full review »In terms of product features, I'm very happy with the support for UML 2 diagrams, Archimate, TOGAF and the collaboration capability using a RDBMS back-end. Because EA supports multiple models, the whole architecture team can collaborate using the same tool and develop our models from requirements to deployment on a shared repository.
View full review »CE
Charles England
Solutions Architect at NT Health
- Ability to either offline with replication, documentation, HTML reporting
- The strength of the modelling and analysis tools.
OK
Olaf Kruidhof
Enterprise Business Architect at European Commission
I have found the Meta Model tuning feature useful as it provides me with an overview of all my work needs.
Ability to model and create view under same roof. The ribbon style editor coupled with capability to manage requirements, design and delivery in the same application simplified my life tremendously.
View full review »Easy and intuitive way of creating diagrams, reverse engineering tools for Java and databases. It also provides a centralized RDBMS repository for all models with automatic element level locking.
View full review »Class diagrams, component diagrams, and sequence diagrams. In our organization, we use Sparx EA for low level architecture which connects to the enterprise architecture. We use it to document information models using class diagrams and object models, solution/domain architecture using component and sequence diagrams.
View full review »- UML (Class diagrams, Use cases)
- XML schemas
- ArchiMate
- BPMN templates
As an analyst (i.e. IT Business Analyst, or Requirements Engineer), I’m in charge of the correct understanding of the clients’s requirements expressed in a very variable way, and for capture of these requirements in a structured Requirements Model. Afterwards, Requirements must be translated into an Analysis Model (Domain Model & Use Case Model). This work is done using the UML capabilities of the tool, with the added values of the Relationship Matrix and Traceability tool for a better control on the entire models.
The Reporting tool is easy to use, but it's considered as just a communication tool. The prioritization of use case development has to be done before workload estimation and planning. In the Inception phase, the Project Management/Metrics tool/Workload estimation tool is very valuable in order to dress an initial planning.
View full review »Support for different modeling standards in one package allows to have one tool for many roles.
The underlying data model that supports the models allows exposing architecture data to people who don't need or want to see diagrams.
View full review »Modelling and project-actual-state document generation. It is, as always, the most critical need of every project. Due to the presenting concept and impact analysis, this is a good tool.
View full review »MK
Mbuso Khanyile
Works at a tech services company
The most valuable features are the Business Process Management and the Architect.
View full review »MJ
reviewer1516407
System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
The solution is easy to use, supports SysML and UML, and is able to connect to MATLAB. This is very important for us.
View full review »- Use cases
- Requirements
- Test cases
- UML diagrams as sequence, class and others
RS
RobertSUZIC
Senior Technology Architect at BearingPoint
- Flexibility
- Open DB.
- It's generic-ness as you can batch edit objects
- Connectivity to all kinds of office documents because you can reuse your consisting work and link external documents
- Detection of requirement holes because large projects tend to be planned badly
- Completeness as because we do not need to use other tools
It supports multiple modeling languages like ArchiMate for database design, software lifecycle visualization, and team management. Merging all of them is a great feature.
View full review »It's like a repository. So far, we use it only for Information Modelling.
View full review »- Easy drag and drop
- Reuse the old copy
- Quick changes with minimal efforts
- Anyone can work on the same file
- File is small in size.
The business process management of Sparx is valuable.
View full review »- Its ability to reference and link to components from any diagram.
- The vast number of frameworks supported to get started with modelling.
Large variety of profiles and frameworks available out-of-the-box without the need for customization, and not locked into one way of doing architecture. Huge advantage as one works the architecture between business and technical communities.
View full review »I like to use this system, it is a handy tool for visual modeling that provides opportunities for analysis, design, and support of models using ArchiMate, UML.
The system provides powerful tools for obtaining reports and documentation.
There is a good community of users of this system, providing the opportunity to learn and share knowledge.
View full review »I struggled with most of the features for this tool, as did the rest of our architecture team.
View full review »Buyer's Guide
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
767,995 professionals have used our research since 2012.