We performed a comparison between ARIS BPA and SAP PowerDesigner based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Camunda, Software AG and others in Business Process Design."It provides the discovery functionality, and you can have a simulation on top of it to get your design corrected to ensure that it is within the right state of parameters. It is a complete package that you can use from strategy to execution because you have the design layer, and within the design, you can also do analytics."
"The most valuable feature in the latest versions is the connect portal, where you can do very simple modeling using the web-based portal."
"If you ever tried to draw a picture in a browser app or with a cloud service, it is normally a painful death. ARIS works perfectly on diagrams in the browser, so I was excited. I like it because there have been so many bad experiences in the past with drawing or doing something in a browser. Normally, it's always painful because it's coded badly. With ARIS, it is really well-implemented. It's simple."
"The capability to integrate all information of the business and to generate simulations of processes. It can analyze the model of operations quickly."
"The shared repository allows for cross-functional cooperation instead of doing things in a silo. You can operate cross-functionally and really work end-to-end, instead of dividing everything up on a functional basis."
"I am an advanced user. ARIS BPM is intuitive for me because I know the UML, BPMN, and EPC methodologies implemented in this tool. It is very easy to create processes for restructuring a company with some descriptions."
"The technical support is good."
"The whole ARIS BPM solution is a bit special, because from the very beginning it was targeted more to Business users and the Management."
"The most useful feature has been the detailed possibility to model almost anything regarding physical databases."
"I mostly work on the conceptual and logical side of things, and I enjoy how easy it is to use."
"The most valuable feature is that it is a very fast reverse engineering process. It does a very expansive comparison."
"Provides the flexibility to create logical and conceptual data models."
"It has helped me to develop the as-is state, design its to-be state, and track the capital investment according to gap analysis."
"Very good repository features."
"The most valuable feature of SAP PowerDesigner is the testing of the models, it has the best function. Reverse engineering is very helpful too."
"It's a stable system. It never crashes."
"The solution's processes are huge and it is not easy to get an overview of how things work. It needs to improve the interface. I would like to see the product include a better overview of processes and improve search."
"The reporting capabilities and the ability to create custom reports need to be simplified and made easy so that people even with a good functional understanding of the tool can leverage it to create their own custom report."
"If you want to create new reports then you have to use JavaScript, or ARIS script as they call it, which is beyond the competencies of most people."
"ARIS BPA’s usability could be improved."
"The standard out-of-the-box solutions for modeling are not so good. You have to do some configuration to make it easier and more user-friendly."
"I had this decentralization mission where I had some friendly fights with the consultants of Software AG. My opinion was the business department should be able to publish their processes and do all their evaluation stuff in ARCM themselves. It has to be a one stop shop. I want a one stop shop to go from ARIS BPM to ARIS ARCM, because having everything go through that would be an improvement due to the inputs that we made with Software AG. They will make it possible that the trigger sent from BPM to ARCM will start their object generation."
"The tool needs to improve its support since they take long to respond."
"The user interface could be more intuitive and better designed."
"Connectivity can be improved because it's not very good."
"I have found the solution not easy to use. When publishing you have to download the HTML, make adjustments against the updated HTML, convert it to HTML, then finally paste the HTML. There is not an on-the-fly function available to bypass the step-by-step converting process that other solutions have."
"Checking-in models to the repository, especially when working remotely, is a slow process than can sometimes have problems with models being corrupted."
"Not very intuitive or user-friendly."
"You have the possibility to complete a connection for abbreviations if you are creating columns or names of the tables. In the Citrix environment, this has been lagging to the point where the PowerDesigner was not usable."
"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."
"There should be a better usage of current hardware including multicore CPUs, higher resolutions, and multiple displays."
"In terms of improvement, the pricing is a bit high."
ARIS BPA is ranked 3rd in Business Process Design with 64 reviews while SAP PowerDesigner is ranked 5th in Enterprise Architecture Management with 33 reviews. ARIS BPA is rated 8.4, while SAP PowerDesigner is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of ARIS BPA writes "I can usually find an answer to my issue on ARIS Community". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SAP PowerDesigner writes "Effective in terms of validating everything, but sometimes they don't allow us some flexibility and GUI could improve". ARIS BPA is most compared with SAP Signavio Process Manager, ADONIS, Camunda, Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and Bizagi, whereas SAP PowerDesigner is most compared with erwin Data Modeler by Quest, Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, Visio, IDERA ER/Studio and erwin Evolve by Quest.
We monitor all Business Process Design 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.