We performed a comparison between erwin Data Modeler by Quest and SAP PowerDesigner 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.
"Forward engineering, DDL generation, reverse engineering, and reporting are the most valuable features of the solution."
"The solution’s code generation ensures accurate engineering of data sources, as there is no development time. Code doesn't even have to be reviewed. We have been using this solution for so long and all the code which has been generated is accurate with the requirements. Once we generate the DDLs out of the erwin tools, the development team does a quick review of the script line by line. They will just be running the script on the database and looking into other requirements, such as the index. So, there is less effort from development side to create tables or build a database."
"The solution is good for organizing the data and the scripting part is very powerful. It's easy to create technical scripts for models."
"When you're getting down to the database level, where you're building a design and you're creating DDL out of it, or you're going in the other direction where you're reaching into system catalogs and bringing things back, that starts to really require specialization. Visio isn't going to reverse-engineer that for you. Those features in erwin are valuable."
"They have a lot of features and the most up-to-date technology integration, which I haven't seen in other products."
"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."
"The data lineage feature is very valuable."
"We can create mappings in erwin and possibly data dictionaries."
"The most valuable feature is that it is a very fast reverse engineering process. It does a very expansive comparison."
"It allows us to have proper documentation in terms of the databases."
"Very good repository features."
"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."
"SAP PowerDesigner is an excellent tool that does what I need it to do. What I like most about it is that it's stable, fast, and easy to understand."
"The physical database model is definitely the most valuable feature because it describes normalization exactly the way you understand the data, and it deploys it perfectly with open source systems."
"The initial setup was very easy."
"I like the property sheet capability and the user-defined attributes that you can set up."
"The only real complaint I have is the time it takes to do a database comparison on a large model. If they could speed that up, that would be the only thing I can think of that needs improvement."
"I would like to see improved reporting and, potentially, dashboards built on top of that. Right now, it's a little manual. More automated reporting and dashboard views would help because currently you have to push things out to a spreadsheet, or to HTML, and there aren't many other options that I know of. I would like to be able to produce graphs and additional things right in the tool, instead of having to export the data somewhere else."
"The reverse engineering in Oracle Databases needs improvement, as there are issues."
"It is not a very stable solution. I rate the stability five out of ten."
"This is a very complex product."
"The modeling product itself is far and above anything else that I've seen on the market. There are certain inconsistencies when it comes to keeping up with other platforms' databases in the reverse-engineering process. It should also support more database platforms."
"I would like the solution to be less rigid in terms of its theory."
"I find the UI very clunky and very difficult to use. If I add columns to a table the whole workflow could be so much easier. I get frustrated using it. I've tried other tools. I've tried to get off of erwin a few times. I always come back to it because every tool has its own set of problems, and it seems like if I have to pick my poison, I stay with erwin. But so many things that are clunky with it."
"It would be helpful if there were glossary, catalog and governance tools. It would help make it a true end-to-end product."
"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."
"There are some minor things that could be easier. We're writing up procedures to bring all the modeling back into one group as this reduces delays in production."
"The solution itself does not need to be improved. However, they could add support for different languages."
"This product does not have a good BPMN Modeler."
"UI could be improved by enabling simpler navigation."
"Connectivity can be improved because it's not very good."
"There are many areas of this solution that needs to be changed."
erwin Data Modeler by Quest is ranked 3rd in Enterprise Architecture Management with 37 reviews while SAP PowerDesigner is ranked 5th in Enterprise Architecture Management with 33 reviews. erwin Data Modeler by Quest is rated 8.6, while SAP PowerDesigner is rated 8.0. 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 SAP PowerDesigner writes "Effective in terms of validating everything, but sometimes they don't allow us some flexibility and GUI could improve". erwin Data Modeler by Quest is most compared with IDERA ER/Studio, Visio, Lucidchart, Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and AWS Well-Architected Tool, whereas SAP PowerDesigner is most compared with Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, Visio, IDERA ER/Studio, LeanIX and MEGA HOPEX. See our SAP PowerDesigner vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest report.
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15 years ago was the one time I chose to use PowerDesigner over Erwin Data Modeler was for a project where we have hundreds of pl/sql ETL scripts that needed to be run in a specific order for specific tables. PowerDesigner had the ability to store the pl/sql within the data model and prioritize/order the script run sequence. This meant that we could count on PowerDesigner to automatically generate the ddl and pl/sql code in the correct run order, rather than manually maintaining a spreadsheet with the script order and running each script manually, a VERY labor intensive process. I don't know if PowerDesigner still has that capability.
With all of the ways we have to program and perform ETL, Erwin Data Modeler has been my tool of choice for any other project throughout the years. Protecting intellectual property and transparently sharing data model information with other modelers by saving the the models in a centralized location (i.e. Model Mart) is important for any company. Making the data model diagrams transparently accessible via Web Portal is another important step in ensuring both technical and business users understand the structure and relationships of the data contains within a data store. Lastly, making the data model metadata available via the Erwin Data Intelligence Suite enables both technical and business users to completely understand everything about the data and data store: Business Glossary, Reference Data, Governance, Data Quality, Data Mapping, and especially automating data lineage and impact analysis.