We performed a comparison between IDERA ER/Studio 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."The most important features are logical and physical models that we can compare and develop. Also, the Data Dictionary can be created out of your studio. Finally, database schemas help understand the logic that's behind the scene, behind the SQL tables. Especially when there are a lot of them, the schemas help everyone understand the business processes."
"One of the valuable features is inheritance when joining tables. When setting up RI and domains and rules, ER/Studio does a lot of the grunt, boilerplate code that would otherwise have to be hand-coded."
"The most valuable features are... those that enable me to represent the database to the development community and the business users."
"The data modeling module is important to me because I am a database developer and designer... It's very fast, reliable, up-to-date, so easy to use, smooth."
"We can track changes to our data models and tie those changes back to specific tasks or efforts that we identify."
"When validating the model, the ability to provide sub-models to developers, and generate a physical model from the logical, makes it easier to review a logical model with stakeholders."
"The interface is really simple to use and it allows me to pick and choose which tables I want to reverse engineer."
"Using this product has improved the way we maintain our models because they have a place where we can keep all of them, and they can be viewed using the web interface."
"SAP PowerDesigner is fairly stable."
"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 initial setup was very easy."
"It can automate many routine tasks and save human resources to focus on real problems."
"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."
"It allows us to have proper documentation in terms of the databases."
"The most valuable feature is that it is a very fast reverse engineering process. It does a very expansive comparison."
"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."
"Tech support is a sticking point with me. I am really disappointed in the tech support. We pay for the Platinum level. It takes hours to get a response."
"The solution could be sped up, as it is a little slow (e.g., when it's doing its database compare)."
"I'd like the ability to debug the errors ourselves instead of having to call them. There are certain types of errors that, I wouldn't say they come up regularly, but when you have an error it is very often the same type of error. Knowing that it's a Type III or Type I, it would be nice to have some kind of debugging facility for us to use to find out where the problem that threw that error occurs. That would be a really cool feature."
"One limitation I have found in ER/Studio is that when you want to make some changes to the table definitions, you have to go item by item. You cannot do it globally. Another issue concerns defining the foreign keys between the different tables. It is a little more tedious in the ER/Studio than in ERrwin. With ERwin it is direct."
"Whenever there is a new version, there are a lot of release notes on the technical side of it, but I would like to be told why are we doing the upgrade... What I would like to really see is how this benefits us from the business point of view. What are the real benefits that the user gets? I want some kind of way white paper. The release notes describe the technical enhancements but, from the layman's point of view, if someone asks me what are the business benefits of this upgrade, I don't have any documentation to explain it to the business."
"The model diagram because very clumsy when you save it on the team server and the models are very big."
"What I would like to see improved is the reliability of the releases, releases that are a little less buggy."
"We did have a big issue when we upgraded to the 2016 version. The Team Server portion never did quite install correctly, and/or the database was corrupted, and we never figured it out."
"This product lacks artificial intelligence that should be very good in terms of automatically identifying the classification of elements."
"There should be a better usage of current hardware including multicore CPUs, higher resolutions, and multiple displays."
"I've tried to use Power Designer to bring in images, which didn't work very well at all."
"Not very intuitive or user-friendly."
"This product does not have a good BPMN Modeler."
"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."
"Regarding improvements, I suggest enhancing the connection between objects in process and data models. It's crucial to define the structure of objects, especially when dealing with standard frameworks like VMM. There should be better visualization of arrows between BPM and data modeling objects, specifying their structure and impact. For future versions, a feature similar to Bizagi, allowing users to see forms or SQL representations of objects, would be valuable for demonstrating and presenting project details to stakeholders."
"SAP PowerDesigner can improve the ease of use. It is not the best tool on the market because it is tough to navigate and use. A beginner would not be able to use it well, it requires some experience. If the solution was more user-friendly it would be able to be used by more audiences. I do not think many people are aware of this solution and they should use it."
IDERA ER/Studio is ranked 10th in Enterprise Architecture Management with 33 reviews while SAP PowerDesigner is ranked 5th in Enterprise Architecture Management with 33 reviews. IDERA ER/Studio is rated 8.4, while SAP PowerDesigner is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of IDERA ER/Studio writes "The solution has important reverse engineering features, but it needs a single sign-on feature". 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". IDERA ER/Studio is most compared with erwin Data Modeler by Quest, Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, Toad Data Modeler, erwin Evolve by Quest and LeanIX, whereas SAP PowerDesigner is most compared with erwin Data Modeler by Quest, Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, Visio, LeanIX and MEGA HOPEX. See our IDERA ER/Studio vs. SAP PowerDesigner report.
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