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."It can automate many routine tasks and save human resources to focus on real problems."
"The solution is a very pragmatic tool. It's quite easy to use."
"It has helped me to develop the as-is state, design its to-be state, and track the capital investment according to gap analysis."
"The most valuable features of SAP PowerDesigner are the creation the flow charts and folders. It is a powerful tool."
"Has a specific template that's very helpful for importing metadata."
"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."
"I like the property sheet capability and the user-defined attributes that you can set up."
"Provides the flexibility to create logical and conceptual data models."
"It is a very flexible product. It can do a lot. It is also a reliable product."
"It is a useful tool for modeling and testing automated processes."
"We can easily use it with our new customers."
"The most valuable features are the flexibility and adaptability of Sparx Enterprise Architect."
"We could capture the process models around 24 countries with all their local variations."
"It is a handy tool for visual modeling that provides opportunities for analysis, design, and support of models using ArchiMate, UML."
"It provides good utilization and it's a convenient tool for building exact architectural work."
"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."
"I've tried to use Power Designer to bring in images, which didn't work very well at all."
"There should be a better usage of current hardware including multicore CPUs, higher resolutions, and multiple displays."
"The solution itself does not need to be improved. However, they could add support for different languages."
"It would be helpful if there were glossary, catalog and governance tools. It would help make it a true end-to-end product."
"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."
"The data governance should be improved, like ER/Studio."
"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."
"Not very intuitive or user-friendly."
"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."
"Greater OMG UML and XMI compliance"
"The stability and performance of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect could still be improved. Setup for it is also slightly complicated and could be improved."
"The areas of improvement should be focused on utility service such as producing better graphics, perhaps having a wider image library set and producing better models for working directly with customers."
"One room for improvement in Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is that it's not very friendly. Another room for improvement in the tool is that it doesn't enable you to import the metadata from a database very easily, so reverse engineering of a database was very difficult. Its database modeling and entity-relationship modeling functions need improvement."
"I have found the solution is lacking options. The general usability needs improvement and more compliance to CML definitions."
"Sparx can be a bit slow. If you are trying to design software architecture, sometimes we run into issues and need to refresh."
"When many users are accessing the system at the same time, Sparx slows down. It can't easily support a large team."
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SAP PowerDesigner is ranked 5th in Enterprise Architecture Management with 33 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 "Effective in terms of validating everything, but sometimes they don't allow us some flexibility and GUI could improve". 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.
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