We performed a comparison between IDERA ER/Studio 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."This application does a lot of things, as do competitor products, but the main reason to go with this product was the ability to create many automations, where we can improve our work and our process."
"We have been able to quickly create models for our enterprise-wide databases, even when some of them are third-party databases."
"Modeling with Data Architect: We can quickly reverse-engineer a database from an existing database or create a model from scratch."
"We can track changes to our data models and tie those changes back to specific tasks or efforts that we identify."
"The most valuable features are... those that enable me to represent the database to the development community and the business users."
"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."
"Developing new dimensional models; for the data we're hosting, dimensional modeling is more useful."
"We found a lot of duplication, a lot of non-conformity in the way our databases were designed. By identifying these situations, we're able to go back in and try to create a more standardized solution."
"The best thing about the tool is that its database is open."
"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."
"It's a stable and scalable solution. I like that it's similar to Rational Rose."
"Scalable solution for modeling, project sharing, and collaboration. Support for it is good."
"Provides a single repository for all architecture work."
"The company has become more efficient and reduced its budget."
"We use it to develop and maintain the Enterprise Conceptual Model, migrated from erwin a couple of years ago."
"Using Sparx Enterprise Architect allowed my customer to detail and make the company's IT strategy visible and accessible to all. The system provided clear roadmaps for IT development and helped to keep up-to-date documentation of systems and processes."
"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."
"What needs the most improvement are semantic lineage and usability."
"When building the relationships there should be a little more flexibility."
"It would be helpful if they could create a generic JSON database type, as a target database, rather than a specific one like Mongo."
"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."
"when there are some links to the external databases, if this database is not structured it is not uploaded. It gives me errors and I cannot see the view that was created on this structure and I cannot change those views, even manually. It skips the views. I have to ignore those views. I cannot re-upload them because it gives me an error."
"The visual presentation is a little too colorful and seems that it is dumbed down."
"The screens are a bit outdated. They could use a new look and feel."
"The presentation graphics need to be improved in future builds."
"The database management area was not usable."
"The Portfolio Management features can be added in the next release. As it helps you to manage more portfolio of projects and architectures of cost projects on a portfolio level. This would be an important feature in the next release."
"It can be improved in the area of shared documentation. The idea is that the architecture tool can call back to an enterprise asset, pull that information, and link that as a sub-artifact."
"The UI is a little bit outdated. It should be more fresh and clean."
"Their technical support is not good in India. I wrote to them because I had a question, but I never got an answer. So, I just left it behind."
"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."
"When the model is large, it is a bit slow to render."
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IDERA ER/Studio is ranked 10th in Enterprise Architecture Management with 34 reviews while Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is ranked 2nd in Enterprise Architecture Management with 97 reviews. IDERA ER/Studio is rated 8.4, while Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect 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 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". IDERA ER/Studio is most compared with erwin Data Modeler by Quest, SAP PowerDesigner, Toad Data Modeler, erwin Evolve by Quest and LeanIX, whereas Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is most compared with Visual Paradigm, Visio, No Magic MagicDraw, LeanIX and Lucidchart. See our IDERA ER/Studio vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect report.
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