SAP PowerDesigner vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
SAP PowerDesigner
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
SAP PowerDesigner (formerly from Sybase) is an enterprise data architecture modeling tool, used to Build a blueprint of the current enterprise architecture and visualize the impact of change before it happens.N/A
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect
Score 6.9 out of 10
N/A
Enterprise Architect is the flagship architecture management platform from global, Australian-headquartered company Sparx Systems.
$229
per license
Pricing
SAP PowerDesignerSparx Systems Enterprise Architect
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Professional
$229
per license
Corporate
$299
per license
Unified
$499
per license
Ultimate
$699
per license
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
SAP PowerDesignerSparx Systems Enterprise Architect
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
SAP PowerDesignerSparx Systems Enterprise Architect
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
SAP PowerDesignerSparx Systems Enterprise Architect
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
IBM Blueworks Live
IBM Blueworks Live
Score 8.8 out of 10
IBM Blueworks Live
IBM Blueworks Live
Score 8.8 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Blueworks Live
IBM Blueworks Live
Score 8.8 out of 10
IBM Blueworks Live
IBM Blueworks Live
Score 8.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
SAP PowerDesignerSparx Systems Enterprise Architect
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
7.5
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
SAP PowerDesignerSparx Systems Enterprise Architect
Likelihood to Recommend
SAP
SAP PowerDesigner allows our team of data modelers to work and collaborate from a single repository and single data dictionary. This helps enforce consistency as data elements are referenced in other objects. Prior to our use of PD, we might have an element named "ppt" in one table, "participant" in another table and "part" in a third table. By forcing everything to be used from the data dictionary, we avoid these situations because everyone has to go to the dictionary. And we are able to easily do peer reviews on models before they are released because we are collaborating through the use of the repository.
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Sparx Systems
Enterprise Architect can be used to capture business requirements, design and management of all successive models, algorithms, process flows/workflows, design of business data objects and other artifacts. The strong point is the ability to link the items in all models with each other, the more time the analysts and designers "invest" into making nice and clearly defined models, the higher the future pay-off by any successive changes to the systems. Enterprise Architect is not a good tool for capturing rather unstructured business requirements, use e.g. Confluence or other solutions instead. EA should comprise the extracted models with very little unstructured information. Management of the changes process should not be done in Enterprise Architect, rather use JIRA/Confluence or similar.
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Pros
SAP
  • Impact Analysis
  • The domain structure helps you to handle different data types to unify.
  • Moving between from conceptual model to logical model and from logical model to physical model is so easy.
  • It also excels at implementation of database vendor-specific physical options.
  • The repository structure helps you to use in multi developer and architect based organizations by the check in and check out mechanism.
  • It also has a fully configurable naming convention implementation.
  • Coloring is simple with format copying and pasting option.
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Sparx Systems
  • Open Architecture - A wide and extensive set of options, plug-ins and customization options make Sparx EA more of a tool kit than just a tool. Most tools allow customization but Sparx EA is built from the ground up with this in mind.
  • Wide variety of formats, lexicons, standards and data import export capabilities allow different roles to interact with the information in different ways.
  • Automated report generation allows architects and designers to spend less taking on word processing and more time on performing architecture and design.
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Cons
SAP
  • It took some time to figure out how to leverage the power of the repository. Some better examples in the documentation would have been helpful.
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Sparx Systems
  • Needs someone that is very conversant with business modelling terminology
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Support Rating
SAP
We did have to reach out to support to learn how to properly utilize the repository feature and share the data model across many developers. Support was able to help us get this set up correctly. The downside was it took us several weeks before we gave up and contacted support. We should have done that earlier. I would say, however, the documentation wasn't clear on how to do this. So support was a great big help!
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Sparx Systems
The support team of Sparx EA, based in Australia, is always willing to help and give direction.
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Alternatives Considered
SAP
Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler : Unfortunately this tool only supports Oracle Databases as a target database, but has many features similar to SAP Sybase PowerDesigner. erwin Data Modeler: Has some issues when switching from Conceptual Model to Physical Model, Impact Analysis, and formatting copy and pasting. Vertabelo: Only supports online models and from a governance perspective, it is impossible for me to connect my target database with an online application because of company policy and regulation requirements.
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Sparx Systems
BiZZdesign represents a different new concept to enterprise architecture, its gravity center is not technical modelling, but rather a view on capturing the whole end-user experience or customer journey. It also allows to grasp areas as internal company capabilities, required for adoption/changes and operation of the solution, uses the same Archimate modelling language. This solution is in my opinion a new generation enabling to not only design the solutions, but also manage the whole application portfolio with respect to capabilities and requirement parameters.
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Return on Investment
SAP
  • Standardization of models
  • Impact Analysis
  • Graphical User Interface
  • Ease of deployment
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Sparx Systems
  • This program speed up the development process. It generates the actual code with my model classes after modeling
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