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ARIS BPA vs Avolution ABACUS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

ARIS BPA
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (6th), Business Process Management (BPM) (8th)
Avolution ABACUS
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

ARIS BPA and Avolution ABACUS aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. ARIS BPA is designed for Business Process Design and holds a mindshare of 7.0%, down 8.9% compared to last year.
Avolution ABACUS, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Architecture Management, holds 3.7% mindshare, down 4.2% since last year.
Business Process Design Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ARIS BPA7.0%
Visio12.5%
Camunda11.3%
Other69.2%
Business Process Design
Enterprise Architecture Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Avolution ABACUS3.7%
LeanIX13.1%
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect11.3%
Other71.9%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

Tamer Eldamanhouri - PeerSpot reviewer
Empowers teams with robust business process modeling capabilities
They should examine competitor solutions to identify differentiators. One issue related to ARIS BPA is its integration with AI; it has AI features for cloud solutions, yet many in the government sector in Kuwait do not view the cloud as viable. Software AG should focus on developing AI models for ARIS BPA on-premises, particularly in user interfaces, as well as creating predefined business processes for common areas such as HR and finance. This aspect is crucial for adapting to the market's needs and streamlining custom solutions. While they have been helpful regarding pricing, I cannot compare ARIS BPA to other business process modeling tools because I understand some competitors have significantly lower costs than ARIS BPA. To maintain market share, good discounts should be provided to customers.
JoseCamacho - PeerSpot reviewer
Supports evaluating architecture through corporate objectives
I conducted an evaluation of enterprise architecture at the European Court in Luxembourg, reviewing and analyzing existing implementations to identify potential improvements and providing recommendations I conduct evaluations to identify potential improvements and make recommendations, forming a…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the flexibility of the solution to fully customize the methodology according to the company's needs, and to enforce that methodology with features like filters, semantic checks, and reports."
"Visualizes processes which helps the business see pain points."
"The stability of the ARIS BPM platform is quite good. The nice thing about it is the central database, where we can use all of our data. We can even manage users."
"ARIS BPA has a good directory option, which helps to keep track of all of your metadata, and that's very useful."
"Platform that it supports covers legacy and new. Caters to moving older objects into an integrated DB, relatively popular ones: SQL, Oracle, etc."
"Good at controlling the workflow and relevant key processes."
"I am impressed with the tool's integration. It also facilitates collaboration in the organization."
"The solution's basic features are easy to use, overall designed well, and it has good process mining analysis."
"It is a very stable solution...The initial setup of Avolution ABACUS is very easy."
"The tool's implementation is straightforward as everything is readily available. For instance, setting up a portal is seamless, allowing easy publishing and access to data. However, integrating with other tools like BI, Power BI, or Grafana requires setting up pipelines between them."
"Scalable and stable tool for roadmapping and modeling, with a good dashboard, end-to-end impact analysis, and portfolio management."
"Avolution ABACUS allows for flexible enterprise architecture analysis."
"There are plenty of features available such as the ability to test applications for issues and a user-friendly dashboard."
"The technical support is very good. They are responsive and the answers they provide are detailed."
"There are a lot of different features, but the business/decision-maker feature, visibility, and dashboards are most valuable."
"If you face new challenges or issues then you can dynamically customize according to the business needs."
 

Cons

"Making it more customizable and easy to learn would be a benefit."
"The tool must provide more documents."
"The tool's installation and configuration part needs to improve."
"Since ARIS 9.X was released, the product has not been as robust and responsive as the previous versions​."
"Create simple data uploader."
"Some improvements have been done, after Software AG acquired ARIS, but I don't believe it's still integrated with the other tool WebMethods in a perfect way."
"Needs flexibility in automation of the modeling processes and real-time analysis of data, not just a static view.​"
"The solution is difficult and not very exciting to learn."
"The reporting could be easier to configure."
"They should take more initiative to implement things that competing products have already come out with."
"In the future, there could be improvements in integration and enhancements."
"Their local presence in the Middle East could be scaled more, particularly in customer service. It would be good if they'd also have mobile dashboards for executive management out of the box."
"The company needs to update the UML version they are using for the product as it is quite old."
"If they want to expand in the European market then they are going to have to improve their technical support."
"It is vastly scalable but you can't run it on a Mac or Linux so it has limitations."
"While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ARIS is quite expensive."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"Their license model is really difficult to understand, and licenses are quite expensive."
"ARIS Express​ is free."
"The product is expensive."
"Prices are high. However, they are worth it if the organization utilizes the tool to its full potential."
"From my point of view, no, it is not cheap, but it is not too expensive because you get this big organization behind it, technical support, and all those things. It's not so expensive to use. It's a Rolls Royce in this field, I know that. Even for small organizations, they can get so much effect from using this tool, in a very fast way, so the money will be back in the customer's pocket very fast."
"Negotiate. Price is high so make sure you’re getting the best deal."
"This solution is expensive for some people's budgets and they need to offer a Lite version at a cheaper price"
"I'm paying on a yearly basis. I don't know whether it's a highly expensive tool or not. I'm getting a single version of it, and I don't have the enterprise part on it because I don't need the server component, and I don't need a web browser component. My estimate would be that it's a very reasonably priced tool given that you don't need to have licenses with everyone in order to get the information and the decision support capabilities out of the tool. You use the enterprise edition on top of the studio, which is the heart of the tool. I am not aware of any additional costs."
"The solution's pricing is not an issue."
"There is a subscription for this solution. We are on an annual subscription because you sometimes receive special offers the longer you subscribe."
"It is competitive. It is not chump change. I am just using the studio version. I am not using the full enterprise version, which would probably cost me three times more for single-use, but it gives a lot more capability and analysis. It is server-based as well, and it is reasonably priced compared to a lot of the other tools. There are other tools that have other sorts of capabilities, but in order to use them, you'd really have to have like 50 users for the price to become justifiable."
"To get a fairly extensive license for Enterprise Architects from Spark is approximately US $400.00, maybe less, but with Avolution Abacus it was approximately US $2000.00 per year, and that includes maintenance with the Abacus tool."
"My company makes annual payments toward the licensing costs of the solution. Considering the product's capabilities, its prices are very reasonable."
"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
14%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise47
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ARIS BPA?
The most valuable features of ARIS BPA are its flexibility and reporting.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ARIS BPA?
Pricing for ARIS BPA is average, not cheap or expensive. It's cost-effective and worth the money we pay.
What needs improvement with ARIS BPA?
ARIS BPA needs to be more accurate when generating documents. While it covers many blueprints and functions that I need, the document generation feature could be enhanced for better accuracy.
What do you like most about Avolution ABACUS?
The tool's implementation is straightforward as everything is readily available. For instance, setting up a portal is seamless, allowing easy publishing and access to data. However, integrating wit...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Avolution ABACUS?
It's pricey compared to Essential, Deltek, or Essential Cloud. However, its diagramming capabilities and metamodel design make it worth it. But it's not for large user bases. It has modules for app...
What needs improvement with Avolution ABACUS?
While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product. It would be beneficial to have seminars or other met...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tesco, Weifu, Airbus, Siemens, Proximus, Alicorp, Sekerbank, Bancor, Philips,Sky, Emirates NBD, Dubai Municipality, Suva, U.S. Army, Australia Post, Westfalen Weser Energie - ARIS serves customers across all industries and of every size worldwide. Companies trust ARIS as the market leader for process excellence with more than 30 years of experience in the market, 10 million users worldwide, from 1 user companies to the Fortune 500.
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Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Camunda, Bizagi and others in Business Process Design. Updated: August 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.