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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
66
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (5th), Business Process Management (BPM) (7th)
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 7.7%, down 9.2% compared to last year.
Avolution ABACUS, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Architecture Management, holds 3.7% mindshare, down 4.7% since last year.
Business Process Design
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

Libor Černý - PeerSpot reviewer
I can usually find an answer to my issue on ARIS Community
From the start, there were some difficulties on how to create outputs since there wasn't a repository tool in version 6. However, in version 7, there has been a tool for creating standards for a company, and that tool has been very intuitive. While I have been using this tool for several years, other people just starting to use it find the learning curve steep. This tool is very robust and accommodates many roles, where people can participate from compliance, IT designers, etc. This can create problems for users who have no experience with similar tools. It took me a year before I felt comfortable with this tool, because when I came from university it was the first or second tool that I worked on. It took me a year to run every feature or use it for every possibility since this tool is very robust. We sometimes have to create the link to the server and the repository twice because it is deleted once for some unknown reason. Though, this is not a big problem. There should be a more intuitive tool when creating reports.
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

"This solution has helped us in terms of discovering business processes."
"I am impressed with the tool's integration. It also facilitates collaboration in the organization."
"I am an advanced user. ARIS BPM is intuitive for me because I know the UML, BPMN, and EPC methodologies implemented in this tool. It is very easy to create processes for restructuring a company with some descriptions."
"The solution's basic features are easy to use, overall designed well, and it has good process mining analysis."
"The technical support is good."
"Also, the UML parts have been improved very much in the last two years. And it's very powerful now to combine the BPMN and UML parts in the product, because you can make a connection between them, so that you have the right interoperability between them. So if you're doing data modeling, you can use your class diagram and bind that to the BPMN part."
"You can relate different aspects of an organization to each other, and you can clearly define the rates seen in the application."
"The ease of use is the most valuable. I have tried a number of BPMN packages, and I find the user interface of ARIS BPM easier and more intuitive than others. If your team is knowledgeable on BPMN, it is really pretty easy to figure out on your own because it adheres to the standards extremely well. I have tried Bizagi, BizFlow, and a variety of such solutions, and I just liked ARIS BPM better."
"You can design using a diagram tool installed on your desktop, a key difference from other vendors."
"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 most valuable feature is that it has a customizable meta-model, which is key."
"The most valuable feature is the traceability, you can trace any object to the other."
"The technical support is very good. They are responsive and the answers they provide are detailed."
"If you face new challenges or issues then you can dynamically customize according to the business needs."
"Avolution ABACUS allows for flexible enterprise architecture analysis."
 

Cons

"The tool's installation and configuration part needs to improve."
"The model graphics can be exported in PDF, but the model is too small to read."
"Simulation is one area that is a bit complex."
"The areas of ARIS where we see room for improvement are actually related to the background services that support it. Over the last number of years, Software AG has moved from an on-premises solution into deploying a SaaS solution to their enterprise base. That has been really successful from my point of view, as I have been a customer of ARIS, managing the relationship, for a couple years. Certain support functions around the knowledge base, customer service, and the cross and upselling of modules within the core ARIS component are lagging behind the SaaS movement."
"One thing that could be improved is regarding the handling of the content itself. Maybe ARIS could provide a set of best practices, or best processes, so that people do not have to start from scratch."
"I had a hard time with ARIS's access and licensing policy. It requires you to pay for each step you want to take forward with the solution."
"I find it difficult to access the database as I want with direct querying."
"The ​integration between ARIS, webMethods, and project versions needs improvement.​"
"The company needs to update the UML version they are using for the product as it is quite old."
"I use reference models, which are taxonomies, in my EA work. It is a reference model/taxonomy of things with capabilities, sub capabilities, and sub-sub capabilities, so you're working it down. I haven't yet found a simple way to implement that in Abacus. It could be that it is there, but I don't know how to do it."
"Having more control over page size is lacking in this product. Print utilization also needs to be improved."
"It doesn't have the simulation capability, which would be helpful in doing some business process analysis and improvements."
"The most valuable features are the catalog and the diagram."
"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."
"While this is one of the most powerful tools on the market it does not integrate well with Microsoft Office or others."
"The tool doesn't have any intelligence built in. We have to design the dashboards ourselves, which is a challenge because we have to depend on the vendor for customizations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ARIS BPA is too costly from a licensing perspective."
"ARIS enables you to start small and grow the use of the solution over time, although it's quite expensive. So if you want to start small, it's quite an investment for a small company."
"ARIS is quite expensive."
"Their license model is really difficult to understand, and licenses are quite expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"The tool is expensive."
"This is absolutely not the cheapest solution in the market, but for large companies, the price is fine."
"Pricing is a bit on the higher side."
"It is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."
"The solution's pricing is not an issue."
"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
I find it difficult to access the database as I want with direct querying. I must write scripts, which requires specific knowledge. Software AG could improve this by making the database more open. ...
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.
Barclays
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851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.