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ARIS BPA vs erwin Evolve comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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
Ranking in Business Process Design
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (11th)
erwin Evolve
Ranking in Business Process Design
21st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of ARIS BPA is 7.2%, down from 7.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of erwin Evolve is 2.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ARIS BPA7.2%
erwin Evolve2.1%
Other90.7%
Business Process Design
 

Featured Reviews

BM
Consultant at KAFD DMC
Has improved process modeling and analysis while supporting integration with organizational data
The process design in ARIS BPA does help with our operational efficiency. What we are doing is object library management for various kinds of objects that we are using in ARIS BPA during our process modeling. We are using that to do a lot of analysis on how many times a system is being used in how many processes, who are the major stakeholders, and if we enhance one system, how is it going to impact other processes and integrated processes. This is helping us a lot. Everything related to ARIS BPA is helping us with regards to enhanced processes, strengthened controls, identifying risks, assessing process capabilities, and identifying where the gaps are and what kinds of activities within the processes are automated and manual. We are doing a lot of things with regards to the processes as it is at our heart. Processes are one thing and then we have different kinds of things which are related to it, such as SLAs, guidelines, and policy. We are identifying areas of improvement in other documents as well.
ScottLawson - PeerSpot reviewer
Director IT Architecture at QAD
Enables us to present data and objects visually, in diagrams, and to make them available via the web. Also enables web-based editing of data.
We tried their collaborative web modeling and we used it with a few people but we tend to not use that piece. We tend to collaborate with the people and then my team of architects draws up the diagram using the modeling tool. We then iterate through those. I would like to use it, but it was a little clunky when they first rolled it out. Overall, it's more about the company having room for improvement. What they need to do is to consolidate more of their products. For example, I was just looking and I couldn't figure out what erwin DT is. It's on the website but it would help if they could put information together and make it more clear as to what products they have and how they work with other things. I hear them talking in the support forums and, when I talk to the representative, they say they're going to do a bunch of stuff but it seems the progress is slow. The changes they need to make are to take their old, legacy product, which we use, and focus a lot on it so they can transform it into a modern cloud tool so that we have fewer little pieces to deal with. They could also fix their security model. It's very confusing to get new people onto the tool and to make sure that your content isn't being exposed to the wrong people.

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 features of ARIS BPA are the centralized repository and the automatic rendering of diagrams."
"Fully-reportable database over Visio."
"ARIS BPM has helped us speed up our business process transformation by centralizing everything instead of everyone working within a silo."
"ARIS is probably the most mature product in terms of modeling an enterprise architecture so that it has context."
"The simulation engine and SAP integration are technically very robust."
"ARIS BPA is customizable as per specific business requirements."
"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."
"We also have relationships specified with our IT systems and our organizational chart. That makes it possible to analyze things from the systems point of view and regarding the organizational part of the company. It all comes together in one tool and that is what gives us the most value at the moment."
"You can use different kinds of diagrams to represent the architecture setting."
"Evolve is like a tank; you can do whatever you want with the solution, but you need to customize it."
"There is a model behind it. It's really nice that the Evolve front-end, as it builds a website, keeps those relationships in mind. You can even go to a procedure and see all the applications that are related to it. Then you can go into that application and see all the standard operating procedures that that application is a part of. It's just very connected."
"It is a customizable tool that allows you to do a lot of architectural modeling for customers, and you can use different kinds of diagrams to represent the architecture setting."
"The initial setup was really straightforward and the deployment was done within one day."
"Forward and reverse engineering were valuable features."
"Without this tool, we couldn't have made and defined all the new processes."
"Support for a broad range of data sources from relational to big data to the Cloud."
 

Cons

"There is a lot of room for improvement. They need to increase the performance of the system flow. They need to support it more. ARIS Process Governance is still quite basic, and they are using an old BPM and process automation module."
"The integration between ARIS, webMethods, and project versions needs improvement."
"It needs external API and the ability to navigate back, similar to "Back" in web browser."
"The tool is expensive."
"I believe the solutions BPM tools are not very good and need improvements."
"The Risk and Compliance Management tool is rather complex and moreover, it needs to be customized if you want to use it."
"I find it difficult to access the database as I want with direct querying."
"While I have been using this tool for several years, other people just starting to use it find the learning curve steep."
"I would like it to be easier to make changes in development/testing and then deploy them into production more easily; especially when you have multiple web servers."
"I would like to see an improvement in the output of the solution."
"The way that we are using it for application management, we have several KPIs. We want to follow and monitor them regarding a number of solutions. We cannot calculate this today. We would like real-time calculations along with the KPIs in order to improve the user experience. We would like the tool to be able to display this, not only as signals, but as charts."
"I would like it to be easier to make changes and then deploy them into production, especially when you have multiple web servers or front-ends. It would be nice to make a change and then have it propagate to the production servers in a more automated fashion."
"Add some ability to do conditional Visualization on the models and in reports (some ideas) – maybe as a specialized Theme or Diagram or Display."
"Would like to see canonical modeling supported for web services."
"There might be improvement required to better support some of the MPP databases for non-relational data structures and NoSQL databases."
"I feel that the UML drawing capability needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a concurrent license system."
"ARIS Express​ is free."
"​It is on the higher side."
"ARIS has different licensing mechanisms for different modules, but they are perpetual licenses. So you pay once."
"Their license model is really difficult to understand, and licenses are quite expensive."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"Prices are high. However, they are worth it if the organization utilizes the tool to its full potential."
"Pricing for ARIS BPA is average, not cheap or expensive. It's cost-effective and worth the money we pay."
"On a yearly basis, our licensing costs are 50,000 euro. There are no additional costs because we are on a SaaS model."
"The cost is something like $15,000, per license. But I haven't looked at those numbers in three years. It was over $100,000 to initially set everything up and get it all configured."
"I think erwin is quite expensive. I have difficulty selling the portal, in fact."
"The licensing enables you to differentiate between people who edit the content and the people who consume it. We are able to keep the licensing costs down by keeping the "contributor" licenses to a minimum, and we then just roll out the content in a read-only version for the rest of our users."
"Yearly, our cost is €100,000."
"I estimate that we pay between $40,000 and $50,000 a year for the solution, not including the upfront costs to buy things the first time."
"Unless you are a one person shop – always go with the Workgroup edition and Concurrent licensing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Performing Arts
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise47
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ARIS BPA?
It is a bit expensive regarding ARIS BPA. However, ARIS BPA does save a lot of effort because this is one tool which can be used for multiple purposes and the viewers have the capability to perform...
What needs improvement with ARIS BPA?
We are not using any what-if scenario features in ARIS BPA. Currently, we are not using the performance monitoring and compliance checks features in ARIS BPA. We have plans to use them, but current...
What is your primary use case for ARIS BPA?
ARIS BPA is being used for process modeling, and we are planning to upgrade and enhance it for process mining and other purposes. We are using it for everything. Currently, we are doing HRMS integr...
Ask a question
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM
erwin EA, erwin Business Process, erwin Enterprise Architecture
 

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.
AT&T, Bank of America, Chevron, Duke University, ESPN, Fidelity, GE, JP Morgan Chase, KPMG, McGraw Hill, NASA, Pfizer, Royal Bank of Scotland, Teradata, Union Pacific, Vodafone, Wells Fargo.
Find out what your peers are saying about ARIS BPA vs. erwin Evolve and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.