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ARIS Cloud vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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 Cloud
Ranking in Business Process Design
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (32nd)
Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...
Ranking in Business Process Design
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of ARIS Cloud is 2.7%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is 7.0%, down from 11.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect7.0%
ARIS Cloud2.7%
Other90.3%
Business Process Design
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1294968 - PeerSpot reviewer
Transformational Leader at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Mapping capabilities lag behind while requiring significant customization but is scalable
I worked with ARIS Cloud under SAP. The solution was deployed by an agile team and utilized daily by process engineers and business process owners. It was involved in the financial services industry, with thousands of users within the company The platform's capabilities are highly dependent on…
Milan Sterba - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Enterprise Architect at Deepview S.r.o.
Efficient documentation generation through organized model structure with a good price-performance ratio
Whenever I begin a new project with Sparx, I have to spend time training people on how to use it since it is not straightforward. Although it's a powerful product with plenty of features, it's not easy for even experienced users to find their way without guidance. This is not the most user-friendly solution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Aris Connect opens collaboration opportunities between team members within the organization where they can actually submit change requests, navigate processes, and offer comments."
"In terms of using the cloud version, if you're somebody who, like myself, has got a lot of experience and understands measures and notations and things, basically it's unrestricted. You can do so many things. You can do your Archimaze, you can do BPMN. There's lots of stuff you can do in there and if you're a good field person and you cause yourself re-using things or whatever, then it's very nice, it's very easy to use."
"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward."
"The solution's most valuable feature stems from its being very easy to use, making it a very user-friendly tool."
"From a total cost of ownership perspective, running this on the cloud is more efficient than having someone in the company take care of the infrastructure."
"The cloud version has the advantage that you can work on it from anywhere."
"This solution has improved the way our organization does training."
"ARIS has proved that it works also in complex circumstances."
"Its ease of use and the breadth of the toolkit are most valuable. It has an incredible repository of artifacts to work with, and they're all cross-referenced. It works with a whole bunch of different standards. It works with BPMN, which is Business Process Modeling Notation, and it also works with something called TOGAF, which is the Open Group Architecture Foundation. There are different layers when you're dealing with architecture. There is the user interface, application, data, data servers, and all that kind of stuff. You have the infrastructure, hardware, and software layers, and then you have the application and business capability layers. You can model a business process and decompose it into all of the applications, data, and hardware to support it."
"The TOGAF ADM model is most valuable. It is also very cheap as compared to other options in the market."
"Automated reporting saves me a kazillion hours a week of cutting, pasting and editing."
"Its ability to reference and link to components from any diagram."
"I tend to come back to Sparx because it is the best value for the money."
"I like that there is support for software patterns."
"It is an EA tool that is approved by Open Group. It is in the tool register of Open Group."
"The pricing of the solution is pretty good; it's reasonable, it works pretty well overall, it's easy to create all diagrams, it's easy to search within the solution, and it's very good software."
 

Cons

"On an enterprise level, the ability to onboard somebody quickly is cumbersome because it just has too many things in it. It's got something like a hundred or more techniques and things in it."
"There is room for improvement in the support."
"On the other hand, ARIS' flexibility and power add a certain complexity. If ARIS could be more streamlined, I think customers would have a better handle on what to do with it in the end."
"The support team of ARIS Cloud has certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The price is quite high. This is one weak point of the solution."
"I would like to see more support for architectural diagrams."
"The price is quite high. This is one weak point of the solution."
"I would like to see the cost of the licenses improved."
"One room for improvement in Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is that it's not very friendly. Another room for improvement in the tool is that it doesn't enable you to import the metadata from a database very easily, so reverse engineering of a database was very difficult. Its database modeling and entity-relationship modeling functions need improvement."
"Its side effect is the complexity of getting it all together in this one tool."
"The fact that you can do a lot yourself is a plus point, but it also becomes a challenge because you need an understanding of the programming languages to get things to work. It becomes challenging for those who are not very good at programming. You have standard reports, but if you want to make your own reports, you have to program it. Similarly, if you want validations rules, you have to take care of them yourself."
"We would like to see improvements in the documentation generator: templates, styles, and content."
"Enterprise Architect is not very good for mockups."
"Using EA involves a steep learning curve if you want to understand its capabilities and functionality."
"I think the product is good. When I'm trying to do something specific for some part of project documentation, it's hard to get it figured out if you don't use it all the time. It's such a massive tool, it's hard to figure out how to dig in and get to the documentation where you have to be to get some idea of what to do. There are not a lot of examples that I'm aware of to be able to do that."
"It really did not work for logical modeling. The look is very old-fashioned. You can't make the diagrams easy on the eye, so we ended up drawing them again in Visio anyhow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a student version of this solution that can be used for free."
"The cloud deployment is not more expensive. In the cloud, you pay for what you use, and there's no need for maintaining infrastructure or additional personnel, making it cost-effective. On-premises deployment, on the other hand, involves infrastructure costs and maintenance expenses."
"The licensing model of ARIS Cloud is leaner and more beneficial to the customer. The new license model is great. With the on-premise, you needed to subscribe to many more types of licenses. Now there are licensed bundles available on the cloud."
"It's reasonably priced for large organizations."
"The Corporate Edition, or one of the bundles, is the way to go."
"It’s the best deal in town, by far."
"We had a yearly license."
"Pricing and licensing are suitable even for small companies."
"Use floating licenses strategically."
"It is cheap."
"The pricing is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ARIS Cloud?
The price of ARIS Cloud is relatively high and not every firm can afford it, especially if the company is not mature enough to require such extensive process modeling and optimization.
What needs improvement with ARIS Cloud?
It would be beneficial for ARIS Cloud to add more customization options, such as having a landing page. Improving the importation script from Microsoft Visio ( /products/visio-reviews ) would also ...
What is your primary use case for ARIS Cloud?
I am currently working with both ARIS Cloud ( /products/aris-cloud-reviews ) and MEGA HOPEX ( /products/mega-hopex-reviews ), having switched from ARIS BPM ( /products/aris-bpa-reviews ) to MEGA HO...
What do you like most about Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
The stability has been good and satisfactory. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
One of the reasons many public sector institutions in the Czech Republic use it is that it provides a very good price-performance ratio. While it might be cumbersome to learn, it still delivers exc...
What needs improvement with Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
Whenever I begin a new project with Sparx, I have to spend time training people on how to use it since it is not straightforward. Although it's a powerful product with plenty of features, it's not ...
 

Also Known As

Process Live, ARIS Simulation, ARIS Aware, ARIS Connect
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 and 10 million users worldwide, from 1 user companies to the Fortune 500.
OmniLink
Find out what your peers are saying about ARIS Cloud vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.