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ARIS Cloud vs Visio 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
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (33rd)
Visio
Ranking in Business Process Design
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Mind Mapping Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of ARIS Cloud is 2.4%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Visio is 11.3%, down from 12.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Visio11.3%
ARIS Cloud2.4%
Other86.3%
Business Process Design
 

Featured Reviews

AB
Administrator at a healthcare company with 51-200 employees
Collaboration integrates seamlessly with intuitive user interface for effective process management
ARIS Cloud offers easy query writing for retrieving information and includes a user-friendly Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) part that aids risk managers effectively. The simplicity in drawing dashboards is also appreciated. Their collaboration features function similarly to social media platforms, allowing tagging and subject-specific discussions, all while being intuitive and user-friendly. ARIS Cloud is scalable, evidenced by its use in various organizations as a single source of truth, supported by the UMG database and an open e-learning platform.
NitinSharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Specialist at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Created detailed rack and network diagrams that streamline documentation and collaboration
For creating diagrams, I definitely use Visio for HLD, LLD, and traffic flow diagrams. Apart from Visio, I use Jira only if the customer specifically requests it; otherwise, I do not use an in-house version of Jira in my organization. One of the good features of using the Microsoft umbrella product is that if I create a big diagram and then work on the HLD or LLD in Word, I can select everything from Visio and paste it as an image without needing to resize it, which streamlines the process of creating documentation for customers. The main benefits Visio provides me include simplifying processes, saving time on manual work with diagram creation, and delivering a clean architecture, whether it is network architecture or application flow. I have created diagrams for AWS, Azure, GCP, and on-premises data centers, including rack elevation diagrams and organization charts. Modifications can be made easily and reflected immediately, and I can create PNG images to share with the executive team.

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. It opens up the potential for BPM within the organization. I didn't see such an angle of a BPM portal with any other products. So I would say that's the best selling feature."
"In terms of UX design, somebody who has not had experience with ARIS will be able to use it very easily."
"ARIS Cloud offers easy query writing for retrieving information and includes a user-friendly Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) part that aids risk managers effectively."
"Signavio is more intuitive, allowing users with no prior knowledge to navigate and understand its functionality more readily."
"The most valuable feature is GUI; it is very intuitive and easy to use."
"It has proved that it also works in complex circumstances."
"The cloud version has the advantage that you can work on it from anywhere."
"ARIS Cloud is scalable."
"It is very easy for people to start using this tool, and we can import Visio templates that are already published by vendors such as Azure without any issue."
"It is easy to use."
"I enjoy the fact that I can go into detail with Visio. In shared communications, I can inspect for any fault in my processes."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"The main benefits Visio provides me include simplifying processes, saving time on manual work with diagram creation, and delivering a clean architecture, whether it is network architecture or application flow."
"One of the things that I like is the automation from external data."
"The Data Objects are hyperlinked to the Standard Operating Procedures, Letters, and Forms."
"A good designation feature."
 

Cons

"The support team of ARIS Cloud has certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The stability was poor, with frequent outages."
"I would like to see more support for architectural diagrams."
"The stability was poor due to frequent outages."
"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."
"If you have multiple tiers of approvals into that update of the policy, or the process design itself, it takes ages to prepare those internal flows within the system."
"The price is quite high. This is one weak point of the solution."
"Lacks the ability to analyze the different relations between activities, positions and roles."
"It needs hyperlinked or narratives for page flows to make demos more effective."
"The Auto-Align has improved significantly from the previous release; however, it still jumbles the model if your process diagram has a fair degree of complexity."
"An area for improvement in Visio is pricing. It's a costly tool for my company because it only uses Visio occasionally."
"It is a visualization tool, so database visualization is pretty static in it. They haven't moved the ERDs very well. They haven't adopted any real visualization like what you have in Hackolade for JSON or other data patterns. It has none of that. If you go onto broader patterns, you can actually label and integrate with a data set, if you want, for Visio, but it's very clunky and very difficult for me to assign that to another user. I can't assign it to a junior or a documenter. They really haven't cleaned up and made their tools simpler to use when linking to data, which is primarily what you're trying to do."
"I would like to see Visio become some kind of enterprise architecture, which it is not."
"There is a limitation in Visio."
"When I create an organization chart in Visio, and I want to show it to management, I shouldn't have to copy and paste it into a PowerPoint presentation or put it into a PDF file."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a student version of this solution that can be used for free."
"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."
"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 solution is expensive. The solution does come bundled in other packages."
"It has a lower price point than the competition."
"The yearly cost is approximately $400 CAD ($300 USD)."
"Visio is a pricey tool. It's a five out of ten, cost-wise. It would be great if it had a pay-per-use licensing model because my company uses it sparingly."
"The price could be more flexible for infrequent users. If it's your main utility that you use daily, then it's a good price."
"The popularity of a product is an indicator of its price. Because of the popularity of Visio, its price is on the higher side. We need better pricing for it."
"The pricing of Visio is much better. It has a free version of the cheapest functionality which is enough for us."
"The cost of the software is reasonably priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise61
 

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...
How easy is it to migrate process flow charts (modeled using tools like Visio) into Bizagi?
I have been using Bizagi with a major project for a state government agency for about four years now. It is pretty straightforward to load in files that are BPMN 2.0 compliant. The option to load V...
What do you like most about Visio?
The diagrams Visio creates are quite impressive in the sense that we can cooperate with more colleagues in one task and see the flow of the process.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Visio?
One of the main problems with Visio is its licensing options and associated issues, which lead to discussions about the price with a Microsoft representative. If asked to rate the price, I would gi...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Process Live, ARIS Simulation, ARIS Aware, ARIS Connect
Microsoft Visio
 

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.
Thomas College, Hamburg Port Authority, Portigon AG, Conseil G_n_ral du d_partement des Hautes-Alpes, AAA Auto a. s., Commonwealth Financial Network, ICA, Abu Dhabi National Energy Company
Find out what your peers are saying about ARIS Cloud vs. Visio and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.