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Atlan vs SAP PowerDesigner comparison

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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

Atlan
Ranking in Metadata Management
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (13th)
SAP PowerDesigner
Ranking in Metadata Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Metadata Management category, the mindshare of Atlan is 4.5%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP PowerDesigner is 3.4%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Metadata Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Atlan4.5%
SAP PowerDesigner3.4%
Other92.1%
Metadata Management
 

Featured Reviews

Peter Neumann - PeerSpot reviewer
IT consultant at Pathfinder
Has struggled to meet business needs but supports technical data exploration and transparency
Atlan can be improved by concentrating more on business data since it is developed from developers for developers, and it needs to be more business relevant. For instance, when re-importing data model diagrams, Atlan provides some diagram automation that is not connected to the business glossary, which I consider a significant fault. Atlan needs to improve by focusing more on the business side of data, not only on technical aspects.If you want to focus on technical considerations, it would be beneficial to have an interface with a real business data modeling tool such as Erwin or other business data tools, since data modeling is not the same as Draw.io. Additionally, Atlan can improve its workflows, which are hard to understand. Working with templates, Excel import, export, and running automations is not self-explanatory, and you always need help from Atlan support team. If business people want to use it and run their own reports, it must be easier to customize for their business needs.
Dheeraj Ghorpade - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at Saama
Unified data models have supported end‑to‑end lineage and governed multi‑layer architectures
Synchronization is vital since I experience multiple problems, such as mismatched models and manual DDL handling. Improving the synchronization between models and databases can enhance integration and mitigate weak implementations. Additionally, enhanced version control integration with tools like Git would facilitate better management of changes and provide greater control over the modeling process. Regarding pricing, SAP PowerDesigner is relatively high-cost compared to other tools, though its extensive capabilities justify the expense. While many freeware options exist, SAP PowerDesigner stands out as a robust tool that handles various aspects of data standardization, lineage tracking, and modeling efficiently. Although access can be limited to a select number of users, SAP PowerDesigner is worthy of its price tag given its performance compared to alternatives like Erwin or Oracle Database Designer.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The AI part is integrated for enriching metadata engagement, making it a comprehensive tool."
"They also offer automated lineage embedded in the connectors, allowing us to track where the data is coming from and where it's going. We find it very efficient in cataloging data sources. Additionally, the user-friendly interface is a big plus, making it easy for users to familiarize themselves with the solution. These two features, in my opinion, stand out the most."
"Atlan is helpful for identifying datasets and discovering PI data, such as the classification levels of datasets (gold, silver, bronze)."
"As a senior analytics engineer, Atlan's ability to show end-to-end data lineage is the most important feature for me."
"The technical support services are good."
"Atlas is quite intuitive."
"The interfaces and automated imports have helped me with transparency, as we have different sources from different techniques such as DBT, Snowflake, and other regular databases, making it effective to connect these sources and navigate through them, filter them, and enrich the data with additional meter information."
"Overall, I rate Atlan a nine out of ten."
"The most valuable features of the solution are it's built very well, easy to use, and simple to describe freely what is needed in logical and physical data models."
"The feature I found valuable in SAP PowerDesigner is extraction. I also like that my company hasn't faced any issues because of the clear documentation about SAP PowerDesigner."
"I do a data-centric design, so for me, the data analysis and design tools are the most valuable features."
"SAP PowerDesigner is fairly stable."
"SAP PowerDesigner enhances the clarity of our data management significantly, as around 80% of data can be searched quickly and maintained in our SAP systems."
"It's a stable system. It never crashes."
"Technical support is good... for a price."
"Very good repository features."
 

Cons

"Certain UI changes could make Atlan more user-friendly."
"There are some improvements. There is a feature called Playbooks, which basically allows me to automate certain activities that would otherwise be manual. It's a very interesting feature, but there is room to improve it because, depending on the task you automate, the playbooks seem to have a hard time handling the task. So, it could be improved there. Even though it's a great feature, it can evolve further."
"In my experience, it might be less suited for collaboration across teams."
"One of the main areas for improvement is its governance capabilities."
"The product could be improved by offering scheduled email reports for managed assets."
"The challenge is in the lineage, where it requires improvement. Atlas needs to capture areas where organizations use less known applications."
"Atlan can be improved by integrating agents that can support users in finding assets of interest."
"One of the main areas for improvement is its governance capabilities. Atlan supports only basic out-of-the-box workflows, and it becomes challenging to customize features like how data owners should approve access to data assets."
"Synchronization is vital since I experience multiple problems, such as mismatched models and manual DDL handling."
"The focus is more on mainstream development environments, and I see a lack of focus on the open source world. I think SAP PowerDesigner probably interfaces better with SQL Server and Db2 but not with open source databases like PostgreSQL and MySQL."
"Pricing for small consultancies needs improvement. They sustain prices to competing tools. The competing tools tend to do special offers. PowerDesigner SAP doesn't pay much attention to the pricing of it and there are no special offers."
"The user interface could be more user-friendly."
"It also has a web portal feature, which is much more convenient for giving people access to look at entity-relationship diagrams, but that web portal is unstable and does not work. It freezes up all the time."
"You have the possibility to complete a connection for abbreviations if you are creating columns or names of the tables. In the Citrix environment, this has been lagging to the point where the PowerDesigner was not usable."
"This product does not have a good BPMN Modeler."
"Technical support could be better and more human."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay per-user license. It's a different classification model than with other solutions, where they usually charge you for resources. So, that was a better model for us. And because of this difference in models or classification, it was cheaper for us to go with Atlan."
"When you purchase the license for SAP PowerDesigner, you have to buy one year of support. The tool is worth the money."
"The ROI has been 43%."
"PowerDesigner is not the cheapest solution on the market, so make sure that you are using it to its full potential."
"The pricing varies based on functionality and users."
"SAP PowerDesigner is cheaper than eriwin."
"The price of the solution is low."
"Regarding costs, SAP PowerDesigner is pricey, as I've heard from my team manager, which is why the company has been thinking of bringing another solution on board."
"I bought the software outright and do not pay a licensing fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Insurance Company
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise18
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Atlan?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that the licensing cost is a bit flexible but not affordable for smaller organizations. It might be way out of their budget, but it is very ...
What needs improvement with Atlan?
Atlan can be improved by enhancing their support process by reducing the resolution time. They have really bad and incomplete documentation, so they should work on the documentation as well, especi...
What is your primary use case for Atlan?
My main use case for Atlan is to define a flexible set of metadata, including measuring the quality of said data. Atlan is also a partner of ours, so we use it to integrate with our own tool. It al...
What needs improvement with SAP PowerDesigner?
Synchronization is vital since I experience multiple problems, such as mismatched models and manual DDL handling. Improving the synchronization between models and databases can enhance integration ...
What is your primary use case for SAP PowerDesigner?
I use SAP PowerDesigner for data modeling, which greatly enhances the clarity of my data management processes. I manage data across multiple databases, including cloud databases, Teradata, and Orac...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Sybase PowerDesigner
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
Find out what your peers are saying about Atlan vs. SAP PowerDesigner and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
919,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.