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Avolution ABACUS vs BiZZdesign HoriZZon 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

Avolution ABACUS
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
BiZZdesign HoriZZon
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
6th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of Avolution ABACUS is 3.6%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BiZZdesign HoriZZon is 5.3%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

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…
BijoyTalukder - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps to get a clear overview of our enterprise architecture, especially when dealing with multiple departments
One area where BiZZdesign HoriZZon could use some improvement is in its REST APIs. While the platform offers REST APIs, they have limitations when it comes to retrieving and exporting data. Obtaining detailed information at the individual application or component level, including IDs, costs, and deployment-related data, can be challenging through these APIs. This limitation makes it difficult to smoothly export such granular data. I have raised this issue with the BiZZdesign team, and they expressed interest in addressing it, but I'm not aware of the current status of this improvement effort. Nonetheless, improving the usability and flexibility of the REST APIs for data extraction is an area that could enhance the platform's capabilities.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If you face new challenges or issues then you can dynamically customize according to the business needs."
"There are a lot of different features, but the business/decision-maker feature, visibility, and dashboards are most valuable."
"Avolution ABACUS allows for flexible enterprise architecture analysis."
"Scalable and stable tool for roadmapping and modeling, with a good dashboard, end-to-end impact analysis, and portfolio management."
"It is a very stable solution...The initial setup of Avolution ABACUS is very easy."
"The product is easy to use and well-structured for the integrations we need it to make."
"You can design using a diagram tool installed on your desktop, a key difference from other vendors."
"The most valuable feature is that it has a customizable meta-model, which is key."
"The most valuable features of BiZZdesign HoriZZon include the diagrammatic representation of BPMN models, which I find good for modeling, and things such as capability maps."
"The most valuable features are the application, portfolio, data, architectures, and modeling things."
"The enterprise studio where the modelling happens is valuable."
"It is very easy to use. I can just click on an application component and find out if we are using this particular component. This provides us flexibility."
"The feature I find most valuable is that the start times and loading times are short. It takes only a few seconds to load the repository and whenever I want to open diagrams, they are there almost immediately."
"The initial setup of this solution was very straightforward."
"The most valuable features of BiZZdesign HoriZZon, from my experience, include its out-of-the-box connectors, such as integration with ServiceNow, Excel, and SQL databases, making data repository management more efficient."
"I like the flexibility of the modeling part for standards like ArchiMate and, at the same time, BPMN. It allows us to connect elements from different areas and to have a single repository and a single source of truth. It gives us one place to do analysis throughout the organization."
 

Cons

"While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."
"The most valuable features are the catalog and the diagram."
"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."
"It doesn't have the simulation capability, which would be helpful in doing some business process analysis and improvements."
"The reporting could be easier to configure."
"In the future, there could be improvements in integration and enhancements."
"They should take more initiative to implement things that competing products have already come out with."
"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."
"The automatic data collection and interface need improvement."
"I have seen table charts where, if the chart is a little too big, it does not fit in HoriZZon and it is not at all visible... There have been several times where we could not publish a chart properly and we had to break the chart into small tables and create multiple artifacts, creating a complete mess. This should be seriously taken up by BiZZdesign because there is a lot of scope for improvement in terms of usability. It's not at all good, unfortunately."
"It lacks capabilities with regard to infrastructure modeling."
"The repository of duplicate objects is bad."
"In HoriZZon, there are different matrices. In some of the cases, there is an option to aggregate them, but in other cases, we have not done this, e.g., to see the proper costs. For example, if I have 10 different matrices, then I need to create an aggregate view out of those 10 matrices somewhere. That is where we have been struggling a bit. We have a counterpart from the HoriZZon product team with whom we have bi-weekly discussions. We have suggested to him that this can be improved."
"The ability to generate charts and deal with a use case involving Kibana was quite difficult."
"The users of BiZZdesign should be able to enter their data or make modeling changes via HoriZZon."
"Integration definitely needs improvement. There are some restrictions. We've seen that it doesn't integrate with everything we might expect."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive."
"There is a subscription for this solution. We are on an annual subscription because you sometimes receive special offers the longer you subscribe."
"The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."
"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."
"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
"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."
"My company makes annual payments toward the licensing costs of the solution. Considering the product's capabilities, its prices are very reasonable."
"The solution's pricing is not an issue."
"First and foremost within the scope of improvement for the solution would be the cost. It's very costly..."
"The price is reasonable."
"If one is very cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the product price as a seven out of ten."
"[The] Orbus... pricing model was based on every single functionality having a price. The pricing was comparable but if we wanted to scale, it would have ended up being a lot more expensive. BiZZdesign gave us one price with all of the functionality, and we could scale as much as we needed."
"We were customers and bought licenses from them. We used their remote instance initially but upgraded to the on-device version due to lag. For pricing, we paid about 2200 pounds a year per seat for the client installation at an educational rate. I'm not sure about commercial rates. I managed to get a free copy at BBC since it was for evaluation purposes."
"In terms of this particular product usage, my clients currently only use per-user licenses."
"The pricing model is slightly on the high side and could be more competitive for long-term partnerships."
"I haven't found any issues with the scalability and licensing parts that are access-related."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
16%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
This is one of the best tools, especially because of its collaborative nature. Anyone using it can access previous projects and related data. It's definitely a strong collaborative tool.
What needs improvement with BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
There is room for improvement in BiZZdesign HoriZZon. It's quite robust and has good online forums where people discuss it, though maybe the interface can improve, but I don't want to criticize it ...
What is your primary use case for BiZZdesign HoriZZon?
The typical use case with BiZZdesign HoriZZon is basically for enterprise architecture and also for business process modeling.
 

Also Known As

No data available
HoriZZon
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Barclays
T-Mobile, Shell, HSBC, Erasmus University, VIVAT Insurance
Find out what your peers are saying about Avolution ABACUS vs. BiZZdesign HoriZZon and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.