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Avolution ABACUS vs erwin Data Modeler 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

Avolution ABACUS
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
erwin Data Modeler
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (5th), Data Governance (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of Avolution ABACUS is 3.1%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 7.3%, down from 10.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
erwin Data Modeler7.3%
Avolution ABACUS3.1%
Other89.6%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

JoseCamacho - PeerSpot reviewer
Freelancer at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
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…
Sushree Panigrahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Snowflake Data Engineer| Senior PLSQL Developer |Data Modeler|Assitant Vice Pre at Jp Morgan Chase & Co.
Data modeling has transformed regulatory reporting and collaboration across cloud environments
In erwin Data Modeler, areas that have room for improvement include performance improvements. I see that large models sometimes cause it to be slow when opening. Impact analysis can lag as well. Version control is another aspect. If we have developed a current version, it is not integrated with Git where we can easily compare different versions. UI modernization is also something we cannot utilize as it is primarily for development. Additionally, cloud-specific optimizations are needed when it comes to Snowflake or Databricks. When it comes to AI aspects, auto-suggestions for normalization or identifying primary, foreign, or surrogate keys are areas that can be improved.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The portfolio management is really good, and the dashboard and the reports for the end-to-end impact analysis are really good."
"If you face new challenges or issues then you can dynamically customize according to the business needs."
"It is a great tool for helping you understand what you really want to develop in an immature EA practice, providing a lot of flexibility in meeting a client stage and serving as an excellent early development tool."
"This product is very strong in terms of the meta-model because you can customize a lot according to the business plan."
"It's more than just an enterprise architecture tool as it has a lot of nice features, e.g. messaging, simulation, etc."
"There are a lot of different features, but the business/decision-maker feature, visibility, and dashboards are most valuable."
"If you want a data model of flexibility and catalog scalability I would recommend it from that perspective."
"It is a very powerful tool that does what an enterprise architect needs it to do and it supports the business in knowing more about the business so that they can do better."
"One of the ways Data Modeler has benefited our company is that it gives us the ability to engage with the business alongside IT, because it's friendly."
"It reduces monthly savings by hundreds of thousands of dollars."
"erwin Data Modeler's ability to generate database code from a model for a wide array of data sources saves time in development, as utilizing the solution allows me to accomplish tasks in minutes compared to the extended time required for manual processes."
"The fitting model is very intuitive."
"The principal feature that I liked is that the solution has a very graphic interface."
"The solution’s ability to generate database code from a model for a wide array of data sources cuts development time from two weeks to one day or even hours."
"It saves a lot of development time, and I think we are saving from two weeks to one month annually."
"The process of creating visual representations of data structures using erwin Data Modeler allows you to see everything you are doing, and you have visuals to see what you are going to do and what has been done so far."
 

Cons

"For some of the functionality, it might be a little complicated for people getting started."
"Having more control over page size is lacking in this product. Print utilization also needs to be improved."
"Avolution ABACUS has the drawback of needing data filtering at the development level, unlike some tools that offer filtering at deployment. Two areas where Avolution ABACUS could be improved are regional support and flexibility in model selection. Sometimes, it's challenging to access support or updates in certain regions, which can slow down progress. Additionally, it would be beneficial if the tool allowed more flexibility in selecting multiple models within a single unit."
"They should take more initiative to implement things that competing products have already come out with."
"While this is one of the most powerful tools on the market it does not integrate well with Microsoft Office or others."
"Their local presence in the Middle East could be scaled more, particularly in customer service. It would be good if they'd also have mobile dashboards for executive management out of the box."
"The reporting could be easier to configure."
"The company needs to update the UML version they are using for the product as it is quite old."
"I would like to see more support for working with the big-data world. There are so many new databases evolving and it's very hard for them to keep up with all of the new technologies. It would be good if they were able to dynamically support big-data platforms, other than Hive and Teradata."
"I would like to see the reporting capabilities be more dynamic and more inclusive of information. The API is very sparsely understood by people across the user community."
"As erwin Data Modeler files get larger, the response time really slows down, and when I have multiple files open I sometimes get a glitch where a lot of the text fields get solid black and the first eight characters of column names might be blacked out with a rectangle."
"I love the product. I love the ability to get into the code, make it automated, and make it do what I want. I would like to see them put some kind of governance over the ability to make changes to the mart tables with the API, so that instead of just using the modeler's rights to a table -- it has a separate set of rights for API access. That would give us the ability to put governance around API applications. Right now a person with erwin and Excel/VBA has the ability to make changes to models with the API if they also have rights to make changes to the model from erwin. It's a risk."
"In erwin Data Modeler, areas that have room for improvement include performance improvements. I see that large models sometimes cause it to be slow when opening."
"In terms of improvements, support could have been better in terms of installation, especially of workgroups. We struggled quite a bit to get it up and running. Collaboration could have been better from an installation perspective, but it is trivial as compared to what we use it for. Other than that, I don't have much feedback. It works pretty well, and the fact that we've been using it for more than a decade shows that it is quite solid."
"Although Quest Software has made tremendous strides in recent years, they need to evolve more in the big data arena; erwin Data Modeler could use a little more work when it comes to big database designs."
"The reverse engineering in Oracle Databases needs improvement, as there are issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive."
"My company makes annual payments toward the licensing costs of the solution. Considering the product's capabilities, its prices are very reasonable."
"This solution is expensive for some people's budgets and they need to offer a Lite version at a cheaper price"
"There is a subscription for this solution. We are on an annual subscription because you sometimes receive special offers the longer you subscribe."
"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."
"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
"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 cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The price of erwin Data Modeler is very expensive, in particular for this part of the world."
"The solution is expensive."
"There are two license options and the pricing is reasonable."
"erwin has this option where you pay a one-time fee and you have the license for six years, which makes sense because I don't upgrade my database engine every other year. I have an application that depends on it. This is something weird about PowerDesigner. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"Though the solution is not cheap, it's worth the money."
"There is either a one-year or three-year license. It is not a pay-as-you-go license like a SaaS solution. It’s more of a traditional licensing. They are a little bit on the pricier side."
"erwin Data Modeler by Quest is an expensive solution."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Government
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise38
 

Questions from the Community

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 is your primary use case for Avolution ABACUS?
I conducted an evaluation of enterprise architecture at the European Court in Luxembourg, reviewing and analyzing existing implementations to identify potential improvements and providing recommend...
What advice do you have for others considering Avolution ABACUS?
I rate Avolution ABACUS eight out of ten. The focus should be on implementing and understanding enterprise architecture concepts rather than the specific tool.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
I have no idea about the setup cost because I did not buy the license.
What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
The UI in erwin Data Modeler can be improved significantly because when any new person opens the tool, all the toolbars are kept open with many tools in view, making it appear chunky. If possible, ...
What is your primary use case for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
I primarly use erwin Data Modeler for modeling purposes. Once we have the business requirement, we create the models in erwin Data Modeler, and then we perform forward engineering to get the query ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
erwin DM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Barclays
 Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples
Find out what your peers are saying about Avolution ABACUS vs. erwin Data Modeler and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.