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Avolution ABACUS vs erwin Data Modeler comparison

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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
6.0
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (7th), Data Governance (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of Avolution ABACUS is 3.0%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 8.4%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
erwin Data Modeler8.4%
Avolution ABACUS3.0%
Other88.6%
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 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 with other tools like BI, Power BI, or Grafana requires setting up pipelines between them."
"For what it does it is very good and a reasonable price."
"ABACUS is a really forward thinking product with a lot of nice features in it; it's not just all talk, it actually works."
"This product is very strong in terms of the meta-model because you can customize a lot according to the business plan."
"The most valuable feature is that it has a customizable meta-model, which is key."
"It is a very stable solution...The initial setup of Avolution ABACUS is very easy."
"The portfolio management is really good, and the dashboard and the reports for the end-to-end impact analysis are really good."
"The technical support is very good. They are responsive and the answers they provide are detailed."
"I have used most of the modeling tools available, but I found that erwin Data Modeler is the most suitable data modeling tool in our current industry."
"If you want to have good data architecture, you need to have database design done."
"The logical model gives developers, as well as the data modelers, an understanding of exactly how each object interacts with the others, whether a one-to-many, many-to-many, many-to-one, etc."
"The fitting model is very intuitive."
"The product itself is fantastic and it's about the only way to get an enterprise view of the data that you're designing."
"It provides flexibility with the code. You can change the code as you want. Basically, you can change SQL based on what's best for your project."
"Erwin is by far the best tool I've ever used."
"erwin has versioning so you can keep versions, over time, of those models and you can compare any version to any version. If you're looking at a specific database and you want to see what changed over time, that's really useful. You can go back to a different version or connect that to your change-control processes so you can see what was released when."
 

Cons

"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 most valuable features are the catalog and the diagram."
"The usability of the tool is an area with shortcomings that need improvement."
"It needs more flexible analysis parameters and more capability as a BPM tool and doing BPM simulation, compared with Bonita BPM or Bizagi."
"For some of the functionality, it might be a little complicated for people getting started."
"While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."
"If they want to expand in the European market then they are going to have to improve their technical support."
"The company needs to update the UML version they are using for the product as it is quite old."
"I would like the solution to be less rigid in terms of its theory."
"I would like to see the ability to support more NoSQL platforms more quickly. In addition, enhancing the graphics to render more quickly would be beneficial for any user."
"The erwin ETL functionality has room for improvement when it comes to mapping databases with a classic entity-relationship model to a data warehouse model."
"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."
"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."
"Erwin Data Modeler is a good product, but I recently experienced a problem where I was not able to open an erwin Data Modeler file because its version had automatically changed."
"What I did not like was that sometimes while I was creating relations, I was not getting errors. The errors only appeared when I tried to upload the model into a new database, which took a lot of time because I was creating a model, reproducing XML, and then trying to add the XML in the database."
"The solution only works with one server and one database, so I don't think it's scalable enough."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It is expensive."
"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 solution's pricing is not an issue."
"There is a subscription for this solution. We are on an annual subscription because you sometimes receive special offers the longer you subscribe."
"I'm paying on a yearly basis. I don't know whether it's a highly expensive tool or not. I'm getting a single version of it, and I don't have the enterprise part on it because I don't need the server component, and I don't need a web browser component. My estimate would be that it's a very reasonably priced tool given that you don't need to have licenses with everyone in order to get the information and the decision support capabilities out of the tool. You use the enterprise edition on top of the studio, which is the heart of the tool. I am not aware of any additional costs."
"The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."
"My company makes annual payments toward the licensing costs of the solution. Considering the product's capabilities, its prices are very reasonable."
"I wish it wasn't so expensive. I would love to personally buy a copy of my own and have it at home, because the next job that I'm looking at is probably project management and I might not have access to the tool. I would like to keep my ability to use the tool. Therefore, they should probably have a pricing for people like me who want to just use the solution as an independent consultant, trying to get started. $3,000 is a big hit."
"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."
"The tool is expensive."
"The primary reasons that erwin was selected were that it was much more affordable for us [than Embarcadero] and it was easily maintainable."
"Pricing is very high compared to any other product."
"We've continued to use the product for many years and compared it with others on the market. The pricing is reasonable considering what the solution offers and what we pay. There are cheaper tools, but they may not be as robust and easy to use, so it's worth the money."
"Though the solution is not cheap, it's worth the money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
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 Business17
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise43
 

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?
The experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that the licensing process is painful and quite onerous. The setup is okay, but there is room for improvement.
What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
erwin Data Modeler could improve in a few ways, starting with the ability to not have to go out to the external Maven files to import and export the metadata from a different format. It could also ...
What is your primary use case for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
My main use case for erwin Data Modeler varies, but I use it for forward engineering and reverse engineering and documenting databases.I work with something that requires forward engineering or dat...
 

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: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.