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Avolution ABACUS vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect 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
Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (5th)
 

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 Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is 12.7%, down from 17.0% 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…
Milan Sterba - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient documentation generation through organized model structure with a good price-performance ratio
Whenever I begin a new project with Sparx, I have to spend time training people on how to use it since it is not straightforward. Although it's a powerful product with plenty of features, it's not easy for even experienced users to find their way without guidance. This is not the most user-friendly solution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The technical support is very good. They are responsive and the answers they provide are detailed."
"You can design using a diagram tool installed on your desktop, a key difference from other vendors."
"It's more than just an enterprise architecture tool as it has a lot of nice features, e.g. messaging, simulation, etc."
"The most valuable feature is that it has a customizable meta-model, which is key."
"Scalable and stable tool for roadmapping and modeling, with a good dashboard, end-to-end impact analysis, and portfolio management."
"The ease of modeling and the ease of showing interconnectivity and relationships is the most valuable. It is fairly simple and out of the box. It is customizable in many ways. It is a pretty good tool."
"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."
"Avolution ABACUS allows for flexible enterprise architecture analysis."
"Using Sparx Enterprise Architect allowed my customer to detail and make the company's IT strategy visible and accessible to all. The system provided clear roadmaps for IT development and helped to keep up-to-date documentation of systems and processes."
"Ability to maintain cross-references for all models in all levels - great tractability."
"The profiles allow me to customize the tool to the corporate environment instead of the other way around saving huge amounts of time and energy on trying to turn dozens of individuals into TOGAF, ArchiMate or Zachman experts, or even Sparx EA experts."
"It's a stable and scalable solution. I like that it's similar to Rational Rose."
"The solution saved a lot of time, about 30%."
"We use it to develop and maintain the Enterprise Conceptual Model, migrated from erwin a couple of years ago."
"Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect supports multiple modeling languages like ArchiMate for database design, software lifecycle visualization, and team management."
"The company has become more efficient and reduced its budget."
 

Cons

"If they want to expand in the European market then they are going to have to improve their technical support."
"While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."
"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 company needs to update the UML version they are using for the product as it is quite old."
"Having more control over page size is lacking in this product. Print utilization also needs to be improved."
"In the future, there could be improvements in integration and enhancements."
"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."
"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."
"From a practical point of view, we need speed and reliability for creating a model and doing some really meaningful tasks such as application landscape, refactoring, etc. These are two primary criteria. Sometimes, when you import something, it creates the object duplicates, or it allows you to do something that you're not supposed to do. For example, validation is missing. This could be frustrating because when you work at a high speed, you need to come back and start fixing things that the tool allowed you to go with, which is not quite good. So, there should probably be some internal mechanisms to advise you about what you're doing and what is probably not the best idea."
"The documentation could be better. Where I work, we speak French and we don't speak English, so we don't have anything in French. It's perfect in English, but we need something in French."
"There should be a MATLAB-specific toolbox added to the solution with better compatibility. The connections currently are good but in the future, it needs a huge improvement."
"Sparx can be a bit slow. If you are trying to design software architecture, sometimes we run into issues and need to refresh."
"It would be nice to have it supported on the Linux operating system."
"The window froze for five or ten seconds. You can click and click again and it takes a second to come up. It might have been specific to a version."
"The Business Process Modeling or BPM feature can be improved to make it more interactive and user friendly because it is a tool for technical people. My current use is only for business process modeling notation and putting in the icons etc. You need to take them in as a class, which makes things very complex. Because of this complexity, it is not an easy-to-handle solution. Enterprise Architect is not very good for mockups. We cannot create user screens and other similar kinds of stuff, which is bad. For these things, we prefer to use Axure RP and other similar solutions. They should either remove this feature from this product or provide some kind of connectivity with Axure RP so that people can do better mockups of screens and import them. They need to augment and strengthen the BPM feature, which is the main feature. They need to put in some elements like artificial intelligence and augmented reality. They should look into such features because these things are coming up."
"For data modeling, it is not very mature when comparing with other data modeling tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a subscription for this solution. We are on an annual subscription because you sometimes receive special offers the longer you subscribe."
"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
"This solution is expensive for some people's budgets and they need to offer a Lite version at a cheaper price"
"The solution's pricing is not an issue."
"It is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"In terms of cost, Sparx EA is probably one of the cheapest tools I have ever used."
"I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."
"We had a yearly license."
"They have the price on their site for the enterprise version, and we do receive a small discount."
"It’s the best deal in town, by far."
"Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is priced well. The price we pay is approximately $20 per month. Other solutions I have found to be much more expensive."
"I use my own license. So, I just bought the professional version, which costs $800 or something like that. In the company where I am working, we have floating licenses. They are probably more expensive. Its licensing is affordable, but we are talking about a large organization, and there could be modelers or viewers of the models. We don't know how much that would cost us."
"Enterprise licensing is competitive. What would be helpful if they load the pricing for consultants, you know, people who are consultants for clients. So the license is fine for end-user organizations. Still, they should consider lowering the license to support this adoption, particularly for people who are consultants like myself."
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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
13%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

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 Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
The stability has been good and satisfactory. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
One of the reasons many public sector institutions in the Czech Republic use it is that it provides a very good price-performance ratio. While it might be cumbersome to learn, it still delivers exc...
What needs improvement with Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
Whenever I begin a new project with Sparx, I have to spend time training people on how to use it since it is not straightforward. Although it's a powerful product with plenty of features, it's not ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Barclays
OmniLink
Find out what your peers are saying about Avolution ABACUS vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.