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BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs SAP PowerDesigner 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

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)
SAP PowerDesigner
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Metadata Management (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of BiZZdesign HoriZZon is 5.1%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP PowerDesigner is 8.8%, up from 8.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

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.
JorgeSanz - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective in terms of validating everything, but sometimes they don't allow us some flexibility and GUI could improve
I would recommend SAP PowerDesigner to others for data architecture management. It provides all the functionalities in terms of data modeling, so it's also a good tool for that. I see trends in terms of data classification, but I don't see this tool with the intelligence to do that automatically. So, like, with artificial intelligence. Overall, I would rate the solution a six out of ten because there are too many validations. Also, I found some gaps in terms of relationships; they didn't appear when you do reverse engineering. Also, this tool lacks artificial intelligence that should be very good in terms of automatically identifying the classification of elements and maybe also to incorporate some artificial intelligence in providing descriptions for each data element included in the solution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Among the valuable features is the ability to document standards. For example, we have mandatory operating standards that need to be followed by every application and every architecture. We use things like table charts and pie charts for documenting the costs incurred across the systems. All of these are good features."
"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."
"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."
"BiZZdesign HoriZZon is scalable, and I'd give it an eight out of ten for scalability. Our customers are enterprise level companies, but the solution is suitable for small and mid-sized companies as well."
"The most valuable features are the application, portfolio, data, architectures, and modeling things."
"t's a good tool. My colleagues that are making use of it for application, business processes, or data modeling, are very satisfied with it. They find it easy to use. The graphical representation is simple but therefore efficient, so I know that they are planning a very good commencement on the use of these tools."
"One of the main advantages of this solution is that they have representation in the Open Group Forum, which means that any changes in ArchiMate are immediately implemented in BiZZdesign."
"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 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."
"Has a specific template that's very helpful for importing metadata."
"I do a data-centric design, so for me, the data analysis and design tools are the most valuable features."
"The most valuable feature is that it is a very fast reverse engineering process. It does a very expansive comparison."
"It offers a lot of features in one solution. You would have to get multiple other products to bundle together all of the capabilities that you get in just this product."
"It is more flexible than other tools and user-friendly, making it easy to adapt."
"This solution has good tools for big data, where you can manage large and complex databases."
"The solution is a very pragmatic tool. It's quite easy to use."
 

Cons

"The automatic data collection and interface need improvement."
"There's room for improvement. When I finished using it over a year ago, I discussed implementing C4 notation with BiZZdesign HoriZZon.They've likely done this now, but I haven't seen it. Setting up interactive views for stakeholders to score services was a bit difficult."
"The users of BiZZdesign should be able to enter their data or make modeling changes via HoriZZon."
"It should be more open to integrating with other existing tools. Although there has been progress in the past."
"We tested it, and we had support from BiZZdesign, including patches, but it just didn't do what we wanted."
"Scalability is a bit of a problem for BiZZdesign. There is always a possibility it will failover."
"It takes a long time to learn and understand, which is a learning curve you have to go through, but once you know how it works, it's very nice to work with."
"Integration definitely needs improvement. There are some restrictions. We've seen that it doesn't integrate with everything we might expect."
"SAP PowerDesigner could improve by making the repository easier to understand. It is difficult to understand how the repository works because when I used logical models as part of the team, we wanted to use them together and update the older versions of the data model version but it was confusing. The repository needs to be explained."
"I have found the solution not easy to use. When publishing you have to download the HTML, make adjustments against the updated HTML, convert it to HTML, then finally paste the HTML. There is not an on-the-fly function available to bypass the step-by-step converting process that other solutions have."
"The data governance should be improved, like ER/Studio."
"In terms of improvement, the pricing is a bit high."
"Regarding improvements, I suggest enhancing the connection between objects in process and data models. It's crucial to define the structure of objects, especially when dealing with standard frameworks like VMM. There should be better visualization of arrows between BPM and data modeling objects, specifying their structure and impact. For future versions, a feature similar to Bizagi, allowing users to see forms or SQL representations of objects, would be valuable for demonstrating and presenting project details to stakeholders."
"There are many areas of this solution that needs to be changed."
"In the future, I would like to see data manipulation capability where you can actually write SQL queries and manipulate data from directly within the tool."
"There should be a better usage of current hardware including multicore CPUs, higher resolutions, and multiple displays."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"First and foremost within the scope of improvement for the solution would be the cost. It's very costly..."
"I haven't found any issues with the scalability and licensing parts that are access-related."
"In terms of this particular product usage, my clients currently only use per-user licenses."
"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."
"The pricing model is slightly on the high side and could be more competitive for long-term partnerships."
"The ROI has been 43%."
"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 would like SAP to prove free licenses to professionals that are using the solution. The free version is limited."
"The price of the solution is low."
"The price of the solution is too expensive. When we asked for certain licenses in different countries it was unattainable."
"When you purchase the license for SAP PowerDesigner, you have to buy one year of support. The tool is worth the money."
"PowerDesigner is not the cheapest solution on the market, so make sure that you are using it to its full potential."
"I bought the software outright and do not pay a licensing fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Educational Organization
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What do you like most about SAP PowerDesigner?
It allows us to have proper documentation in terms of the databases.
What needs improvement with SAP PowerDesigner?
Based on my experience with SAP PowerDesigner, I'd like to see improvements in the DMM feature. Even if I have an ETL tool, I'd like the DMM options to directly connect to ETL tool repositories lik...
 

Also Known As

HoriZZon
Sybase PowerDesigner
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

T-Mobile, Shell, HSBC, Erasmus University, VIVAT Insurance
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 BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs. SAP PowerDesigner and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.