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CA Datacom vs IDERA ER/Studio comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

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

CA Datacom
Ranking in Database Development and Management
27th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.6
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IDERA ER/Studio
Ranking in Database Development and Management
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Database Development and Management category, the mindshare of CA Datacom is 1.2%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IDERA ER/Studio is 3.5%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Development and Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IDERA ER/Studio3.5%
CA Datacom1.2%
Other95.3%
Database Development and Management
 

Featured Reviews

it_user489183 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Admin at a logistics company with 10,001+ employees
Scalability and the online maintainability of definitions are definite advantages for us
We've had it for so long, so it's status quo. But we've added all sorts of functionality to our applications and there are no issues with databases. Anything developers request, we're able to accomplish. Also, we deal a lot with government regulation - and not to talk about what the company does - but anything that they require of us, because we transmit data back and forth with them, we're able to do that with no problems. And there have been a lot of changes over the past five years that our government dictated regarding what we actually end up doing. So, we're able to be extremely flexible with that.
reviewer2796111 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Improved data modeling has reduced system footprint and strengthened finance workflows
I assess the benefits of IDERA ER_Studio's metadata management for my organization as not as good as Erwin's. Erwin's metadata management is better in how it handles data. There is a lot more user involvement in managing the metadata, primarily because in IDERA ER_Studio, the logical and physical models are separately defined in the same file, so you have to map them every single time. In Erwin, it has a unified structure, so if you make a change in the logical model, it automatically shows up in the physical model. You have to go through a couple of steps in the IDERA model to make sure everything has moved over. While that is not that inconvenient when you are actually doing development, as far as metadata management, that is prone to things getting dropped and missed. The collaboration tools in IDERA ER_Studio are adequate, but I think with Erwin, there is more of an opportunity for things to crash. Changes can be merged in IDERA more fluidly; however, the locking and sharing are a little bit more defined in Erwin. I think the learning curve for Erwin might be easier than IDERA ER_Studio, especially with connecting to different models and systems.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Nowadays, CA is doing a lot of improving as far as online maintainability of definitions, which is a huge improvement over the past. I'm able to do a lot of changes without any outage."
"It definitely ​cuts down on our support costs. I do not get woken up in the middle of the night very often for a problem with Datacom."
"It has cut down on our support, especially after hours, and it is a solid product that just works most of the time."
"It is a solid product."
"This product is very stable, compared to a lot of other DBMSs that run in our shop."
"It does its job very well."
"Scalability is definitely one thing. The size of the database can grow without any issues. We've got one database table that's got over a billion rows in it; quite a bit of data, and it handles access like a champ."
"The initial setup is fairly straightforward for a mainframe product."
"I think ER/Studio Data Architect is priced high, but it comes with user-friendly features."
"We have a database design group of about 15 people. The Repository enables multiple people to work on the same model at the same time. We have fully integrated models, so we have one model for the enterprise data warehouse, one model for MDM, with a lot of sub-models in these things. People work on different parts of the model at different times. So the repository enables us to share the models, and keep track of what everybody is working on."
"The data modeling and reverse engineering features are most important to us."
"IDERA keeps up with the versions of Oracle and SQL Server that I'm using. I mostly use SQL Server and when there are new features, a new type of index, for example, IDERA also includes them in upgrades of the data modeling tool."
"Overall, the product is very powerful and versatile for the task it's designed to do."
"Valuable features include the ability to visually represent what the database tables are going to look like and their relationships. Also, the ability to document the definitions of the tables and the columns that are in a table so that we can communicate what the data is and how it should be used."
"Our primary use case of this solution is to design our database."
"Data lineage tracking: It allows us to identify upstream and downstream systems using data."
 

Cons

"There are still some things - and I know they are working on some of them - but for the "no-outage maintainability" of things, they are making improvements as we speak, but there is definitely still room for more of that."
"Something that we would like to see is for them to develop integration with open distribution systems."
"There are a lot of features that come out with each upgrade, but our application that runs on it has been around for a long time; they sort of decommissioned this application."
"The only minor issue that we have had with Datacom is in the installation guide: Some of the sizings for the databases have not really worked out for us, so we had to go in and resize them."
"I had trouble with an upgrade once but, when I have trouble with the upgrade there's always someone there to support me and get me through it really quickly."
"What needs the most improvement are semantic lineage and usability."
"One limitation I have found in ER/Studio is that when you want to make some changes to the table definitions, you have to go item by item. You cannot do it globally. Another issue concerns defining the foreign keys between the different tables. It is a little more tedious in the ER/Studio than in ERrwin. With ERwin it is direct."
"Installation of the product itself is straight forward although the licensing process is awkward and confusing at best."
"Whenever there is a new version, there are a lot of release notes on the technical side of it, but I would like to be told why are we doing the upgrade... What I would like to really see is how this benefits us from the business point of view. What are the real benefits that the user gets? I want some kind of way white paper. The release notes describe the technical enhancements but, from the layman's point of view, if someone asks me what are the business benefits of this upgrade, I don't have any documentation to explain it to the business."
"The repository causes continuous problems, as it's slow and sometimes crashes."
"Sometimes our version is a little unstable. But I think this problem occurs because our version is old."
"when there are some links to the external databases, if this database is not structured it is not uploaded. It gives me errors and I cannot see the view that was created on this structure and I cannot change those views, even manually. It skips the views. I have to ignore those views. I cannot re-upload them because it gives me an error."
"I would like to see better documentation/help for the Data Architect tool. Creation of tutorials would be nice, as there are some features which are not as clearly defined as they should be."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The setup cost may have been around $1500 to $2000."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is bad and ten is good, I would rate the licensing cost as a seven or eight. It's not too expensive for us."
"It is priced fairly. It's around the same as erwin and other competitors' costs."
"I feel the product's pricing is a good value."
"Pricing is on point, but do your due diligence - not every developer needs the tool."
"I am currently using the trial version, but this solution is definitely worth considering for the price point."
"I use the product's trial version."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
13%
Construction Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
9%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Energy/Utilities Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IDERA ER Studio?
In terms of pricing, ER/Studio is slightly more expensive compared to Erwin, by about five to ten percent.
What is your primary use case for IDERA ER Studio?
I work in the finance industry, and the use cases for this product are very similar to what I mentioned previously when I discussed being in industrial management. It is simply a different product.
What advice do you have for others considering IDERA ER Studio?
I have not used IDERA ER_Studio's impact analysis tools, so I really could not judge that regarding mitigating database risks for security. I am not on the end as far as the pricing, as this is wha...
 

Also Known As

DATACOM
IDERA ER Studio, ER/Studio, ER/Studio Enterprise Team Edition
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blue Hill Data Services Inc.
Newmont Mining, Entrust, Accolade, TalkTalk, Catalina, Protective Life, NTT Data, dir systèmes, Microsoft; American Express, Astellas Pharma, AstraZeneca, Coriant, Fedex, GlaxoSmithKline, PepsiCo, Prudential, Wells Fargo
Find out what your peers are saying about CA Datacom vs. IDERA ER/Studio and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.