No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

erwin Data Modeler vs iGrafx Process360 Live Platform 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

erwin Data Modeler
Ranking in Business Process Design
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (1st), Data Governance (10th)
iGrafx Process360 Live Plat...
Ranking in Business Process Design
16th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (21st), Process Mining (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 3.0%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of iGrafx Process360 Live Platform is 2.8%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
erwin Data Modeler3.0%
iGrafx Process360 Live Platform2.8%
Other94.2%
Business Process Design
 

Featured Reviews

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.
MR
Solution Consultant at a healthcare company with 51-200 employees
Provides documentation, process mining, simulation, and automation capabilities
If customers want to change the color or the logo, they have to go through every page to verify everything is right. We have a strategic approach for the customer. I was involved in almost 100 sessions where the customers were looking for a one-time process visualization or one-time process mining, not for a long-term association with this tool. The customer's requirements are more tactical than strategic. We had some challenges during this time frame as I was with iGrafx, and electricity costs rose in Germany. One customer stopped a large deal because they had to reduce every non-invested investment due to the electricity bill rising by 500% to 800%.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It reduces monthly savings by hundreds of thousands of dollars."
"It's important to create standard templates — Erwin is good at that — and you can customize them. You can create a standard template so that your models have the same look and feel. And then, anyone using the tool is using the same font and the same general layout. erwin's very good at helping enforce that."
"The product lets us import different types of models from various databases."
"What has been useful, I have been able to reverse engineer our existing data models to document explicitly referential integrity relationships, primary/foreign keys in the model, and create ERDs that are subject area-based which our clients can use when working with our databases. The reality is that our databases are not explicitly documented in the DDL with primary/foreign key relationships. You can't look at the DDL and explicitly understand the primary/foreign key relationships that exist between our tables, so the referential integrity is not easily understood. erwin has allowed me to explicitly document that and create ERDs. This has made it easier for our clients to consume our databases for their own purposes."
"The best features of erwin Data Modeler include the forward engineering tool, which gives you the schema according to the data model that you generate."
"It supports a wide variety of databases, including the latest ones. We have chosen to go for a cloud-based database, and it supports that, which is very useful."
"Being able to point it to a database and then pull the metadata is a valuable feature. Another valuable feature is being able to rearrange the model so that we can display it to users. We are able to divide the information into subject areas, and we can divide the data landscape into smaller chunks, which makes it easier to understand. If you had 14 subject areas, 1,000 entities, and 6,000 columns, you can't quite understand it all at once. So, being able to have the same underlying model but only display portions of it at a time is extremely useful."
"Quest can create conceptual and physical data models to facilitate effective communication between business and IT. It can also integrate expertise from various engineering and database systems within your organization to enhance data management and administration."
"One of the biggest plus points of the product stems from the fact that I have never seen any glitches in it."
"iGrafx is the most comprehensive way to have all the cross-feeds and the documents related to workflows, like cross-notes."
"It is very easy to use for describing processes and is very useful in the simulation of the process putting parameters and the metrics process."
"Overall, the solution is very useful and has good features."
"It has increased accountability by providing defined documentation ownership."
"The IDEF0 add-on solution truly integrates all the process maps through intelligent arrow name management."
"If you need software to help you easily design processes, make simulations, build value stream mappings, which has some LEAN features, and DMAIC support, I strongly encourage you to go forward and buy iGrafx."
"The solution is very stable."
 

Cons

"It would be nice to have it on the Linux platform, not just Windows. If they can support Linux, there would be a huge market for it."
"We are planning to move, in 2021, into their server version, where multiple data modelers can work at the same time and share their models. It has become a pain point to merge the models from individual desktops and get them into a single data model, when multiple data modelers are working on a particular project. It becomes a nightmare for the senior data modeler to bring them together, especially when it comes to recreating them when you want to merge them."
"Some Source official systems give us DDLs to work with and they have contents not required to be part of the DDL before we reverse engineer in the erwin DM."
"Complete Compare is set up only to compare properties that are of interest to us, but some of the differences cannot be brought over from one version of the model to another."
"I am not so happy with its speed. Sometimes, it can have problems with connections."
"I'd really like to see the PDF function become available. It would make my life much easier than what it is at the moment because whenever I need to collaborate with people that do not have erwin, I have to go through the wonkiness of going to Word and then save it from Word into PDF. There's a lot of differences between erwin 4.4 and 2020."
"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."
"I would rate the visualization feature in erwin Data Modeler a six out of ten because the visualization is somewhat poor and some of the features are not user-friendly."
"It can be more user-friendly."
"I used the single license product. The entire suite can manage complex organizations, linking it with ERP, but it is not so easy to link it to a new ERP."
"If the price of the solution was more competitive, it would have made things easier for our company to extend the usage."
"Visio is more user-friendly."
"I would like to see a lower price, although when used correctly, you can have a good return on your investment."
"With iGrafx, the implementation and the licensing were pretty complex."
"If customers want to change the color or the logo, they have to go through every page to verify everything is right."
"Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a reseller in Mexico."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Likewise, the solution is a little pricey."
"The price should be lower in order to be on the same level as its competitors."
"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."
"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."
"Price-wise, erwin Data Modeler is okay. You can purchase a single license and it is not very expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
"I don't specifically know what we're paying now. About three years ago, in another organization, I have this memory of 6,000 AUD a seat or something like that, but I am not sure. In the mid-2000s, it was something like 1,200 AUD a seat. I get the impression that there was a price jump when it was spun off from CA as a separate company, which is understandable, but it could sometimes be a barrier in some organizations picking it up. I haven't talked to erwin people yet, but I'm going to suggest to them that they could perhaps think of having an entry-level product that is priced a bit lower, and then, you can buy the extra suite."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"I have heard that the solution's pricing is very competitive."
"Earlier, the licensing part was complex because there were so many modules and elements in the tool. Over the last one and a half years, a lot of work has gone into how the product has priced and positioned its tools in the market."
"My company is trying to replace iGrafx because the license is a little bit expensive."
"Our license is a subscription-based model that is per user. The solution is not expensive, I believe a subscription-based model is $10 per user."
"The licensing part is one of the problems. Its licensing depends on the number of users, so it sometimes gets expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business Process Design solutions are best for your needs.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise38
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iGrafx?
I have heard that the solution's pricing is very competitive.
What needs improvement with iGrafx?
If customers want to change the color or the logo, they have to go through every page to verify everything is right. We have a strategic approach for the customer. I was involved in almost 100 sess...
What is your primary use case for iGrafx?
The solution is used for the documentation and visualization of the main processes. The customers have hundreds or thousands of processes, but they start with the top 20 processes. The next step is...
 

Also Known As

erwin DM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

 Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples
Multinational Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about erwin Data Modeler vs. iGrafx Process360 Live Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.