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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) (20th), Process Mining (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 2.8%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of iGrafx Process360 Live Platform is 2.8%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
erwin Data Modeler2.8%
iGrafx Process360 Live Platform2.8%
Other94.4%
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

"The tool is also very intuitive and easy to use."
"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 saves a lot of development time, and I think we are saving from two weeks to one month annually."
"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."
"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."
"Any tool will do diagramming but I think the ability to put the stuff up in a graphical fashion, then think about it, and keep things consistent is what's valuable about it. It's too easy when you're using other methods to not have naming consistent standards and column consistent definitions, et cetera."
"The principal feature that I liked is that the solution has a very graphic interface."
"My favorite feature of erwin Data Modeler is that we can export and import tables directly from the databases, and it is easy to map from table to table and column to column."
"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."
"One of the biggest plus points of the product stems from the fact that I have never seen any glitches in it."
"It has simplified compliance with regulations and company standards."
"It has increased accountability by providing defined documentation ownership."
"Simulation is most valuable."
"It's a great product, but all the functionalities need to be exploited in order to get the full value of the investment."
"We think iGrafx is well-priced, affordable; you don’t need a lot of license seats, and it has a good, free, downloadable iGrafx Viewer (akin to Adobe Reader)."
"iGrafx is the most comprehensive way to have all the cross-feeds and the documents related to workflows, like cross-notes."
 

Cons

"I would like to see more support for working with the big-data world. There are so many new databases evolving and it's very hard for them to keep up with all of the new technologies. It would be good if they were able to dynamically support big-data platforms, other than Hive and Teradata."
"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."
"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. Therefore, we manually make changes to those scripts and edit them, then reverse-engineer within the tool. So, it does take some time to edit these DDL scripts generated by the source operational systems. What I would suggest: It would be helpful if there were a place within the erwin tool to import the file and automatically eliminate all the unnecessary lines of code, and just have the clean code built-in to generate the table/data model."
"It has a very steep learning curve, limited support for NoSQL or streaming systems, and potentially a high licensing cost."
"It does not have a cloud application."
"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."
"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."
"The only real complaint I have is the time it takes to do a database comparison on a large model. If they could speed that up, that would be the only thing I can think of that needs improvement."
"If the price of the solution was more competitive, it would have made things easier for our company to extend the usage."
"With iGrafx, the implementation and the licensing were pretty complex."
"With iGrafx, the implementation and the licensing were pretty complex."
"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."
"It would be helpful to be able to do more analytics and generate reports on historical documents that have already been uploaded to the server."
"The look and feel, along with the ease of use of the solution's web modeling version, is an area with certain shortcomings."
"Dragging and dropping shapes is not as user-friendly as in Visio. In Visio, it's very easy to work with shapes and in very few minutes you can plot a whole, multi swim-lane, cross-functional process."
"This is a tool that covers the low end (e.g. Visio) to high end (e.g. Aris), although it's much less user friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 Data Modeler by Quest is an expensive solution."
"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."
"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."
"Pricing is very high compared to any other product."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"There are two license options and the pricing is reasonable."
"The primary reasons that erwin was selected were that it was much more affordable for us [than Embarcadero] and it was easily maintainable."
"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."
"My company is trying to replace iGrafx because the license is a little bit expensive."
"The licensing part is one of the problems. Its licensing depends on the number of users, so it sometimes gets expensive."
"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."
"I have heard that the solution's pricing is very competitive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Performing Arts
5%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
9%
Healthcare Company
9%
Computer Software 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: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.