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erwin Data Modeler vs iServer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 19, 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

erwin Data Modeler
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
3rd
Ranking in Business Process Design
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (14th)
iServer
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
8th
Ranking in Business Process Design
16th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 8.8%, down from 10.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of iServer is 4.2%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
erwin Data Modeler8.8%
iServer4.2%
Other87.0%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

JorgeSanz - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamline data modeling and automate network changes for increased efficiency
The initial setup depends on the tool if you are using the data model environment. Stopping the server could be complex and require strong expertise. If you have everything set up and configured, Erwin is straightforward. You can deploy it in a few hours. In our case, it took a couple of months to address internal conditions, assign machines, and set up everything for the services. I rate the initial setup a six out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.
Antonios Lazanakis - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexible, easy to use, and easy to import data
We use iServer to establish an enterprise architecture function in our organization iServer is a very flexible platform for defining your own enterprise architecture model. It is very easy to import data, and we also have good integration with Visual Drawing Tools and SharePoint. The solution is…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the best aspects of the tool is its reverse engineering capability."
"It is a scalable solution...The technical support team is fine."
"It's a safeguard for me because I'm always concerned that somebody is free handing it and will forget a key coming from the parent. The migrating keys are a great feature. Identifying relationships, non-identifying relationships, and being visually right there to understand the differences are great features. erwin is key to being able to visually understand whatever the customer is requesting. They'll give you words on a paper, but once they can actually view it as a picture, it really comes to life. The data comes to life to where they understand exactly what they're asking for."
"The principal feature that I liked is that the solution has a very graphic interface."
"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 data lineage feature is very valuable."
"The product allows us to reuse entities and attributes."
"Another feature of erwin is that it can help you enforce your naming standards. It has little modules that you can set up and, as you're building the data model, it's ensuring that they conform to the naming standards that you've developed."
"iServer has valuable features for workflow and document management."
"The solution is easily modified to suit your needs."
"I have to think less with this solution. It's simple."
"The initial setup is easy."
"There were lots of different requirements, and collaboration and review is one of the biggest things. There is also Office 360 integration, and there's flexibility to use it as a database as well."
"It has helped having data lineage in the business cluster, which is used as control artifacts."
"The most valuable feature is its reporting capability. It offers various packages for different types of reports, such as business and project management reporting packs."
"Tech support is very responsive. They solved issues within a prompt response time."
 

Cons

"In terms of improvements, support could have been better in terms of installation, especially of workgroups. We struggled quite a bit to get it up and running. Collaboration could have been better from an installation perspective, but it is trivial as compared to what we use it for. Other than that, I don't have much feedback. It works pretty well, and the fact that we've been using it for more than a decade shows that it is quite solid."
"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."
"The interface must be improved."
"I am not so happy with its speed. Sometimes, it can have problems with connections."
"One of the best aspects of the tool is its reverse engineering capability."
"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."
"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. This is despite the fact that we are clicking to bring objects from one place to another. Therefore, it's hard to tell at times if Complete Compare is working as intended without having to manually go into the details and check everything. If it could be redesigned to a degree where it is easier to use when we bring things over from one site to another and be sure that it's been done correctly, that would be nice to have. We would probably use the tool more often if the Complete Compare were easier to use."
"The solution's model mark could be better because it crashes sometimes."
"More visualization techniques and ways to report the data might be helpful."
"It runs relatively slowly."
"iServer is a solid tool. Occasionally, we needed to contact the vendor to clarify details such as porting issues, missing components, and model specifics."
"The one issue is that if you want to import predefined work, you need to put the licensing model in. So if you wanted to import work that was done before, you then need to buy a separate product for that."
"It definitely needs help to improve the visual aspect of the solution."
"iServer should invest in enhancing the capabilities of the embedded drawing tool, draw.io."
"We could allocate permissions to use only specific components to the users rather than the entire instance."
"The product is more expensive than Spark."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The tool is expensive."
"The price should be lower in order to be on the same level as its competitors."
"There is either a one-year or three-year license. It is not a pay-as-you-go license like a SaaS solution. It’s more of a traditional licensing. They are a little bit on the pricier side."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"There are two license options and the pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"The product has a moderate pricing."
"The solution is cheaper than its competitors."
"Aim for the exact number of people who shall define/review approve and view the processes, as it will impact the cost."
"They offer annual subscriptions for developing countries, which are not affordable for small or medium businesses."
"It's about 13K to set up and 9K for the license for three months. I think it's about 20K a year, but we haven't firmed up on pricing yet because the price depends on how long we commit to the solution."
"The price of iServer is reasonable compared to other solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
Forward engineering, DDL generation, reverse engineering, and reporting are the most valuable features of the solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
I do not recall the pricing from about a year and a half ago, but it seems reasonable.
What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
erwin Data Modeler could improve its UI as it still feels old school and not very modern. There are many features, and I would expect good documentation detailing each feature, including when and h...
What do you like most about iServer?
iServer has valuable features for workflow and document management.
What needs improvement with iServer?
iServer should invest in enhancing the capabilities of the embedded drawing tool, draw.io. draw.io is a drawing tool used to draw architectural diagrams, flow diagrams, etc. It is an alternative to...
What is your primary use case for iServer?
We use iServer to establish an enterprise architecture function in our organization.
 

Also Known As

erwin DM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

 Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples
Barclays, Cathay Pacific, Deloitte, British Gas, MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about erwin Data Modeler vs. iServer and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.