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No Magic MagicDraw vs erwin Data Modeler comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 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

erwin Data Modeler
Ranking in Business Process Design
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (2nd), Data Governance (15th)
No Magic MagicDraw
Ranking in Business Process Design
14th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 2.5%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of No Magic MagicDraw is 2.7%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
erwin Data Modeler2.5%
No Magic MagicDraw2.7%
Other94.8%
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.
reviewer2080611 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Ease of use and real-time collaboration empower effective teamwork and streamlined development
For CAMEO, it's not only the ease of use, it's versatility, its communicability, but Rhapsody is the worst tool I've ever used. It is very difficult, not user-friendly, and very expensive. It works only with its IBM counterparts. SPARX Enterprise Architecture is very easy to use, but it's limited. It gives you an idea of how your model is developing, so this feature helps maintain integrity or correctness of system models. It's really a good feature to have. You've got to have the simulation toolkit installed to be able to do that, and that works really well. The MagicDraw or CAMEO system is good on its own, but it should be integrated and should come out of the box with the simulation toolkit because there are some things you can't do without it, making it very difficult to have to look for another license to be able to do that. I would prefer that it come with the simulation toolkit.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The data lineage feature is very valuable."
"The process of creating visual representations of data structures using erwin Data Modeler allows you to see everything you are doing, and you have visuals to see what you are going to do and what has been done so far."
"Forward engineering, DDL generation, reverse engineering, and reporting are the most valuable features of the solution."
"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."
"Drag-and-drop data modeling and reverse engineering out of databases are the most valuable features of erwin Data Modeler by Quest."
"Currently in the market, there is no competitor to erwin Data Modeler; everything is very powerful, such as performing reverse engineering from an existing database and deploying that on Databricks or Snowflake."
"It has centralized storage so that a data model can be shared by different teams."
"I love the way erwin Data Modeler creates data models and presents them for our users."
"There is a lot of documentation available on the Internet to understand its functionality."
"The initial setup was not straightforward."
"No Magic has the tools and capability to model a complete enterprise and all product lines."
"When you look at it, No Magic is an all-encompassing tool. You can use it for business architecture design. You can use it for deploying an ERP system across your enterprise. However, it was initially designed and developed for model-based systems engineering. That's the systems engineering required to either produce an IP system or product. It takes away the mounds of paper and puts it into a model. It enables you to generate significant savings by modeling that new product or that system before you ever start developing a prototype."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to quickly build multiple layers within the organizational and business process environments, as well as in the SysML product environments, and converting to files that can be accessed by clients who do not have a system and a teamwork server access."
"The most valuable feature is the amount of flexibility that one has to model, which is great for an individual."
"I would rate MagicDraw a nine out of ten because of the price. Enterprise Architect has a lot of bugs and MagicDraw is a lot more accurate and flexible. It's a level better."
"The MBFC capability of MagicDraw is higher than the other competitors."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"I would like to see the reporting capabilities be more dynamic and more inclusive of information. The API is very sparsely understood by people across the user community."
"The navigation is a little bit of a challenge. It's painful. For example, if you've got a view open and you want to try to move from side to side, the standard today is being able to drag and drop left and right. You can't really do that in the model. Moving around the model is painful because it doesn't follow the Windows model today."
"The interface must be improved."
"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."
"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."
"erwin generally fails to successfully reverse engineer our Oracle Databases into erwin data models. The way that they are engineered on our side, the syntax is correct from an Oracle perspective, but it seems to be very difficult for erwin to interpret. What I end up doing is using Oracle Data Modeler to reverse engineer into the Oracle data model, then forward engineer the DDL into an Oracle syntax, and importing that DDL into erwin in order to successfully bring in most of the information from our physical data models. That is a bit of a challenge."
"Some of No Magic MagicDraw's most valuable features were its integration with other simulation tools, such as MATLAB, the seasonal plugin, and the Rangel simulation toolkit."
"When I am working with my Mac and I right-click to copy and paste, it doesn't work."
"One potential area for improvement is the recommendation feature. At times, we face challenges in locating specific features, and we have to reach out for assistance in finding the information we need."
"The documentation for MagicDraw and the video tutorials compared to other competitors is an area for improvement."
"The UI UX of the tool is not really user-friendly and needs to be completely reformed."
"The licenses are expensive compared to similar tools. At the moment, the user is open to using MagicDraw if it's 15% more than other solutions. If it were to cost any more, they wouldn't use it."
"It's very focused on specific modern languages and it doesn't do necessarily general systems software engineering with diagrams. They should expand the diagram types for the languages."
"There could be a trial version for students."
 

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."
"Pricing is very high compared to any other product."
"There are two license options and the pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"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 price of erwin Data Modeler is very expensive, in particular for this part of the world."
"This company had bought the license for three years, and it's not an individual license. While you can buy a license for each individual, that would be very expensive. There is something called concurrent licenses where you can purchase licenses in bulk and 15 to 20 people can access the license and model. Concurrent licenses are scalable to the number of users and are proportional to the cost."
"I would say licensing would be anywhere from $3,500 to $6,500 per person or per seat (it's a per seat style license)."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis, and it's expensive."
"The price of No Magic MagicDraw could improve. The price of the solution is too expensive for smaller-sized companies. There should be a better pricing model."
"I rate the pricing a ten out of ten. It is an expensive product compared to software for model-based system engineering."
"In addition to the initial cost, you have to pay annually for support in order to get the upgrades."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Performing Arts
5%
Manufacturing Company
24%
Government
11%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise34
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
Regarding pricing, I am unsure what the exact price is for erwin Data Modeler, but I believe it is not useful for an individual. It is more targeted toward an enterprise level since organizations l...
What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
I write code and I write code accessing erwin Data Modeler's API, the Application Programming Interface, so that I can use Excel to update erwin Data Modeler and then get those updates and put them...
What is your primary use case for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
I work for CVS with a pretty big database as a data modeler on the PBMs, the Caremark PBM side, which is the Pharmacy Benefits Manager. There's a retail side too for all the stores, but our data wa...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for No Magic MagicDraw?
Maybe the price is a little bit high for a small company to acquire this tool. However, they offer trial versions and trial licenses for members of INCOSE.
What needs improvement with No Magic MagicDraw?
For CAMEO, it's not only the ease of use, it's versatility, its communicability, but Rhapsody is the worst tool I've ever used. It is very difficult, not user-friendly, and very expensive. It works...
What is your primary use case for No Magic MagicDraw?
I deal with DOD lifecycle acquisition sorts of things as some of the main use cases currently, and I expect to continue using it for more than 25 years.
 

Also Known As

erwin DM
MagicDraw
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

 Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples
Northrop Grumman, Labcorp, Deposco, ClearView Training, IT Services Promotion Agency, Intelligent Chaos, Metalithic Systems Inc., Sodifrance
Find out what your peers are saying about No Magic MagicDraw vs. erwin Data Modeler and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.