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QualiWare X vs erwin Data Modeler 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 Enterprise Architecture Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (5th), Data Governance (10th)
QualiWare X
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
20th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (48th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler is 7.2%, down from 10.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of QualiWare X is 2.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
erwin Data Modeler7.2%
QualiWare X2.0%
Other90.8%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

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.
Gavin Bérubé - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Architect at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
Works as a reference for architecture but not very intuitive
We use the solution as a reference for architecture so that we can connect business data applications. The tool helps us to know how these applications should be built. We use it mainly as reference material.  I like the solution's traceability.  The solution is not easy and intuitive to use. I…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Erwin Data Modeler is well organized, and the screen layout is intuitive."
"It reduces monthly savings by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Think about a company like Costco and all of the points of sale systems in Costco, all of the systems, the applications, but if all the applications in Costco all had their own data model, trying to integrate those, upgrade them and manage their different versions of the same model throughout the store, is an absolute nightmare. It's phenomenally expensive. This helps reduce that cost significantly. I'm talking on the orders of hundreds of thousands of dollars."
"We use the Forward and Reverse Engineering tools to help us speed things up and create things that would have to be done otherwise by hand. E.g., getting a database into a data model format or vice versa."
"One of the best aspects of the tool is its reverse engineering capability."
"I compare erwin Data Modeler with other solutions such as ER/Studio and believe it stands out as an enterprise-grade data modeling tool capable of serving different industries, such as finance, healthcare, and telecom."
"It saves a lot of development time, and I think we are saving from two weeks to one month annually."
"The accuracy and speed of the solution in transforming complex designs into well-aligned data sources make the cost of the tool worth it."
"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."
"Enterprise architecture and a positive sense of understanding soon reached everyone."
"I like the solution's traceability."
"It is stable and easy to use."
 

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."
"I felt that erwin Data Modeler is a bit of an outdated tool."
"One of the things I've been talking to the erwin team about through the years is that every data model should have the ability to be multi-language... When I was working at Honda, it became very difficult to work with the Japanese teams using just one model. You can have two models, one in English and one in Japanese, but that means you have to keep the updates back and forth, and that always increases the risk of something not being updated."
"The Bulk Editor needs improvement. If you had something that was a local model to your local machine, you could connect to the API, then it would write directly into the repository. However, when you have something that is on the centralized server, that functionality did not work. Then, you had to export out to a CSV and upload up to the repository. It would have been nice to be able to do the direct API without having that whole download and upload thing. Maybe I didn't figure it out, but I'm pretty sure that didn't work when it was a model that sat on a centralized repository."
"I find the UI very clunky and very difficult to use."
"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."
"The report generation has room for improvement. I think it was version 8 where you had to use Crystal Reports, and it was so painful that the company I was with just stayed on version 7 until version 9 came out and they restored the data browser. That's better than it was, but it's still a little cumbersome. For example, you run it in erwin, then export it out to Excel, and then you have to do a lot of cosmetic modification. If you discover that you missed a column, then you would have to rerun the whole thing. Sometimes what you would do is just go ahead and fix it in the report, then you have to remember to go back and fix it in the model. Therefore, I think the report generation still could use some work."
"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."
"I was not so satisfied with arrows in this program."
"The solution is not easy and intuitive to use. I would also like the software to have a reference metamodel that can guide the modeling."
"In the previous version, the web interface was unstable."
 

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."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"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."
"Pricing is very high compared to any other product."
"The tool is expensive."
"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."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten since it's pretty expensive."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Performing Arts
5%
Government
23%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise38
No data available
 

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 ...
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Also Known As

erwin DM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

 Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples
Emiliambiente, OLI, Galletti, Hiref, Bugatti, Argelli, Culligan Italiana, Sal, Stefal Cablaggi, BrainBee Automotive, Varvel, Campagnola, Favini, G.F., Gruppo ROLD
Find out what your peers are saying about QualiWare X vs. erwin Data Modeler and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.