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IDERA ER/Studio vs erwin Evolve by Quest comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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 Evolve by Quest
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
12th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (19th)
IDERA ER/Studio
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Evolve by Quest is 2.6%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IDERA ER/Studio is 4.1%, up from 4.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

Asish Sahu - PeerSpot reviewer
The reverse engineering capabilities are quite useful.
Evolve is primarily focused on the entity's licenses diagrams, but it would be nice if erwin could integrate case development, so that it shows the ER diagram plus certain inputs on the use cases and how the data is used. That deviates somewhat from the overall scope, so maybe they could call it a different product.
Aaron Cutshall - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for data modeling and has a scripting language to write your own scripts
The solution has streamlined our data modeling processes quite a bit. It's a central focus in our data modeling and data cataloging efforts. The tool's reverse engineering capability to bring in existing database structures and create models from them has benefitted our data architecture needs. With the tool's data dictionary capability, we're able to maintain consistency in our models, name use, and actual data domains. The solution's reverse engineering helps with understanding legacy databases. In fact, I've been asked to reverse-engineer several more legacy databases so that we can have them modeled and cataloged. The solution is deployed on the cloud server, but it’s only within our network. The solution has a lot of capabilities. I like the fact that it has a scripting language that allows you to automate and write your own scripts. I think that's been a big bonus for us. I highly recommend the solution because of its capability for logical models, where you can put your business definitions and logic. While less expensive, some other tools can't do that. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Workgroup Repository collection of data models allows research across models without worry about platform incompatibilities and provides easy KPIs about corporate data assets."
"You can use different kinds of diagrams to represent the architecture setting."
"The initial setup was really straightforward and the deployment was done within one day."
"There is a model behind it. It's really nice that the Evolve front-end, as it builds a website, keeps those relationships in mind. You can even go to a procedure and see all the applications that are related to it. Then you can go into that application and see all the standard operating procedures that that application is a part of. It's just very connected."
"The ability to share and collaborate on the solution is its most valuable feature."
"Support for a broad range of data sources from relational to big data to the Cloud."
"The feature that stands out for me is the ease of configuring objects and the screens to show them. It's really easy to add a new type of object in this reference. Creating a new type of object, using it, and evolving it a little bit in terms of what we can document about it are the main features that made us decide to use this provider."
"Evolve is like a tank. You can do whatever you want with the solution, but you need to customize it. I think that it's not very aligned with the framework for enterprise architecture. MEGA is focused on these enterprise architectures, but it's only for that. With Evolve, you can do everything you want with professional services."
"We can track changes to our data models and tie those changes back to specific tasks or efforts that we identify."
"The reverse engineering is the most important feature."
"Developing new dimensional models; for the data we're hosting, dimensional modeling is more useful."
"When validating the model, the ability to provide sub-models to developers, and generate a physical model from the logical, makes it easier to review a logical model with stakeholders."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is generating DDL (data definition language)."
"We use the solution to create data models which describe our company's data architecture"
"The data modeling module is important to me because I am a database developer and designer... It's very fast, reliable, up-to-date, so easy to use, smooth."
"ER/Studio is excellent for large teams; it scales well to teams of over one hundred plus people."
 

Cons

"They need to develop Evolve's user experience. For example, MEGA has a useful client view that helps with impact analysis. MEGA provides information about the processes, services, infrastructure, and portfolio of applications in one central view. It lets you see the periphery and relationships among components. This view is impressive, and Evolve doesn't have it."
"I would like it to be easier to make changes and then deploy them into production, especially when you have multiple web servers or front-ends. It would be nice to make a change and then have it propagate to the production servers in a more automated fashion."
"The solution's integration capabilities with other tools in our system has not been all that well done. We have people who use ARIS, who use System Architect and, of course, Visio. erwin has very limited ways to import and export from those kinds of tools. It's not a very easy thing to do."
"Add some ability to do conditional Visualization on the models and in reports (some ideas) – maybe as a specialized Theme or Diagram or Display."
"With the Excel importing, the "up to date" part is the challenge. If we had a real-time integration, we could keep things up to date for whatever kinds of change points we had. With Excel, it is more that you have to export from one system then import it to another, so it's better for data that doesn't change that often."
"What they need to do is to consolidate more of their products. For example, I was just looking and I couldn't figure out what erwin DT is. It's on the website but it would help if they could put information together and make it more clear as to what products they have and how they work with other things."
"The way that we are using it for application management, we have several KPIs. We want to follow and monitor them regarding a number of solutions. We cannot calculate this today. We would like real-time calculations along with the KPIs in order to improve the user experience. We would like the tool to be able to display this, not only as signals, but as charts."
"If it had fewer features to model all kinds of architecture, it would be less complicated."
"The screens are a bit outdated. They could use a new look and feel."
"It would be helpful if they could create a generic JSON database type, as a target database, rather than a specific one like Mongo."
"The solution is not so strong at creating modeling views and database views."
"When building the relationships there should be a little more flexibility."
"The number of options can be overwhelming at times. That is not necessarily a bad thing but for a newbie, it can be daunting."
"One limitation I have found in ER/Studio is that when you want to make some changes to the table definitions, you have to go item by item. You cannot do it globally. Another issue concerns defining the foreign keys between the different tables. It is a little more tedious in the ER/Studio than in ERrwin. With ERwin it is direct."
"The solution's reporting could be improved because the report writer is terrible."
"We did have a big issue when we upgraded to the 2016 version. The Team Server portion never did quite install correctly, and/or the database was corrupted, and we never figured it out."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Unless you are a one person shop – always go with the Workgroup edition and Concurrent licensing."
"The cost is something like $15,000, per license. But I haven't looked at those numbers in three years. It was over $100,000 to initially set everything up and get it all configured."
"Yearly, our cost is €100,000."
"I think erwin is quite expensive. I have difficulty selling the portal, in fact."
"On a yearly basis, our licensing costs are 50,000 euro. There are no additional costs because we are on a SaaS model."
"The licensing enables you to differentiate between people who edit the content and the people who consume it. We are able to keep the licensing costs down by keeping the "contributor" licenses to a minimum, and we then just roll out the content in a read-only version for the rest of our users."
"I estimate that we pay between $40,000 and $50,000 a year for the solution, not including the upfront costs to buy things the first time."
"As an individual user, the renewal is a little costly."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is bad and ten is good, I would rate the licensing cost as a seven or eight. It's not too expensive for us."
"The price of this product is okay."
"At my previous company using ER/Studio, a database compare took four hours before using the product and 15 minutes after using the product."
"I feel the product's pricing is a good value."
"It is priced fairly. It's around the same as erwin and other competitors' costs."
"Pricing is on point, but do your due diligence - not every developer needs the tool."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Energy/Utilities Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about erwin Evolve by Quest?
We can efficiently deploy business models into the databases and generate SQL scripts.
What needs improvement with erwin Evolve by Quest?
erwin Evolve by Quest could have additional features to manage the architecture of enterprises and businesses.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IDERA ER Studio?
In terms of pricing, ER/Studio is slightly more expensive compared to Erwin, by about five to ten percent.
What is your primary use case for IDERA ER Studio?
I have been working with data modeling tools. Personally, I have been working with Erwin for many years now. ER/Studio is something I am currently trying to evaluate for acquiring it for our organi...
What advice do you have for others considering IDERA ER Studio?
I would strongly recommend ER/Studio for large teams. Erwin is a very stable product, but for smaller teams, it's okay. If I had to rate ER/Studio, I would give it nine out of ten because the absen...
 

Also Known As

erwin EA, erwin Business Process, erwin Enterprise Architecture
IDERA ER Studio, ER/Studio, ER/Studio Enterprise Team Edition
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AT&T, Bank of America, Chevron, Duke University, ESPN, Fidelity, GE, JP Morgan Chase, KPMG, McGraw Hill, NASA, Pfizer, Royal Bank of Scotland, Teradata, Union Pacific, Vodafone, Wells Fargo.
Newmont Mining, Entrust, Accolade, TalkTalk, Catalina, Protective Life, NTT Data, dir systèmes, Microsoft; American Express, Astellas Pharma, AstraZeneca, Coriant, Fedex, GlaxoSmithKline, PepsiCo, Prudential, Wells Fargo
Find out what your peers are saying about IDERA ER/Studio vs. erwin Evolve by Quest and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.