No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

IBM Rational System Architect vs erwin Evolve comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 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 Evolve
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 (20th)
IBM Rational System Architect
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
13th
Average Rating
7.4
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Evolve is 3.5%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Rational System Architect is 3.4%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
erwin Evolve3.5%
IBM Rational System Architect3.4%
Other93.1%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

ScottLawson - PeerSpot reviewer
Director IT Architecture at QAD
Enables us to present data and objects visually, in diagrams, and to make them available via the web. Also enables web-based editing of data.
We tried their collaborative web modeling and we used it with a few people but we tend to not use that piece. We tend to collaborate with the people and then my team of architects draws up the diagram using the modeling tool. We then iterate through those. I would like to use it, but it was a little clunky when they first rolled it out. Overall, it's more about the company having room for improvement. 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. I hear them talking in the support forums and, when I talk to the representative, they say they're going to do a bunch of stuff but it seems the progress is slow. The changes they need to make are to take their old, legacy product, which we use, and focus a lot on it so they can transform it into a modern cloud tool so that we have fewer little pieces to deal with. They could also fix their security model. It's very confusing to get new people onto the tool and to make sure that your content isn't being exposed to the wrong people.
GM
IT/Business Architect at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Lots of valuable features, especially the metamodel customization
In terms of what could be improved, we did not take the whole package with all the modules, and I think that the integration with other platforms like Office could be better. The reverse engineering of the database is already there, but in the next release I would like to see some pilot supplied with the solution in order to address any database.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Customer Service: Outstanding Technical Support: Outstanding"
"Forward and reverse engineering were valuable features."
"Evolve is scalable with multi-user ability, so multiple designers and engineers can work on the same data model simultaneously."
"The most valuable features for us are impact analysis, where I can easily visualize the impact of change."
"Workgroup Repository collection of data models allows research across models without worry about platform incompatibilities and provides easy KPIs about corporate data assets."
"We use erwin Evolve to publish to the website. This allows us to enable publishing our website using parameterisation features. In a very fast, quick way, we can publish a table or chart onto a website."
"The solution is pretty stable."
"We have seen ROI with this solution over the years that we have used it."
"There are a lot of features I find valuable, but I think that the metamodel customization is one of the best features that the solution offers."
"The System Architect Product has greatly assisted the corporate strategic planning process in two areas: the simulation of scenarios for Enterprise Transformation Projects and providing a global view of Enterprise Capabilities and Functional Gaps."
"The main advantage of the solution and its most valuable aspect is the customization of the meta-model."
"The user interface is good. It's both clear and comprehensible. It's easy to work with."
 

Cons

"For what it says it can do, it does a good job, but using it is too difficult."
"The implementation process is too complicated."
"erwin Evolve by Quest could have additional features to manage the architecture of enterprises and businesses."
"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."
"Would like to see canonical modeling supported for web services."
"The solution needs to focus on allowing for more integrations."
"They have improved the search engine a little bit but it can always be improved more. The more data you put inside it, the more you want to use it."
"It could have had a more streamlined navigation. It seemed that when you went to the explorer panel, there were just so many different ways of doing the work that I could not remember, "How did I do this? How did I get to that point in that model to get back to it?" If I wanted to build a new one, where do I start? It just seemed like there was such a smorgasbord of ways of doing it that it was just overwhelming."
"We are not happy with this product and are not planning to continue with it."
"This solution can be more user-friendly and easier to use, with better dashboards."
"There needs to be more information at the outset about how to use the solution and how to deploy it. The deployment process needs improvement."
"It was sold separately and it is not very easy for somebody who wants to use the solution for modeling to think that you have to select specific modules in order to use the product."
"Integration with all other software, like Microsoft, to facilitate an exchange, is not great."
"The solution needs to better integrate with other products, like Microsoft."
"Some aspects of the user interface lack a common navigational or functional framework."
"The reverse engineering of the database is already there, but in the next release I would like to see some pilot supplied with the solution in order to address any database."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"On a yearly basis, our licensing costs are 50,000 euro. There are no additional costs because we are on a SaaS model."
"I think erwin is quite expensive. I have difficulty selling the portal, in fact."
"Yearly, our cost is €100,000."
"Unless you are a one person shop – always go with the Workgroup edition and Concurrent licensing."
"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."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Architecture Management solutions are best for your needs.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
14%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Healthcare Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise12
No data available
 

Also Known As

erwin EA, erwin Business Process, erwin Enterprise Architecture
Rational System Architect
 

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.
Wuxi Lake Cloud, Nationwide, ETI, IDS Scheer
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Rational System Architect vs. erwin Evolve and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.