LeanIX vs erwin Evolve comparison

Quest Software and SAP LeanIX are both solutions in the Enterprise Architecture Management category. Quest Software is ranked #14, while SAP LeanIX is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.0. Quest Software holds a 3.4% mindshare in AM, compared to SAP LeanIX’s 10.1% mindshare. Additionally, 81% of Quest Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of SAP LeanIX users who would recommend it.

erwin Evolve

Read 19 erwin Evolve reviews

1,520 Views
1,064 Comparison Views

81% willing to recommend

LeanIX

Read 25 LeanIX reviews

5,459 Views
4,313 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

erwin Evolve

LeanIX

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 23, 2025

Erwin Evolve and LeanIX are products in the enterprise architecture and portfolio management category. LeanIX seems to have the upper hand due to its deployment efficiency and user experience benefits.

Features: Erwin Evolve offers impact analysis, detailed modeling with reverse engineering capabilities, and a collaborative web interface. LeanIX is known for its intuitive user experience, real-time fact sheets, and extensive reporting capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Erwin Evolve could benefit from a more streamlined setup process, enhanced user interface design, and easier cloud integration. LeanIX may improve by expanding customization options, offering more comprehensive technical support, and refining integration capabilities with third-party services like ServiceNow.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: LeanIX uses a cloud-based deployment model that reduces setup time and integrates easily with existing systems, coupled with accessible customer support. Erwin Evolve, although flexible, often requires longer setup times due to its complex configuration options.

Pricing and ROI: Erwin Evolve has a lower initial setup cost but slower ROI because of extended deployment durations. LeanIX, with potentially higher upfront costs, delivers better ROI through quicker implementation and scalability.

To learn more, read our detailed LeanIX vs. erwin Evolve Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

LeanIX vs. erwin Evolve

December 2025

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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

14th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Design (21st)

LeanIX

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Evolve is 3.4%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of LeanIX is 10.1%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Architecture Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
LeanIX	10.1%
erwin Evolve	3.4%
Other	86.5%

Enterprise Architecture Management

Featured Reviews

Asish Sahu

SPM at Infosys

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.

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NormanGarnett

Managing Director at Global Information Technology Corporation

Building Strategic Enterprise Architecture Journeys with Comprehensive Process Mapping and Risk Management

They will continue to improve LeanIX. I'm actually supposed to be at the SAP Sapphire this year. There are a couple of recommendations I know some of my colleagues have made. For me, I have not looked into additional recommendations for LeanIX because I've been held in really just utilizing it for the purposes it has. One of the things that I know I've had is being able to build it into decent process flows for changes. While LeanIX does have the capability, one of the challenges that I've found, even with working with Subway, was that being able to build that out into a detailed solution for a developer or for new process design was one of the challenges, just making that leap. But there's enough information that comes out of LeanIX to be utilized, and that would be one of the areas I would suggest.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"The ability to share and collaborate on the solution is its most valuable feature."

"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."

"You can use different kinds of diagrams to represent the architecture setting."

"I can send images in the PDF form, along with the relationships and the associations that are a very important part of what we do. It can show what is affected and what is impacted by a certain change in one area of the system architecture or enterprise architecture. I can very quickly draw those issues and topics to the fore."

"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."

"Forward and reverse engineering were valuable features."

More erwin Evolve pros

"I like LeanIX's ease of use in general."

"The most valuable features are the clean user interface and the fact sheet feature in Application Portfolio Management. The tool integrates well with ServiceNow, which is the usual CMDB platform."

"The most valuable features are that it's user-friendly and the user experience. It's easy to map the fact sheets."

"I would rate LeanIX at an 8.5, trending towards nine."

"I can develop a report and then do a presentation, or develop a report and some other diagrams and then put them all in one presentation, and from there, I can present things directly, so there is no need to move images."

"The solution has a very useful assessment tool that automatically populates from input data to produce a detailed analysis of customer's environments."

"The solution provides a single window view of business, application, data, and technology views of the IT ecosystem."

"Interfaces well with downstream systems of data."

More LeanIX pros

Cons

"I would like to see an improvement in the output of the solution."

"There might be improvement required to better support some of the MPP databases for non-relational data structures and NoSQL databases."

"If it had fewer features to model all kinds of architecture, it would be less complicated."

"erwin Evolve by Quest could have additional features to manage the architecture of enterprises and businesses."

"The solution needs to focus on allowing for more integrations."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More erwin Evolve cons

"The solution uses Gartner's time-based framework for application rationalization. One more thing that you can consider is having some add-on frameworks for the same, not just Gartner."

"One of the challenges that I've found, even with working with Subway, was that being able to build that out into a detailed solution for a developer or for new process design was one of the challenges, just making that leap."

"Not a ten because you always have that gap between complexity and easy to use. And the more complex the tool becomes, the more difficult it is to get the usability."

"The modeling could be improved."

"LeanIX experiences a lot of server timeouts. Nearly every transaction needs to be done twice due to these issues."

"I think the tool's main issue might be direct integrations."

"Does a poor job of being able to allocate detailed costings to components within the network."

"LeanIX has limited in-build diagramming capabilities, requiring the purchase of another tool. That is the main drawback of LeanIX because they don't have a built-in add-on product for diagramming."

More LeanIX cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 think erwin is quite expensive. I have difficulty selling the portal, in fact."

"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."

"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."

"Unless you are a one person shop – always go with the Workgroup edition and Concurrent licensing."

"Yearly, our cost is €100,000."

"The tool needs to include more flexible licensing options. We do not use the tool all the time. So pricing should be considered only when we use the tool."

"There is a sweet spot of where they need to be on pricing right now. They could go up a little bit in pricing, but it has to do with the cost savings, and it has to do with the practitioners using it. I use it where I get cost savings and I can justify it, but they probably have the ability to flex a 10% up channel on their sales on that. So, they could increase their settle price, not their offering price, when they sell. They can probably hold that up a little bit higher than it is because there are cost savings that we can drive from it."

"As the tool is cloud-based, its cost is more affordable."

"The pricing is very good. We definitely get good value for the money."

"LeanIX uses application-based account licensing, where the cost is multiplied by the number of applications in the software implementation."

"I would rate the pricing a one out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."

"It cost me $91,000 a year for 300 applications. For any enterprise, 300 applications are minimal, as many have well over 1,000 applications."

"The solution's pricing is based on a licensing model that is competitive and in line with other products."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

19%

Performing Arts

11%

Government

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	13

Questions from the Community

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Any experience with Strategic Project Portfolio Management Solutions?

Hi @Cheryl Joseph Looking at the crossover between Project and Portfolio management with EA, then Planview could be a good choice. If looking at Portfolio Management from an EA perspective then Le...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for LeanIX?

My experience with pricing is not directly known, as it was handled by others, but it is subscription-based. The tool was part of the RISE license in a previous project.

See all answers

What needs improvement with LeanIX?

From a pricing perspective, it is not a cheap tool. It is relatively expensive compared to some of its competitors. I can't really think off the top of my head at the moment about any features that...

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Comparisons

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs erwin Evolve

Compared 12% of the time

SAP PowerDesigner vs erwin Evolve

Compared 8% of the time

IDERA ER/Studio vs erwin Evolve

Compared 7% of the time

erwin Data Modeler vs erwin Evolve

Compared 6% of the time

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs erwin Evolve

Compared 6% of the time

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ServiceNow vs LeanIX

Compared 18% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs LeanIX

Compared 11% of the time

MEGA HOPEX vs LeanIX

Compared 7% of the time

Ardoq vs LeanIX

Compared 6% of the time

iServer vs LeanIX

Compared 6% of the time

More LeanIX Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

erwin Evolve

January 2026

Download erwin Evolve product report

Buyer's Guide

LeanIX

January 2026

Download LeanIX product report

Also Known As

erwin EA, erwin Business Process, erwin Enterprise Architecture

No data available

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Quest Software

SAP LeanIX

Overview

erwin Evolve provides comprehensive graphical support for handling large data models. It offers features such as metadata access, version control, and model comparison, enhancing operational reports and system analytics through its collaborative web-driven design.

erwin Evolve facilitates reverse engineering and database integration, fostering collaboration and process exploration through its web interface. Customizable and easy to configure, it supports workflow configuration and architectural modeling. Users can utilize its capabilities for developing industry models, managing transformation programs, and presenting standard operating procedures. Despite its strengths, there are demands for improved integration, enhanced UML support, and a more modern user experience. Users also express challenges with legacy system updates and call for better connectors and collaborative features.

What are the key features of erwin Evolve?

Graphical Support for Large Data Models: Provides visualization capabilities for complex data structures.
Metadata Access via API: Allows integration and management of metadata across platforms.
Version Control and Model Comparison: Enhances tracking and analysis of model changes.
Collaborative Web Interface: Facilitates teamwork and process exploration remotely.
Architectural Modeling: Supports the design and configuration of enterprise architecture.

What are the benefits and ROI of using erwin Evolve?

Customization and Ease of Configuration: Reduces setup time and adapts to specific organizational workflows.
Enhanced Accessibility and Mobile Usability: Offers access to critical information on the go.
Operational Reports Creation: Generates insights and facilitates informed decision-making.
System Analytics Handling: Provides robust tools for analyzing system performance and integration.

Data-driven organizations in sectors like finance and healthcare implement erwin Evolve for data warehousing, enterprise architecture, and business process modeling. They leverage its capabilities for cataloging architectural elements, linking to CMDBs, analyzing system interfaces, and describing business processes. Utilization extends to IT solution registration, business capability planning, and strategic modeling, with frequent deployments on cloud platforms to support transformation initiatives.

Quest Software

SAP LeanIX provides enterprise architecture solutions that modernize IT and transform businesses, integrating AI-enriched, SaaS tools to enhance architecture visualization and evolution.

Embracing a comprehensive approach, SAP LeanIX supports organizations globally with tools that foster IT landscape optimization and forward-looking architecture creation. It offers solutions for real-time IT overviews, risk management, and architectural planning. These capabilities ensure that enterprises have the flexibility and insights needed to maximize their business impact and align their IT strategies with their organizational goals. SAP LeanIX is recognized for its ease of use, flexible reporting, and the ability to seamlessly integrate various data sources.

What features define SAP LeanIX?

Flexible Reporting: Enables personalized data views.
Ease of Use: A user-friendly interface similar to social networks.
Integration Capabilities: Extensive out-of-the-box options.
Real-Time Feedback: Facilitates instant data integration.
Application Portfolio Management: Comprehensive IT analysis.
Seamless ServiceNow Integration: Smooth data flow integration.

What benefits and ROI can users expect from SAP LeanIX?

Data Management: Efficient data capture and tagging.
Cost Optimization: Streamlines operations cost-effectively.
Dashboard Presentation: Enhances strategic decision-making.
Business Alignment: Aligns technology with business strategies.
Educational Resources: Provides valuable learning materials.

SAP LeanIX is implemented across industries to enhance enterprise architecture, application portfolio management, and business capability mapping. Its use extends into cloud governance, data flow analysis, and integration architecture, allowing multiple organizations to improve operational visibility and strategic planning. It also enables cataloging systems and app rationalization while linking capabilities for improved lifecycle management.

SAP LeanIX

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.

Bosch Rexroth, NSW Department of Education, Yamaha Motor Corporation, Tetra Pak, Deutsche Bahn, Flynn, SKF AB, NTT Group, Travis Perkins, SEEK, Haworth, Asahi Beverages, MediaMarktSaturn, KAO USA, Ørsted, The Mark Anthony Group of Companies, AmTrust, Banco Itaú Unibanco, SHL Medical,...

Buyer's Guide

LeanIX vs. erwin Evolve

December 2025

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