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LeanIX vs erwin Evolve 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 Evolve
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (21st)
LeanIX
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Evolve is 3.3%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of LeanIX is 9.2%, down from 16.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
LeanIX9.2%
erwin Evolve3.3%
Other87.5%
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.
NG
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can efficiently deploy business models into the databases and generate SQL scripts."
"I have not seen capabilities for web-sharing and interaction with the architecture from any other supplier. It's a great capability..."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"One of the most valuable features is the website that sits on top of the database. There's a database of objects and how they are related, and you can make views and diagrams and visual elements out of that information on the website. The website is the part that is called Evolve and we use the Evolve Designer and publish the website out to our employees. They can click around and navigate and search, etc."
"Support for a broad range of data sources from relational to big data to the Cloud."
"I really liked that it mapped out processes and was able to attach the data model to the appropriate process. You could map out the process, then when you got down to a specific couple of data elements, you could attach the table in the database that supported that process. You could connect it with erwin Data Modeler for that."
"It offers neat visualization and referencing functionality while enabling the creation of landscape maps and showing the relationship between different applications."
"My favorite feature of LeanIX is its ability to induct attribute-driven surveys."
"The solution provides a single window view of business, application, data, and technology views of the IT ecosystem."
"I like the tool’s integration and maps."
"The most valuable features are that it's user-friendly and the user experience. It's easy to map the fact sheets."
"One of the most valuable features of LeanIX is the Enterprise Architecture Management tool."
"The solution has a very useful assessment tool that automatically populates from input data to produce a detailed analysis of customer's environments."
"I would rate LeanIX at an 8.5, trending towards nine."
 

Cons

"The solution needs to focus on allowing for more integrations."
"If it had fewer features to model all kinds of architecture, it would be less complicated."
"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."
"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 to see an improvement in the output of the solution."
"Business process modelling could be improved."
"There might be improvement required to better support some of the MPP databases for non-relational data structures and NoSQL databases."
"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."
"The modeling could be improved."
"The initial setup has room for improvement."
"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."
"LeanIX should improve its support services."
"The challenge with support was probably the response time."
"What would make LeanIX better is more variety in terms of reporting, and more flexibility with its data importing feature."
"Improvements in user interface simplicity could be made, particularly with the reporting and filtering capabilities."
"Report generation could be more detailed. There are some shortcomings when creating reports. We can't create tag-based reports or go beyond basic technical reports."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think erwin is quite expensive. I have difficulty selling the portal, in fact."
"Yearly, our cost is €100,000."
"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 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."
"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."
"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 pricing is very good. We definitely get good value for the money."
"As the tool is cloud-based, its cost is more affordable."
"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."
"LeanIX uses application-based account licensing, where the cost is multiplied by the number of applications in the software implementation."
"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."
"The solution's pricing is based on a licensing model that is competitive and in line with other products."
"I would rate the pricing a one out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Performing Arts
11%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

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Earn 20 points
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...
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.
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

erwin EA, erwin Business Process, erwin Enterprise Architecture
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

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.
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,...
Find out what your peers are saying about LeanIX vs. erwin Evolve and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.