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LeanIX vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect 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

LeanIX
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of LeanIX is 16.0%, up from 13.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is 13.6%, down from 18.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

Umit Sengul - PeerSpot reviewer
A platform that facilitates efficient IT architecture management and integration, improving organizational coordination and decision-making
LeanIX is primarily used to create and manage architectural models, link capabilities, activities, and products and generate comprehensive reports. It serves as a central platform for overseeing the IT landscape within EON, a large organization, streamlining operations and enhancing governance…
Milan Sterba - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient documentation generation through organized model structure with a good price-performance ratio
Whenever I begin a new project with Sparx, I have to spend time training people on how to use it since it is not straightforward. Although it's a powerful product with plenty of features, it's not easy for even experienced users to find their way without guidance. This is not the most user-friendly solution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"My favorite feature of LeanIX is its ability to induct attribute-driven surveys."
"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."
"Among the most valuable features are the easy-to-use interface and the ability to get quick results... Many tools that I have seen are great for technical people and for giving technical and business information as well, but they're not as friendly and easy as LeanIX... It works well for both technical and business users. It provides a good combination, enabling you to quickly put valuable information in for both technical and non-technical people and derive results."
"We've been able to develop some nice looking reports, and the dashboard's capability to map is very easy compared to Enterprise Architect."
"I would rate LeanIX at an 8.5, trending towards nine."
"LeanIX has a great application information architecture."
"The usability is very high. It almost looks like a Facebook for Enterprise architecture, it's pretty nice. It's HTML5 based. The repository is very easy. It has 10 different ways of sorting the objects you have in your architecture repository. Maintaining new data or to add data to your repository is very easy."
"It is a handy tool for visual modeling that provides opportunities for analysis, design, and support of models using ArchiMate, UML."
"The solution is easy to use, supports SysML and UML, and is able to connect to MATLAB. This is very important for us."
"Large variety of profiles and frameworks available out-of-the-box without the need for customization."
"Customizable and tailored to the environment. Several template frameworks are provided."
"For the most part, we find that it is remarkable how inexpensive it is."
"It's a very practical solution. You don't need to do an advanced course to start using this tool."
"It's a stable and scalable solution. I like that it's similar to Rational Rose."
"The Business Process Modeling or BPM part is the most valuable. Its ability to simulate scenarios is also very useful. It can also create descriptions of the workflows. It has a feature in which if you create some BPMN process, a workflow diagram, and the description inside, you can actually simulate the whole scenario, and you get the description. That's very handy."
 

Cons

"What would make LeanIX better is more variety in terms of reporting, and more flexibility with its data importing feature."
"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."
"It's hard to predict the pricing of the system."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"They should improve the out of the box connectors that they provide. They should see if clients are really ready to adapt them."
"They're probably positioned pretty well. I hope that they would not focus that much on the business architecture, and they would focus more on the overall cloud strategy and how we can leverage multi-cloud and transition back and forth from other cloud providers. With a lot of current vendors, you get locked in with one cloud, and then you try to migrate to someone else, and it becomes very problematic. What they need to do is to look at the overall data strategy, and they probably need to amplify their data strategy, especially around multi-cloud."
"In a future release, they should improve portfolio planning."
"I would like the system to more "intellectually" build a scheme, place icons, and connect lines on the schemes."
"Insufficient control of metadata and standards."
"Not visually appealing."
"It should be made Windows compatible."
"One room for improvement in Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is that it's not very friendly. Another room for improvement in the tool is that it doesn't enable you to import the metadata from a database very easily, so reverse engineering of a database was very difficult. Its database modeling and entity-relationship modeling functions need improvement."
"The window froze for five or ten seconds. You can click and click again and it takes a second to come up. It might have been specific to a version."
"The templates for documentation should be enhanced to include complex documents such as template RFP, or Non functional requirements template."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is based on a licensing model that is competitive and in line with other products."
"As the tool is cloud-based, its cost is more affordable."
"LeanIX uses application-based account licensing, where the cost is multiplied by the number of applications in the software implementation."
"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."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing a one out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"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 license for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is paid yearly, but I don't handle that area. It's good for its price, so I'm rating it a five out of five, but I'm not using it much. I also don't have information regarding additional costs apart from the standard licensing fees."
"Pricing and licensing is very attractive, simple, and straightforward."
"We have an annual license, and it's very affordable."
"Its price is very good for the value that you get with it."
"It’s the best deal in town, by far."
"We paid 1200 euros as a once-off cost. All add ons and integrations come at an additional cost."
"I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."
"The Corporate Edition, or one of the bundles, is the way to go."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
18%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 do you like most about LeanIX?
The ability to import data and generate reports from it. That's where its power lies.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for LeanIX?
LeanIX pricing ranges from moderate to high. Our usage and costs depend on the number of applications, and as the number of applications grows, so does the cost. We have aligned our usage with appl...
What do you like most about Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
The stability has been good and satisfactory. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
One of the reasons many public sector institutions in the Czech Republic use it is that it provides a very good price-performance ratio. While it might be cumbersome to learn, it still delivers exc...
What needs improvement with Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
Whenever I begin a new project with Sparx, I have to spend time training people on how to use it since it is not straightforward. Although it's a powerful product with plenty of features, it's not ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

adidas, Bosch, Chico's, Haworth, Helvetia, KuKa, Osram, Telekom, TUI, Santander, Swarovski, Vaillant, 7Eleven, and Zalando.
OmniLink
Find out what your peers are saying about LeanIX vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.