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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
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
21
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 (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of LeanIX is 16.3%, up from 13.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is 13.9%, down from 18.8% 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

"Interfaces well with downstream systems of data."
"LeanIX has good usability and stability. This SaaS is intuitive, easy to use, and comes with a nice reporting feature."
"It offers neat visualization and referencing functionality while enabling the creation of landscape maps and showing the relationship between different applications."
"LeanIX has a great application information architecture."
"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."
"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."
"For the reporting capabilities, LeanIX provides dashboards for different levels, including CXO dashboards. There are plenty of dashboards for reporting."
"I have found the Meta Model tuning feature useful as it provides me with an overview of all my work needs."
"Some of the business processes are very easy to compare when you have the diagrams."
"Sparx offers good flexibility."
"The solution allows us to quickly present designs and concepts to customers and get their feedback, thereby moving the project forward step by step."
"It is simple to build the first model for the solution."
"Modeling is a part of my work, and it has a lot of standard modeling languages. It is quite wide, and a lot is possible in it. We are not programming it ourselves, but if you are into programming and developing software yourself, you can go further and do a lot with Sparx. You can work from the framework and go into the details. With this solution, you get a lot of value at a low cost. It is also quite intuitive in terms of use. I like the use of it."
"This is a useful tool for IT people who need to design their solution architecture."
"The platform is stable and reliable."
 

Cons

"The solution’s API integration needs to improve. I would like to see a digital screen watch feature also in the solution."
"They could include a combination of LeanIX and some modeling extensions."
"It would be beneficial to have additional features and capabilities to enhance mapping between applications, especially across domains where the relationships may not be direct."
"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."
"Improvements in user interface simplicity could be made, particularly with the reporting and filtering capabilities."
"The whole integration architecture view of interfaces/data exchange could be improved."
"Another area for improvement is that when you're starting to look into more advanced information, using the solution's APIs and its customizations, documentation for that specific aspect is not very good. There is not too much support built into the offering for that aspect, for a developer."
"Does a poor job of being able to allocate detailed costings to components within the network."
"Weak in regards to data modelling. No logical or physical modelling or migration from conceptual to physical."
"The Portfolio Management features can be added in the next release. As it helps you to manage more portfolio of projects and architectures of cost projects on a portfolio level. This would be an important feature in the next release."
"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."
"In a future release, they should improve portfolio planning."
"Even if there are web-based tools in the Enterprise Architecture tool ecosystem (like Prolaborate), the main modeling application is still a fat client application."
"Inconsistent UI elements must be tidied up with the toolbox gaps removed."
"The templates for documentation should be enhanced to include complex documents such as template RFP, or Non functional requirements template."
"Because its easy to create diagrams one needs to be vigilant on the housekeeping of orphaned fragments - I have written my own scripts to do this, maybe they are available now."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 pricing is very good. We definitely get good value for the money."
"Enterprise licensing is competitive. What would be helpful if they load the pricing for consultants, you know, people who are consultants for clients. So the license is fine for end-user organizations. Still, they should consider lowering the license to support this adoption, particularly for people who are consultants like myself."
"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."
"This product has a paid license, with a yearly subscription option."
"There is no license required for this solution."
"The license I use is on-premise. We haven't gone to the cloud where we have to pay monthly or something like that. Sparx is cheaper than most similar tools."
"We have an annual license, and it's very affordable."
"Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is priced well. The price we pay is approximately $20 per month. Other solutions I have found to be much more expensive."
"It's reasonably priced for large organizations."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing 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 is associated with high costs. 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 first pricing ...
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.
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