Lucidchart vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect comparison

The compared Lucid Software and Sparx Systems solutions aren't in the same category. Lucid Software is ranked #2 in MMS , with an average rating of 7.9, and holds a 22.0% mindshare in the category. Sparx Systems is ranked #4 in AM , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 8.2% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Lucid Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Sparx Systems users who would recommend it.

Lucidchart

Read 63 Lucidchart reviews

4,939 Views
790 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...

Read 99 Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect reviews

7,916 Views
3,562 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Lucidchart

Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Lucidchart and Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Lucid Software, diagrams.net and others in Mind Mapping Software.

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

Lucidchart

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

8.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Mind Mapping Software (2nd), Visual Collaboration Platforms (3rd)

Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Architecture Management (4th), Business Process Design (5th)

Mindshare comparison

Lucidchart and Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Lucidchart is designed for Mind Mapping Software and holds a mindshare of 22.0%, down 24.2% compared to last year.
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Architecture Management, holds 8.2% mindshare, down 14.1% since last year.

Mind Mapping Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Lucidchart	22.0%
Visio	23.4%
draw.io	13.6%
Other	41.0%

Mind Mapping Software

Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect	8.2%
LeanIX	9.2%
erwin Data Modeler	8.3%
Other	74.3%

Enterprise Architecture Management

Featured Reviews

AlexMartin1

Senior Software Engineer at Nestlé

Visual collaboration has improved remote workflows and supports faster shared decisions

The best features Lucidchart offers are that it diagrams processes very well. It allows for project management to help with client timelines. It is also easy to use and create diagrams, especially mermaid diagrams. Collaborating is easy. Out of all those features, collaboration stands out to me the most because it is easy to share with team members to do joint design work. Lucidchart has positively impacted my organization by improving productivity and collaboration. In terms of specifics, collaboration helps us come to conclusions. I notice better throughput as it is easy to use. Improved productivity allows us to express ourselves more quickly.

Read full review

Milan Sterba

Senior Enterprise Architect at Deepview S.r.o.

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a very effective tool for documenting processes and using it has improved our efficiency significantly."

"It is important to me that the solution accommodates both Mac and PC users because the developers in our company use Mac, then the business people use Windows. The technical people create the technical architecture using Lucidchart. So, it is important that it is compatible with both the systems."

"The ability for Lucidchart to create database schemas or modify existing data structures is strong. That's what I initially introduced it for in our organization. The script that Lucidchart provides works with other systems like Oracle, SQL Server, and Postgres that I can copy-paste, and get a quick dump of metadata and import into has saved me a ton of steps that I didn't have to manually create these tables. I had a lot of things where I still had to put in the linkages between tables, but I didn't have to type in every field name, every data type, and everything else that came in. That saved me tons of time."

"The templates are quite valuable, as is the fact that you can export to PDF, to a Visio document, or as a picture. These are valuable features for me because they give me the ability to make changes in any other product that I'm using. I'm not bound by one platform."

"Lucidchart's capabilities for visualizing and understanding process flows or workflows is excellent. The way that you put together the parts of charts and edit the chart are all very intuitive and easy to use."

"The ability to have more than one person editing at the same time is the most valuable feature. You can have one diagram and have multiple users on it at the same time. We haven't been able to do that on other software. So that's the main reason we moved to Lucidchart."

"Creating flowcharts and documentation is easy to do and the results are very nice."

"Lucidchart helped us to realize efficiencies in the projects we use it for. I can show people pictures, and I can change things in a meeting and then email it by the end of the meeting. Because most places we go, especially now with everybody in-home office, I'm going to have great internet access, and that just makes it easier to be able to change things quickly while we're in a meeting and go, "Oh, you changed this. Oh, okay.", and then send it to them as a proof and send it as a PDF or send them a link. That works great. That saves time and accelerates a sale."

More Lucidchart pros

"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 a handy tool for visual modeling that provides opportunities for analysis, design, and support of models using ArchiMate, UML."

"The stability has been good and satisfactory. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."

"For the most part, we find that it is remarkable how inexpensive it is."

"Its traversability is most valuable. I can use ArchiMate, and I can create a UML model. ArchiMate is for logical enterprise architecture, UML is for software engineering, and BPMN is for business processes. I can build it to have multiple models, and they are also traversable, which is not something that every tool allows. If there is a huge organization, you can segment it and have separate models for business technology or internal resource management system. You don't need to keep them in one model, and you can decide to segregate them."

"From the island of non managed analysis and design information to shared repositories with templates, it has helped us with real MDA and code generation directly into Visual Studio."

"Large variety of profiles and frameworks available out-of-the-box without the need for customization, and not locked into one way of doing architecture."

"The most valuable feature of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is the value streams."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect pros

Cons

"I wish there were a lot more automations. For instance, if I'm using a project management software to list out all my WBS [work breakdown structure] I wish Lucidchart had the functionality where it would take all the numbering and generate a tree diagram. Something like that would help so much, but right now it's still a manual task..."

"They should make it more user-friendly. The only option is either to use the existing template with already existing colors and gradients. If you want to do custom colors and gradients, then it's too complicated to use and should be simplified."

"I am not quite sure what different functionalities it provides as well as the difficulties other people are facing. When I have a better understanding of the solution, I will increase my rating of it. No solution is perfect, so I am sure that I will be facing some problems in the future."

"Wireframing can be improved. For mock-ups and wireframing, only 10% of what is required is there. If they can develop this feature, it would be much better because it will then provide everything. Currently, we can design network diagrams, processes, etc., but we should also be able to do wireframing."

"I would really like to be able to set default appearance settings for new documents because I have a set of appearance settings that I always use. I end up setting that manually every time. There may be a way to do that, and maybe I am not able to find it. This is my only major point of feedback for improvement. There are other little nitpicky things, such as being able to lock layers without them looking like a big red line around them would be nice, but every graphic design software does that, so I understand why they have that. All my concerns are nitpicks. They're not big."

"The layering is something that can be improved because sometimes, it is confusing for me when I'm trying to get to the layer that I want to edit."

"I would like to have more text boxes to write more comments so I can write a small note below a picture. I would like some flexibility."

"When my colleague initially tried to edit the file that I shared with him, he had some trouble. This is something that should be improved."

More Lucidchart cons

"The automatic creation of reports based on the model elements could be improved."

"Truth be told, like most products of its kind, it is not always an intuitively easy tool to use."

"If you just want to create some diagrams with shapes and arrows, then use Visio."

"I would like to see integration with Confluence or any other TRM, and the capability to integrate with the data storage, such as a repository similar to GitHub."

"I would like it to be less of a general tool. Currently, it is not a Swiss army knife that can do everything. It is not specialized for our purposes. We are a civil engineering company. We build things. We work mostly in what is known as Infra world in the Netherlands, which comprises objects such as bridges, locks, and water management. We would like to see more focus on such types of projects. It would be nice if it has more specializations. At the moment, it is very generic, and you have to create everything yourself. Our focus is more on user requirement management, which is currently very basic. I would like to see a lot more functionality in this area. Its basic functions for adding user requirements are perfect, but we need more features. Currently, it has limited possibilities for our requirements. I would also like to see better contract management and have it managed in a certain way."

"It would be great if we could decrease the use of different parts of the Toolbox, forcing temporary consultants to use our Profile and no other items from other toolboxes."

"The user interface could be more intuitive and support for a Mac, iOS or at least a browser version would be very welcomed."

"Sparx can be a bit slow. If you are trying to design software architecture, sometimes we run into issues and need to refresh."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Lucidchart's pricing model is not excessive, as compared to similar products. It is pretty much in line with everyone else."

"The price of this product is a little bit high. It is probably 20% higher than what I expected to pay for such a solution."

"I was using the paid version, but at $12 USD per month, I canceled the plan because it was a little bit too expensive for me."

"There is a nominal charge for the paid version of the product. They have a free version available and from what I could see, there was not much difference between it and the pro version."

"I had a quick glimpse of it. It was about 100 Canadian Dollars a year for just me. I don't know if there are any additional costs."

"I have a subscription as an individual user for one year, and it is not expensive."

"The pricing is very reasonable, and they have a free trial available that you can play with."

"I pay $95 a year for it. It seems like a reasonable price."

More Lucidchart pricing and cost advice

"Licenses are pretty low cost compared to, for example, ARIS."

"In terms of cost, Sparx EA is probably one of the cheapest tools I have ever used."

"It’s the best deal in town, by far."

"Its price is very good for the value that you get with it."

"It is cheap."

"There is a license for this solution. When comparing this solution to others it is priced well."

"We paid 1200 euros as a once-off cost. All add ons and integrations come at an additional cost."

"I think our license costs roughly $1,000 a year, but I could be wrong."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

10%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	27

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	38
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	58

Questions from the Community

LucidChart vs LucidSpark for brainstorming sessions over Zoom

Hi @Krista Thompson - Yes, LucidSpark is a much more nimble and, in some ways, user-friendly tool than LucidChart. LucidSpark is designed to do a better job managing multiple users participating ...

See all answers

Do you recommend Lucidchart?

I definitely recommend Lucidchart. I feel it is one of the top visual collaboration platforms that’s available on the market. Out of all the solutions I have tried, it is by far the best for diagra...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lucidchart?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that we do not have to use the setup because we are using public cloud. We just created an account on Lucidchart and started using it.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?

See all answers

Comparisons

Figma vs Lucidchart

Compared 15% of the time

Visio vs Lucidchart

Compared 14% of the time

Bizagi vs Lucidchart

Compared 7% of the time

erwin Data Modeler vs Lucidchart

Compared 6% of the time

Visual Paradigm vs Lucidchart

Compared 6% of the time

More Lucidchart Competitors

Visual Paradigm vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 9% of the time

No Magic MagicDraw vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 6% of the time

Visio vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 6% of the time

LeanIX vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 5% of the time

MEGA HOPEX vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 4% of the time

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Lucidchart

March 2026

Download Lucidchart product report

Buyer's Guide

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

February 2026

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect report

Download Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect product report

Overview

Our online diagram application makes it easy to sketch and share professional flowchart diagrams. From brainstorming to project management, we support all of your communication needs. That’s why millions of users choose Lucidchart.

Lucid Software

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is an enterprise solution that helps streamline, accelerate, and integrate software, system, and business development. With this intuitive modeling and design solution, enterprises can stay in control of their workplaces, enable collaboration, support their teams and colleagues, and manage complex projects. Software architects, business analysts, project managers, developers, support staff, and testers can unite under a single repository. Through numerous view points and potential sub-systems, users are offered a unified view in a complex environment.

With Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, users are also offered a shared model option which can be accessed quickly and securely by in-office and remote team members through the Enterprise Architect’s Pro Cloud Server. Building a coherent, verifiable model can be done by connecting and integrating a variety of behavioral and structural information in visual form. As a result, Enterprise Architect offers high performance, flexibility, and the ability to model, manage, and trace every stage of the business development and modeling process.

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Features

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect assists in creating a unified and accessible vision in business development by offering a flexible platform with a unique set of rich features. These features include:

Test and debug - Streamline software development and visualize software with the simulation process. Users can test and confirm correct behavior, set and oversee test points, and debug and examine software.

Track tasks - Track, prioritize, and assign individual and group tasks to assist in the model’s development. Users can visually monitor their progress through the Gantt chart.

Open standards - Users can visualize and analyze running software with integrated custom tools. They can also run advanced simulations, team-based repositories, testing tools, and version control. In addition, the solution supports enterprise architecture frameworks such as UPDM and TOGAF.

Simulation - Create and debug embedded solutions by simulating behaviors and state models. Users can specify events, triggers, constraints, and more. Users can also specify extensive and complex structural systems and create custom domain-specific solutions.

Reviews from Real Users

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect merges high-end tools, online availability, a dedication to open standards, and accessible pricing so enterprises can stay in control of their workplaces, whether remote or in-office. Users particularly like the architectural frameworks and the scalability.

Marc L., a principal architecture enterprise solution adviser at Cronomagic Canada, notes, "The product offers very good support for all mainstream modeling notations and architectural frameworks."

An enterprise architect at a manufacturing company writes, "Scalable solution for modeling, project sharing, and collaboration. Support for it is good."

Sparx Systems

Sample Customers

Google, Salesforce, Adobe, Whirlpool, Uber, Wal Mart, Pearson, Twitch, Riot Games, Western Union, Trimble, Starbucks

OmniLink

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