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 8.1, and holds a 22.7% mindshare in the category. Sparx Systems is ranked #5 in AM , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 9.3% 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 62 Lucidchart reviews

4,970 Views
746 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...

Read 99 Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect reviews

7,841 Views
3,293 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Lucidchart

Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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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 (5th), 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 22.7%, up 22.5% compared to last year.
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Architecture Management, holds 9.3% mindshare, down 14.6% since last year.

Mind Mapping Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Lucidchart	22.7%
Visio	26.7%
draw.io	14.0%
Other	36.6%

Mind Mapping Software

Enterprise Architecture Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect	9.3%
LeanIX	10.1%
erwin Data Modeler	8.3%
Other	72.3%

Enterprise Architecture Management

Featured Reviews

Faizuddin Shaik

Principal Application Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Visual planning has improved migration mapping but now needs broader cloud icon support

In my opinion, the best features Lucidchart offers include the toolkits they provide, such as the icons for AWS. These features allow us to use proper service icons rather than simple plain boxes for everything, helping us effectively map out the actual services instead of getting confused. The AWS icons and toolkits make my diagramming process easier and more effective because it is easy to explain and show to my customers which service is being used for a particular component. For instance, when using Amazon S3 for object storage or Amazon RDS for SQL, I can clearly indicate those services. If I need to show containers, I can pick those specific icons to demonstrate that, making it easier than reading it within a box. Lucidchart also offers other specific UML diagrams that I could use, including class diagrams, before I get into the code-level details.

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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

"The wireframe and mock-up features have been the most useful so far. It's easy to create the mock-ups and then communicate to our development team what they need to look like. Lucidchart's capabilities for visualizing and understanding process flows or workflows is very good as well. I'm able to easily use any style of box that I need to create on a flowchart, to effectively communicate to our development team."

"The organizational charts for visualizing and understanding team hierarchies and relationships are the reason why we purchased the package that would allow me to do more with it. I tried to find all the cheap ways to do things but the ease of access and the already preset structure that Lucidchart had in place made it easier. Out of all the choices that I saw come across my desk, Lucidchart was the best and easiest choice."

"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 collaboration, hands-down, is the top feature. It is valuable because our company doesn't believe in working in silos... While I may be the one leading the efforts, it's very important that my team gets buy-in on decisions being made when we're designing. It's critical, especially in this virtual environment, when we're not in an office to have a team meeting and able to whiteboard something. Lucidchart is an extremely useful tool for our team."

"Using Lucidchart for documenting processes is great. The elements are ready to use and it is quick to do."

"I've been using Lucidchart for quite simple things, but it's definitely much easier making process maps using Lucidchart than it is using Google Docs for basically everything. It's much simpler in terms of how easy it is to use Lucidchart. The way that you can get the arrows on the flow charts, based on the process mapping, you can drag the arrows from one box to another and it automatically shows you where you can put it. It makes decisions for you in terms of if you have a decision diamond, then the line is automatically a yes or no. This just makes it so much easier."

"Lucidchart's ability to create a visualization that people prefer to look at, over reading written documents, has definitely saved me a lot of time. Moreover, it has helped to make my code bug-free because I no longer have broken endpoints."

"Documenting complicated workflows and technology integrations so that we can go back to it has also been a benefit. And without having to dig into a lot of technical, the codes, the documents, I can simply understand on a high level what's happening."

More Lucidchart pros

"It's easy to search within the solution."

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

"Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect supports multiple modeling languages like ArchiMate for database design, software lifecycle visualization, and team management."

"Some of the business processes are very easy to compare when you have the diagrams."

"The platform is stable and reliable."

"There are a couple of things. Price is one thing, but we also like the scriptability of it. We got into scripting it and automating tasks with it, and it is super duper easy to do and helpful. The API has improved over the years. We automate everything, and I love the automation aspects of it."

"It is an EA tool that is approved by Open Group. It is in the tool register of Open Group."

"We use it to develop and maintain the Enterprise Conceptual Model, migrated from erwin a couple of years ago."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect pros

Cons

"One of the things that I find frustrating is that all of our Tableau information is on a server, so when I send that out people can't open it and use it. I then have to go back and do extra work to convert everything into an Excel format that everybody can use. It would be really important to me, if I send something out to somebody who doesn't have a Lucid account, that they can just click and see it, instead of having to log in and create an account."

"The UML diagram that it gave me initially was a huge flow with a bunch of UML tables, and I wasn't going to need that many. If it was a more simple linkage between the tables then it would be easier to finish projects, instead of having to select unnecessary tables and delete them."

"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."

"It would be helpful if there were different options available for organizing the folders, such as having a high-level display with pictures."

"In terms of improvement, there can be more templates. There are good templates but there could still be more."

"I would like to have access to more colorful and more vibrant icons."

"Sometimes, I have created charts with a lot of layers, which locks down parts of the chart and hides parts of the chart to edit it. If they have a better way to deal with specific layers when it gets complex, then that would be helpful. I would like to see something like an illustrator program, where they have a pallet of these layers that I want and don't want as well as being able to see each layer individually. That is the one thing that could be helpful."

"Lucidchart subset their older components or something like that had happened. I don't entirely know the totality of it, but we were forced to upgrade to a different integration with Lucid than what we had. I've had a lot of frustrations with that because I've lost a lot of diagrams. I can't get them back and I'm getting pop-ups that are showing me that our data will be loading and I can't run four or five years of my engineering diagrams"

More Lucidchart cons

"Using EA involves a steep learning curve if you want to understand its capabilities and functionality."

"This solution should have better ease of use for the uninitiated."

"This solution is quite complex to use. It would be nice if the learning curve wasn't so steep."

"When the model is large, it is a bit slow to render."

"More challenging than other tools to maintain documents and document versions for an architecture board review."

"No way to implement data integrity and referential integrity constraints."

"The solution needs to offer better support for the mobile-based system. Right now, it's not working."

"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."

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is pretty cost-effective but I haven't considered it on an enterprise level."

"Pricing comes in at about $100 for a year's subscription, which is very reasonable if this is a tool that you will use more than once."

"One of the reasons we were able to get approval within two hours from our management was that it was cheap enough. We have a 3% or 10% collaboration package, which comes out to be 70 bucks a year. It was very cheap, and we had no issues actually getting the full version. It was very affordable for a business."

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

"Pricing-wise, it is pretty fair. I don't really know what group pricing looks like, but right now, I pay $10 a month for my Lucid subscription. One thing I would say is that I do worry about my bosses being okay with paying $10 a month for every single employee because we would have around 20 people. It makes me a little nervous about whether they are going to pay $200 a month for people to be able to use this software. At the same time, from where I'm sitting, it's totally worth it. We save a thousand dollars from using this software. It's still a no-brainer."

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

"I'm happy with the pricing of Lucidchart but I can't say I'm completely happy with it. It could be cheaper for what it offers, about $5 cheaper, or Lucid could charge $5 more and add more features, like automation. Right now, it's $15 per user per month... On the other hand, they have made their billing super-easy for users, such as for people who have to do expense reports. It is probably the easiest platform I'm using when it comes to billing for software as a service."

"The pricing is very competitive. It is more cost-effective than some competing products, such as Visio."

More Lucidchart pricing and cost advice

"The Corporate Edition, or one of the bundles, is the way to go."

"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."

"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."

"It is cheaper than other solutions. Its cost is around $686 per year. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"Use floating licenses strategically."

"The pricing for ultimate version is steeply high."

"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."

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

More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	25

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?

In terms of pricing, setup cost, and licensing, I feel that Lucidchart has provided us with good plans, as we have purchased it through AWS Marketplace. We got team plans that run around nine to te...

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

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs Lucidchart

Compared 6% of the time

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Visual Paradigm vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 12% of the time

No Magic MagicDraw vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 8% of the time

Visio vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 8% of the time

LeanIX vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 7% of the time

SAP PowerDesigner vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Lucidchart

January 2026

Download Lucidchart product report

Buyer's Guide

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

January 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

We monitor all Mind Mapping Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.