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Lucidchart vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect comparison

Why PeerSpot?

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
66
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
99
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (5th), Business Process Design (8th)
 

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 18.1%, down 22.9% compared to last year.
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Architecture Management, holds 8.6% mindshare, down 11.5% since last year.
Mind Mapping Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Lucidchart18.1%
Visio18.7%
Xmind14.3%
Other48.900000000000006%
Mind Mapping Software
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect8.6%
SAP PowerDesigner8.6%
erwin Data Modeler8.4%
Other74.4%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

AlexMartin1 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Milan Sterba - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Using this platform has helped me to realize efficiencies because I can visualize what I'm trying to tell the person."
"Lucidchart enables me to put down on paper what I was visualizing in my head. It makes it more shareable than only using words."
"We saved our team time by 20-30% and made our work considerably easier."
"Its ease of use is most valuable. As compared to draw.io, connecting the lines and doing things like that are much easier in Lucidchart. It has been great for some of the process flow diagrams and data flow diagrams. I can export these diagrams as PDFs and share them with team members."
"In general, this product has improved our organization because it makes accessing up-to-date processes and planning a lot easier."
"The best features Lucidchart offers are that it is easy to use, the diagrams created are of good quality, and there are a lot of elements available."
"The interface is really good and it is very easy to use."
"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."
"It is a very flexible product; it can do a lot, and it is also a reliable product."
"Its most valuable feature is the Zachman Framework."
"I like that there is support for software patterns."
"Automated reporting saves me a kazillion hours a week of cutting, pasting and editing."
"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."
"SPARX EA is well suited for a client that does not have an Enterprise Architecture or Business Process and that needs to get started, so you can leverage the product right from scratch."
"It really is pretty cheap and you only pay the maintenance renewal, so it is worth every dime."
"It is an excellent way for a company to start or an organization to start using an enterprise architecture discipline."
 

Cons

"One of the major drawbacks is that we have to extract the work in Lucidchart as an image when we want to create a presentation."
"I would like to have access to more colorful and more vibrant icons."
"I've had an issue is when you create, let's say, a rectangle box. You can write some text in it and give it a name, and, depending on how you shape the size of the box, the text will rearrange itself to fit. That is, except if your box is very, very narrow, but very long, like a long, narrow rectangle in a vertical position. In this case, the text will always go out of the rectangle."
"Wireframing can be improved. For mock-ups and wireframing, only 10% of what is required is there."
"When you want to add text to a connector arrow, I have not figured out how to position the text vertically. It always wants the text to stay horizontal."
"One downside is that you can only modify things online, but when you download work, you download it as an image. It would be useful to have an option to modify it locally."
"It would be really helpful if we could create a process flow based on a Word Document or a PPT file."
"It would be nice to have more features that help me visually present information."
"In a future release, they should improve portfolio planning."
"Not visually appealing."
"If you are using Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect as an individual contributor, then it's not a great choice."
"More challenging than other tools to maintain documents and document versions for an architecture board review."
"I think the product is good. When I'm trying to do something specific for some part of project documentation, it's hard to get it figured out if you don't use it all the time. It's such a massive tool, it's hard to figure out how to dig in and get to the documentation where you have to be to get some idea of what to do. There are not a lot of examples that I'm aware of to be able to do that."
"Installation will be challenge for quick and one time use, some time the code not sync due to some issues."
"There used to be that feature in ArchiMate Modeling of Enterprise Architect called inherited relationships. Now it's gone."
"We feel that compatibility with other MDA modelling products, particularly open source such as Visual Paradigm, Modelio or Capella is an area of improvement, as well as better integration with Integrated Development Environments."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price and licensing are good."
"I have only used the trial version and have not yet paid for it, or explored the pricing options."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing and licensing are fine, though I wish they didn't require you to buy the licenses in batches of five."
"At €167 per user per year, the pricing is slightly higher than Visio, but it's worth it."
"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."
"The pricing is very reasonable, and they have a free trial available that you can play with."
"I use my own license. So, I just bought the professional version, which costs $800 or something like that. In the company where I am working, we have floating licenses. They are probably more expensive. Its licensing is affordable, but we are talking about a large organization, and there could be modelers or viewers of the models. We don't know how much that would cost us."
"It's affordable. The only additional cost that we haven't yet figured out is the floating license. If you buy a floating license, you have to have a license management server, which comes at an additional cost that's not discussed. So, we haven't yet used the floating license. That’s because I haven't had a chance to figure that out."
"It is cheap."
"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."
"It’s the best deal in town, by far."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"It is very economical and low cost. You have to pay for a one-time license, and it is active forever."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business39
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise58
 

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 ...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lucidchart?
It is cloud-based, so no setup is required. Currently, we are using a free plan.
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 ...
What is your primary use case for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect?
We are mostly using the ArchiMate language to describe enterprise or solution architecture, along with a bit of use cases. We are producing quite large models, with over 10,000 elements and relatio...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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