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No Magic MagicDraw vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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

No Magic MagicDraw
Ranking in Business Process Design
15th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sparx Systems Enterprise Ar...
Ranking in Business Process Design
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of No Magic MagicDraw is 2.4%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is 6.6%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect6.6%
No Magic MagicDraw2.4%
Other91.0%
Business Process Design
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user699090 - PeerSpot reviewer
Intern at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
Jul 14, 2017
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2080611 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Ease of use and real-time collaboration empower effective teamwork and streamlined development
For CAMEO, it's not only the ease of use, it's versatility, its communicability, but Rhapsody is the worst tool I've ever used. It is very difficult, not user-friendly, and very expensive. It works only with its IBM counterparts. SPARX Enterprise Architecture is very easy to use, but it's limited. It gives you an idea of how your model is developing, so this feature helps maintain integrity or correctness of system models. It's really a good feature to have. You've got to have the simulation toolkit installed to be able to do that, and that works really well. The MagicDraw or CAMEO system is good on its own, but it should be integrated and should come out of the box with the simulation toolkit because there are some things you can't do without it, making it very difficult to have to look for another license to be able to do that. I would prefer that it come with the simulation toolkit.
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

"The most valuable feature is the ability to quickly build multiple layers within the organizational and business process environments, as well as in the SysML product environments, and converting to files that can be accessed by clients who do not have a system and a teamwork server access."
"No Magic MagicDraw provides a lot of good features on functionality."
"Offers good standards compliance and is user-friendly."
"The most valuable features are the visibility, standard compliance, and interface."
"The initial setup was not straightforward."
"The beauty of MagicDraw is that it has a simulation part, so you can simulate your model to validate it. The simulation allows you to bring in code off of an external code that you can write to set up the simulation and execute the code."
"The MBFC capability of MagicDraw is higher than the other competitors."
"The most valuable feature of No Magic MagicDraw is the simulation capabilities and interface."
"We can easily use it with our new customers."
"The solution allows us to quickly present designs and concepts to customers and get their feedback, thereby moving the project forward step by step."
"The company wants to reduce its maintenance budget so the aim is to get more for less, and the solution has achieved this and improved efficiency."
"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."
"Customizable and tailored to the environment. Several template frameworks are provided."
"We absolutely feel that Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect provides a good ROI."
"Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is used by our architects to put out artifacts, collaborate, work together, and share those artifacts."
"The installation was very easy."
 

Cons

"For the next releases, I would like to have them import requirements from other sources. They could make it very easy to do that because there are a lot requirements management tools like DOORS, D-O-O-R-S, Dynamic Object Oriented Management. A lot of folks use DOORS to create a requirement. For those requirements you allocate them to a component in the architecture and a verification method for that requirement. It would be good if we could import those into MagicDraw as components so you don't have to manually do these things."
"The software is a little more challenging if you haven't been trained on how to use it."
"One potential area for improvement is the recommendation feature. At times, we face challenges in locating specific features, and we have to reach out for assistance in finding the information we need."
"I would like to see the ability to deploy live business process models and capture real-time data (without the need for another product tool) so you don't have to be dependent on other products for this functionality."
"When I am working with my Mac and I right-click to copy and paste, it doesn't work."
"They don't really support code engineering, and that's why we have to move to Enterprise Architect. MagicDraw is stuck at C++03 standards, whereas most C++ programs today want to use the latest definition of the C++ standards. We were at C++11, and we wanted to do code engineering with C++11 or 17, but they didn't support it. That pushed us into a different tool, which is Sparx Enterprise Architect."
"Larger models slow you down; committing, updating, merging of branches and comparing of models (diff) do not scale yet; issues will hopefully be solved with upcoming V19."
"It's very focused on specific modern languages and it doesn't do necessarily general systems software engineering with diagrams. They should expand the diagram types for the languages."
"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."
"It has not improved our organization mainly due to the poor diagramming capabilities within the product, which are outdated and look like Visual Studio 2005."
"UML analysis needs to improved."
"Modeling could be more user-friendly ArchiMate - support for derived relations Define features and attributes as separate components More flexible document generation features"
"I think the solution could be improved visually. It's not as visually appealing as other solutions."
"Its best features are not intuitive or easy to learn. Most companies I have worked with, when I see what they are doing with it , are not using more than 5% of what they could and should be doing with it."
"I cannot get businesses to use Enterprise Architect as it is too complicated for them."
"More challenging than other tools to maintain documents and document versions for an architecture board review."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is on a yearly basis, and it's expensive."
"In addition to the initial cost, you have to pay annually for support in order to get the upgrades."
"I would say licensing would be anywhere from $3,500 to $6,500 per person or per seat (it's a per seat style license)."
"I rate the pricing a ten out of ten. It is an expensive product compared to software for model-based system engineering."
"The price of No Magic MagicDraw could improve. The price of the solution is too expensive for smaller-sized companies. There should be a better pricing model."
"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."
"I think our license costs roughly $1,000 a year, but I could be wrong."
"The Corporate Edition, or one of the bundles, is the way to go."
"It’s the best deal in town, by far."
"It is very economical and low cost. You have to pay for a one-time license, and it is active forever."
"Its price is very good for the value that you get with it."
"Pricing and licensing are suitable even for small companies."
"We had a yearly license."
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Answers from the Community

it_user699090 - PeerSpot reviewer
Intern at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
Jul 14, 2017
Jul 14, 2017
Hi, You mentioned prices and I don't really know the difference between those two products. If you can, tell me what product has the reputation to be less expensive. I'm using MagicDraw with NIEM and I pay for the maintenance. NIEM is only usable on the LTD 18.0 version which is their long term version supposed to be more stable. NIEM plugin is in version 1.00. I also use the feature rich ve...
2 out of 5 answers
it_user502215 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Architecture Consultant with 10,001+ employees
Jul 13, 2017
I do not know about plug-in but Sparx has six NIEM tagged values (architecture meta data)
Jul 13, 2017
I only worked in testing Sparx Enterprise Architect as a replacement for ERwin data modeler. I did not work with No Magic so I don’t know the differences. However, I found this pdf: http://www.uwm.edu.pl/wnt/technicalsc/tech_12/B15.pdf I searched on differences between no magic and sparx enterprise architect. Hope this helps. Good luck!
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Government
10%
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 Business14
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business39
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for No Magic MagicDraw?
Maybe the price is a little bit high for a small company to acquire this tool. However, they offer trial versions and trial licenses for members of INCOSE.
What needs improvement with No Magic MagicDraw?
For CAMEO, it's not only the ease of use, it's versatility, its communicability, but Rhapsody is the worst tool I've ever used. It is very difficult, not user-friendly, and very expensive. It works...
What is your primary use case for No Magic MagicDraw?
I deal with DOD lifecycle acquisition sorts of things as some of the main use cases currently, and I expect to continue using it for more than 25 years.
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...
 

Also Known As

MagicDraw
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Northrop Grumman, Labcorp, Deposco, ClearView Training, IT Services Promotion Agency, Intelligent Chaos, Metalithic Systems Inc., Sodifrance
OmniLink
Find out what your peers are saying about No Magic MagicDraw vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.