SAP PowerDesigner vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest comparison

erwin by Quest and SAP are both solutions in the Enterprise Architecture Management category. erwin by Quest is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.1, while SAP is ranked #5 with an average rating of 7.3. erwin by Quest holds a 10.7% mindshare in AM, compared to SAP’s 9.1% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of erwin by Quest users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of SAP users who would recommend it.

erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Read 39 erwin Data Modeler by Quest reviews

3,925 Views
2,164 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

SAP PowerDesigner

Read 35 SAP PowerDesigner reviews

3,232 Views
1,796 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

erwin Data Modeler by Quest

SAP PowerDesigner

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 23, 2025

SAP PowerDesigner and erwin Data Modeler by Quest compete in data modeling and database design. SAP PowerDesigner offers enhanced technical abilities, while erwin Data Modeler boasts a broader feature set, making it a notable investment despite its higher cost.

Features: SAP PowerDesigner offers robust modeling tools, effective database integration, and multi-environment integration support. Erwin Data Modeler emphasizes collaboration, providing extensive metadata management and end-to-end data governance functionalities.

Room for Improvement: SAP PowerDesigner could enhance deployment efficiency, streamline its setup, and modernize its user interface. Erwin Data Modeler may benefit from improved cloud integration, expanded DBA tools, and faster model synchronization on large projects.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Erwin Data Modeler ensures a streamlined deployment and responsive customer service, making it easy to implement. SAP PowerDesigner, while user-friendly, requires a more complex setup, taking additional time to deploy.

Pricing and ROI: SAP PowerDesigner offers a budget-friendly setup with a solid return on investment, appealing to cost-conscious buyers. Erwin Data Modeler, though more expensive, justifies its cost through comprehensive features that enhance data management efficiency, promising greater long-term ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed SAP PowerDesigner vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

SAP PowerDesigner vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest

April 2025

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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

erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Design (9th)

SAP PowerDesigner

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

5th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Metadata Management (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of erwin Data Modeler by Quest is 10.7%, up from 9.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP PowerDesigner is 9.1%, up from 8.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Architecture Management

Featured Reviews

JorgeSanz

Data Governance Senior Advisor at Abu Dhabi National Oil Company

Streamline data modeling and automate network changes for increased efficiency

The initial setup depends on the tool if you are using the data model environment. Stopping the server could be complex and require strong expertise. If you have everything set up and configured, Erwin is straightforward. You can deploy it in a few hours. In our case, it took a couple of months to address internal conditions, assign machines, and set up everything for the services. I rate the initial setup a six out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.

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JorgeSanz

Data Governance Senior Advisor at Abu Dhabi National Oil Company

Effective in terms of validating everything, but sometimes they don't allow us some flexibility and GUI could improve

I would recommend SAP PowerDesigner to others for data architecture management. It provides all the functionalities in terms of data modeling, so it's also a good tool for that. I see trends in terms of data classification, but I don't see this tool with the intelligence to do that automatically. So, like, with artificial intelligence. Overall, I would rate the solution a six out of ten because there are too many validations. Also, I found some gaps in terms of relationships; they didn't appear when you do reverse engineering. Also, this tool lacks artificial intelligence that should be very good in terms of automatically identifying the classification of elements and maybe also to incorporate some artificial intelligence in providing descriptions for each data element included in the solution.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"erwin has versioning so you can keep versions, over time, of those models and you can compare any version to any version. If you're looking at a specific database and you want to see what changed over time, that's really useful. You can go back to a different version or connect that to your change-control processes so you can see what was released when."

"There is absolutely no problem with the stability."

"It has centralized storage so that a data model can be shared by different teams."

"We use the Forward and Reverse Engineering tools to help us speed things up and create things that would have to be done otherwise by hand. E.g., getting a database into a data model format or vice versa."

"It reduces monthly savings by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Think about a company like Costco and all of the points of sale systems in Costco, all of the systems, the applications, but if all the applications in Costco all had their own data model, trying to integrate those, upgrade them and manage their different versions of the same model throughout the store, is an absolute nightmare. It's phenomenally expensive. This helps reduce that cost significantly. I'm talking on the orders of hundreds of thousands of dollars."

"The most valuable features are being able to visualize the data in the diagrams and transform those diagrams into physical database deployments. These features help, specifically, to integrate the data. When the source data is accumulated and modeled, the target model is in erwin and it helps resolve the data integration patterns that are required to map the data to accommodate a model."

"Another feature of erwin is that it can help you enforce your naming standards. It has little modules that you can set up and, as you're building the data model, it's ensuring that they conform to the naming standards that you've developed."

"The product lets us import different types of models from various databases."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest pros

"The initial setup was very easy."

"Provides the flexibility to create logical and conceptual data models."

"SAP PowerDesigner is fairly stable."

"The most valuable feature is that it is a very fast reverse engineering process. It does a very expansive comparison."

"I mostly work on the conceptual and logical side of things, and I enjoy how easy it is to use."

"It is more flexible than other tools and user-friendly, making it easy to adapt."

"It offers a lot of features in one solution. You would have to get multiple other products to bundle together all of the capabilities that you get in just this product."

"I've used the reverse engineering feature a lot. I can take a look at the structure of the database and what relationships it has."

More SAP PowerDesigner pros

Cons

"I would like the solution to be more user-friendly to deploy."

"I would like to see more support for working with the big-data world. There are so many new databases evolving and it's very hard for them to keep up with all of the new technologies. It would be good if they were able to dynamically support big-data platforms, other than Hive and Teradata."

"The modeling product itself is far and above anything else that I've seen on the market. There are certain inconsistencies when it comes to keeping up with other platforms' databases in the reverse-engineering process. It should also support more database platforms."

"I still use Visio for conceptual modeling, and that's mainly because it is easier to change things, and you can relax some of the rules. DM's eventual target is a database, which means you actually have to dot all the Is and cross all the Ts, but in a conceptual model, you don't often know what you're working with. So, that's probably a constraint with erwin. They have made it a lot easier, and they've done a lot, but there is probably still room for improvement in terms of the ease of presentation back to the business. I'm comparing it with something like Visio where you can change colors on a box, change the text color and that sort of stuff, and change the lines. Such things are a whole lot easier in Visio, but once you get a theme organized in erwin, you can apply that theme to all of the objects. So, it becomes easier, but you do have to set up that theme."

"The report generation has room for improvement. I think it was version 8 where you had to use Crystal Reports, and it was so painful that the company I was with just stayed on version 7 until version 9 came out and they restored the data browser. That's better than it was, but it's still a little cumbersome. For example, you run it in erwin, then export it out to Excel, and then you have to do a lot of cosmetic modification. If you discover that you missed a column, then you would have to rerun the whole thing. Sometimes what you would do is just go ahead and fix it in the report, then you have to remember to go back and fix it in the model. Therefore, I think the report generation still could use some work."

"I love the product. I love the ability to get into the code, make it automated, and make it do what I want. I would like to see them put some kind of governance over the ability to make changes to the mart tables with the API, so that instead of just using the modeler's rights to a table -- it has a separate set of rights for API access. That would give us the ability to put governance around API applications. Right now a person with erwin and Excel/VBA has the ability to make changes to models with the API if they also have rights to make changes to the model from erwin. It's a risk."

"It is not a very stable solution. I rate the stability five out of ten."

"I find the UI very clunky and very difficult to use. If I add columns to a table the whole workflow could be so much easier. I get frustrated using it. I've tried other tools. I've tried to get off of erwin a few times. I always come back to it because every tool has its own set of problems, and it seems like if I have to pick my poison, I stay with erwin. But so many things that are clunky with it."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest cons

"Checking-in models to the repository, especially when working remotely, is a slow process than can sometimes have problems with models being corrupted."

"In the future, I would like to see data manipulation capability where you can actually write SQL queries and manipulate data from directly within the tool."

"SAP PowerDesigner could improve by making the repository easier to understand. It is difficult to understand how the repository works because when I used logical models as part of the team, we wanted to use them together and update the older versions of the data model version but it was confusing. The repository needs to be explained."

"The solution itself does not need to be improved. However, they could add support for different languages."

"Based on my experience with SAP PowerDesigner, I'd like to see improvements in the DMM feature."

"Technical support could be better and more human."

"I have found the solution not easy to use. When publishing you have to download the HTML, make adjustments against the updated HTML, convert it to HTML, then finally paste the HTML. There is not an on-the-fly function available to bypass the step-by-step converting process that other solutions have."

"Regarding improvements, I suggest enhancing the connection between objects in process and data models. It's crucial to define the structure of objects, especially when dealing with standard frameworks like VMM. There should be better visualization of arrows between BPM and data modeling objects, specifying their structure and impact. For future versions, a feature similar to Bizagi, allowing users to see forms or SQL representations of objects, would be valuable for demonstrating and presenting project details to stakeholders."

More SAP PowerDesigner cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is either a one-year or three-year license. It is not a pay-as-you-go license like a SaaS solution. It’s more of a traditional licensing. They are a little bit on the pricier side."

"This company had bought the license for three years, and it's not an individual license. While you can buy a license for each individual, that would be very expensive. There is something called concurrent licenses where you can purchase licenses in bulk and 15 to 20 people can access the license and model. Concurrent licenses are scalable to the number of users and are proportional to the cost."

"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"erwin has this option where you pay a one-time fee and you have the license for six years, which makes sense because I don't upgrade my database engine every other year. I have an application that depends on it. This is something weird about PowerDesigner. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."

"The primary reasons that erwin was selected were that it was much more affordable for us [than Embarcadero] and it was easily maintainable."

"An issue right now would be that erwin doesn't have a freely available browser (that I am aware of) for people who are not data modelers or data engineers that a consumer could use to look at the data models and play with it. This would not be to make any changes, but just to visually look at what exists. There are other products out there which do have end user browsers available and allow them to access data models via the data modeling tool."

"The tool is expensive."

"We've continued to use the product for many years and compared it with others on the market. The pricing is reasonable considering what the solution offers and what we pay. There are cheaper tools, but they may not be as robust and easy to use, so it's worth the money."

More erwin Data Modeler by Quest pricing and cost advice

"The price of the solution is too expensive. When we asked for certain licenses in different countries it was unattainable."

"PowerDesigner is not the cheapest solution on the market, so make sure that you are using it to its full potential."

"SAP PowerDesigner is cheaper than eriwin."

"When you purchase the license for SAP PowerDesigner, you have to buy one year of support. The tool is worth the money."

"I would like SAP to prove free licenses to professionals that are using the solution. The free version is limited."

"The price of the solution is low."

"The ROI has been 43%."

"The pricing varies based on functionality and users."

More SAP PowerDesigner pricing and cost advice

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Answers from the Community

Segundo Navarrete

Works at personal

Nov 30, 2021

Which would you choose - SAP PowerDesigner or erwin Data Modeler (DM)?

See 2 answers

Evgeny Belenky

Director of Community at PeerSpot (formerly IT Central Station)

Nov 29, 2021

Hi @George McGeachie, @Carel Van Der Merwe, @Peter Vlekkekn, @Tracy Hautenen Kriel , @Sharon Allen, @Jose Luis Leon and @Pam Rivera, Can you please share your professional opinion/experience with our community?

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Tracy Hautenen Kriel

Architecture Sr. Manager, Data Design & Metadata Mgmt at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

Nov 30, 2021

15 years ago was the one time I chose to use PowerDesigner over Erwin Data Modeler was for a project where we have hundreds of pl/sql ETL scripts that needed to be run in a specific order for specific tables. PowerDesigner had the ability to store the pl/sql within the data model and prioritize/order the script run sequence. This meant that we could count on PowerDesigner to automatically generate the ddl and pl/sql code in the correct run order, rather than manually maintaining a spreadsheet with the script order and running each script manually, a VERY labor intensive process. I don't know if PowerDesigner still has that capability. With all of the ways we have to program and perform ETL, Erwin Data Modeler has been my tool of choice for any other project throughout the years. Protecting intellectual property and transparently sharing data model information with other modelers by saving the the models in a centralized location (i.e. Model Mart) is important for any company. Making the data model diagrams transparently accessible via Web Portal is another important step in ensuring both technical and business users understand the structure and relationships of the data contains within a data store. Lastly, making the data model metadata available via the Erwin Data Intelligence Suite enables both technical and business users to completely understand everything about the data and data store: Business Glossary, Reference Data, Governance, Data Quality, Data Mapping, and especially automating data lineage and impact analysis.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

25%

Government

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

Forward engineering, DDL generation, reverse engineering, and reporting are the most valuable features of the solution.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

The product is expensive. I rate the product’s pricing a nine out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?

As a documenting tool, it's solid, though its reporting could be more robust. The reporting mechanisms could be more intuitive regarding report creation. It can generate reports in CSV files, displ...

See all answers

What do you like most about SAP PowerDesigner?

It allows us to have proper documentation in terms of the databases.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP PowerDesigner?

The pricing varies based on functionality and users.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SAP PowerDesigner?

Based on my experience with SAP PowerDesigner, I'd like to see improvements in the DMM feature. Even if I have an ETL tool, I'd like the DMM options to directly connect to ETL tool repositories lik...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 19% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 7% of the time

AWS Well-Architected Tool vs erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Compared 4% of the time

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LeanIX vs SAP PowerDesigner

Compared 16% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs SAP PowerDesigner

Compared 13% of the time

IDERA ER/Studio vs SAP PowerDesigner

Compared 5% of the time

Visio vs SAP PowerDesigner

Compared 4% of the time

SAP Information Steward vs SAP PowerDesigner

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

erwin Data Modeler by Quest

May 2025

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Buyer's Guide

SAP PowerDesigner

April 2025

Download SAP PowerDesigner product report

Also Known As

erwin DM

Sybase PowerDesigner

Overview

erwin pioneered data modeling, and erwin Data Modeler (erwin DM) remains trusted, award-winning software for data modeling and database design, automating complex and time-consuming tasks. Use it to discover and document any data from anywhere for consistency, clarity and artifact reuse across large-scale data integration, master data management, metadata management, Big Data, business intelligence and analytics initiatives – all while supporting data governance and intelligence efforts.

erwin by Quest

SAP PowerDesigner is a valuable solution for developing several different types of data models according to business process needs. Data models can be logical, conceptual, and physical, and can also include dimensional and relational models. PowerDesiger has the ability to integrate a designed business process model with the actual database design to ensure that all the data process steps are included in the logical model. PowerDesigner is able to use the physical model to create the actual database, and from there, design various physical iterations from a single logical model.

PowerDesigner can perform excellent reverse-engineering of existing databases to create a model diagram. The solution integrates well with many of today's most recognized database management systems (DBMS). Some of the solution’s featured outputs include custom or standard reports of every object in the design (relationships, field, and tables), design impact analysis, and entity-relationship (ER) designs.

PowerDesigner offers intuitive capabilities such as metadata management, link and sync, and data modeling. Users can instantly view architecture layers and essentials, access the robust metadata repository, and share findings with the user’s entire team.

SAP PowerDesigner Features

Document Creation: Easily share documents to cultivate an environment of communication and collaboration with all stakeholders in a project. Users can even include non-modelers. Users can provide private, secure access to metadata using hyperlinked Web reporting and multi-model documents, and even use wizard-created lists.
Result Analysis: The solution helps merge all model types with an intuitive automated link-and-sync process. Users can easily streamline communication and creative streams to improve the organization’s ability to experience transformation.
Intelligence Mapping: Users can develop thorough mapping protocols for data dictionary input. Users can record dependencies correctly with a simple drag-and-drop mapping editor and drag information from any supported source to target model pairs.

SAP PowerDesigner Benefits

Improve Overall Productivity: The solution enables enterprise architects and developers to share information through a trusted metadata repository that can handle all modeling types.
Simplify Workflows: PowerDesigner offers an easy-to-use wizard-driven protocol to streamline web-based reporting and documentation, making workloads easier for IT staff and other users.
Improve Communication: PowerDesigner’s intuitive link-and-sync technology will facilitate secure trusted networks between an organization's specific protocols, data models, and language.

Reviews from Real Users

“The most valuable feature of SAP PowerDesigner is the testing of the models, it has the best function. Reverse engineering is very helpful too. I use SAP PowerDesigner for data modeling and documentation. It interacts well with the other tools. Additionally, we use it for all of the business requirements, such as CDM and PDM.” - Saadat T., Emerging Cloud Solution Architect at a tech services company

“It's a great tool for documentation. A new data scientist can easily understand the data just by looking at it. Once you are managing your physical data with a logical data model, by looking at this data model, you can understand what it means, the business meaning of the elements which are maintained by the relational database.” - Michael R., DA

SAP

Sample Customers

Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples

Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone

Buyer's Guide

SAP PowerDesigner vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest

April 2025

Free Report: SAP PowerDesigner vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest

Find out what your peers are saying about SAP PowerDesigner vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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