IBM Rational System Architect Designer vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

If you need a whole infrastructure and architect view, IBM Rational System Architect is the way to go. If you need a single diagram or your business process is young enough to support hard documenting, you are fine with an open source tool.

Incentivized

You need to have a Sparx EA go to person to help socialize the tool and ensure it is properly used (but again, this is true for most tools). IF a company is looking for a tool they can just buy an have people use they should stick to Visio because any true modeling tool requires expertise.

In an environment where you do not have a highly trained group of architects who are familiar with all the standards and strategies of modeling, Sparx EA , more than most tools, allows you to wrap user friendly menus,and windows around it to make it easier to use.

Incentivized

• MS Office exporting
• UML modeling
• Transformation to code
• A reverse transformation from code
• Integrates with other IBM products

Incentivized

• Easy to get started
• Easy to share content
• It supports TOGAF and UML.

Incentivized

• Always has a price. And IBM is not cheap
• Sequence diagrams can get messy (still has a good UI)
• Only support few databases as backend repositories like SQL Server and Oracle

Incentivized

• Enterprise Architect's user interface is outdated... It should be more fresh and clean

Incentivized

The solution is well complemented by external addons from third parties.

Incentivized

If you have a budget or the need for a complex modeler or need diagram transformation to code or vice-versa, IBM Rational System Architect is the way to go. If you need few diagrams or don't need the complexity or don't have a budget, Bizagi or Star UML get the things done.

Incentivized

BiZZdesign represents a different new concept to enterprise architecture, its gravity center is not technical modelling, but rather a view on capturing the whole end-user experience or customer journey. It also allows to grasp areas as internal company capabilities, required for adoption/changes and operation of the solution, uses the same Archimate modelling language. This solution is in my opinion a new generation enabling to not only design the solutions, but also manage the whole application portfolio with respect to capabilities and requirement parameters.

Incentivized

• Clients like good modeling. A good diagram reduce costs in incidents and doubts of bad interpretations
• Reduce costs of recognition of old software.

Incentivized

• EA has provided a very positive impact on business understanding
• EA has allowed us to map clearly our physical and logical architecture, and to allow us to plan replacement systems and platforms

Incentivized