ARIS Architect and Designer Reviews

Name: ARIS Architect and Designer
Brand: Software AG
Rating: 4.1 (10 reviews)

Vendor: Software AG

4.1 out of 5

10 reviews
81% willing to recommend

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What is ARIS Architect and Designer?

ARIS is the market-leading solution for professional business process management and modeling. Whether you want to document the "as-is" state of your operations for quality or certification reasons or design the "to-be" in terms of continuous improvement in your transformation program, ARIS is the best choice for establishing a single source of truth regarding all process excellence topics in your organization. It is for any organization looking to digitally transform their business, increase operational excellence and customer experience and ensure compliance in execution. ARIS helps you to make the most out of your processes with Process Mining, Risk & Compliance Management, RPA and much more.

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ARIS Architect and Designer is the #16 ranked solution in Business Process Design tools. PeerSpot users give ARIS Architect and Designer an average rating of 8.2 out of 10. ARIS Architect and Designer is most commonly compared to Camunda: ARIS Architect and Designer vs Camunda. ARIS Architect and Designer is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 72% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a financial services firm, accounting for 25% of all views.

Buyer's Guide

ARIS Architect and Designer

June 2025

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Helped 855,347 peers since 2012

Featured ARIS Architect and Designer reviews

Angie Ibrahim Eissa

Founder & Managing Partner at BBL

ARIS Architect and Designer needs to improve its cloud version reliability, as I experienced data corruption that reverted diagrams to earlier versions. This issue, especially with large-scale diagrams, led to significant inconvenience due to the lack of partial data restoration capability. Additionally, an academic license would be beneficial to accommodate educational purposes.

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RemkeRutgers

IT architect at Rutgers IT

One of the standout features for me is its synchronization to a publication server. It makes sharing diagrams and links with non-users easy. The main value comes from having a shared repository for architectural models. However, the benefits depend on how effectively the user uses the tool. Creating a good model and avoiding modeling the same things multiple times is essential. Ultimately, the value lies in the user's discipline and approach rather than solely relying on the tool.

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BPMexp67

BPM Expert at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

At this moment, we are moving all of these features to the web, which makes it easier to use in a browser. It can be improved because Architect and Designer are the core models of the suite, where you design your processes, your data, your applications, and so on. From this base, you have other features to implement improvements. For instance, to improve a process, we have a specific model, the simulation module, where we can create different scenarios and show the customer the benefits of each. But Architect and Designer are just tools to capture and administer the method, the filters, the templates, and so on. This is important, but for me, it's not enough to bring value to the customer. We need to identify improvements, implement them, and demonstrate the benefits. We need to control the benefits. Thus, the main area for improvement means bridging the gap between creating process models and actually realizing tangible benefits from process optimization. In future releases, I would like to see more features around AI.

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ARIS Architect and Designer mindshare

As of June 2025, the mindshare of ARIS Architect and Designer in the Business Process Design category stands at 0.7%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Process Design

PeerResearch reports based on ARIS Architect and Designer reviews

Type	Title	Date
Category	Business Process Design	Jun 10, 2025	Download
Product	Reviews, tips, and advice from real users	Jun 10, 2025	Download
Comparison	ARIS Architect and Designer vs Camunda	Jun 10, 2025	Download
Comparison	ARIS Architect and Designer vs Visio	Jun 10, 2025	Download
Comparison	ARIS Architect and Designer vs SAP Signavio Process Manager	Jun 10, 2025	Download

Valuable Features

ARIS Architect and Designer excels in process design speed, enterprise architecture management, and user-friendly interfaces. Its customizable metamodel supports complex structures, offering diverse assets and reporting capabilities. It enables collaboration, maintains compliance, and provides advanced modeling features with strong metadata management. Users praise its publication server synchronization and cross-notational alignment, allowing efficient connectivity across diagrams. Advanced visualization and risk management capabilities, along with KPIs connection, significantly enhance user operations and process optimization.

"I would rate the solution overall a ten out of ten."
"Its user interface is highly regarded, especially when compared with Visual Paradigm."
"It is suitable for banks, insurance companies, public administration, etc. The method is very adaptable and can be applied independently of the business."

Room for Improvement

ARIS Architect and Designer needs enhancements in collaboration features and usability. Licensing costs are high, and essential features require separate purchases. Users encounter challenges with data export and migration, limiting flexibility. Improvements are necessary in simulation, support, and process mining capabilities. The user interface and cloud version reliability are concerns, with data corruption issues impacting usability. There's a demand for more accessible features across different ARIS versions, including academic licensing for educational use.

"Sometimes we feel that the designer needs more usability. I understand that the web module or the cloud version is much more user-friendly and easier to work on compared to the client that we download."
"The customer service of ARIS Architect and Designer was disappointing. It took forty days to conclude that partial data restoration was not possible, and it was suggested that the data might have been accidentally deleted, despite evidence to the contrary."
"Sometimes, it's not easy to convince customers to use this methodology because it's a bit rigid."

Pricing

Enterprise users often find ARIS Architect and Designer licenses costly and licensing configurations complex, leading to hesitation or inability to adopt the tool despite its valuable functionalities. The product typically involves an expensive yearly subscription and server costs for on-premise solutions, with an annual renewal fee of 22%. While some perceive it as moderately priced, it is generally comparable to MEGA in terms of pricing.

"The tool is a little bit expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"Many customers find the licensing configuration confusing. There are many different sub-details in the licensing, making it very difficult for us to understand what we are buying and what we are using with what."

Popular Use Cases

ARIS Architect and Designer is primarily used for documenting reference models from global experts and creating a central repository. It aids in designing company processes, generating job descriptions, conducting process checks, and process modeling. It serves government security services and is customizable. Users employ it for business processing, enterprise architecture, and knowledge hub functions. It's used for project delivery, process analysis, and integration with HRMS, with plans for dashboarding and simulation.

Service and Support

ARIS Architect and Designer's support offers a user knowledge body and self-paced videos, but users often require specialized assistance for certain tasks. Experiences with support are mixed; some find the process lengthy, especially when resolving significant issues via email. The support staff is generally responsive, knowledgeable, and often resolves issues within days. Some users praise the improved service and productive remote support, despite challenges in communication.

Deployment

Users found ARIS Architect and Designer's initial setup to be both straightforward and complex. For straightforward cases, installation took about a day, but complex setups required infrastructure discussions and additional configuration. Multi-node installations faced documentation gaps, needing extra support, extending deployment to a month. Some find server configuration challenging, needing a team or person for implementation, though maintenance is manageable. When large data is involved, complexity increases, though SaaS options ease this.

Scalability

ARIS Architect and Designer is considered highly scalable and stable by users. They note its ability to support a growing number of users, though it demands significant CPU resources, necessitating justification to IT departments. Users appreciate its scalability from mid to large capacities, involving multiple administrators. Although referencing the need for enhanced documentation, users show confidence in its capability by planning license renewals. ARIS is rated highly in scalability.

Stability

ARIS Architect and Designer is generally considered stable with ratings between six point five and ten. On-premises management contributes to its reliability. Updates can be problematic because versions may lack desired fixes and language removals, as experienced with Turkish. An incident showed possible instability in the cloud with large data models. Users advise against using the latest versions due to changes that aren’t always wanted or tested thoroughly.

These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.

Download our ARIS Architect and Designer Buyer's Guide for additional reliable information.

Review data by company size

By reviewers

By visitors reading reviews

Top industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

25%

Computer Software Company

Government

Insurance Company

Energy/Utilities Company

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Legal Firm

Media Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

Mining And Metals Company

Transportation Company

International Affairs Institute

Hospitality Company

University

Outsourcing Company

Recreational Facilities/Services Company

Retailer

Leisure / Travel Company

Logistics Company

Consumer Goods Company

Wholesaler/Distributor

Performing Arts

Healthcare Company

Marketing Services Firm

Compare ARIS Architect and Designer with alternative products

Learn more about ARIS Architect and Designer

What makes the difference?

The most comprehensive platform for process excellence in the market
Easy to use
Covers business & IT architecture from all angles
Full flexibility and >100 diagram types
Customer-driven development based on best practices
Strong partner ecosystem

ARIS is the market-leading solution for any organization and ideally suited to digitally transform the organization, increase operational excellence and customer experience and ensure compliance in execution.

ARIS Architect and Designer was previously known as ARIS Architect & Designer, ARIS Architect, ARIS Designer.

ARIS Architect and Designer customers

Tesco, Weifu, Airbus, Siemens, Proximus, Alicorp, Sekerbank, Bancor, Philips,Sky, Emirates NBD, Dubai Municipality, Suva, U.S. Army, Australia Post, Westfalen Weser Energie - ARIS serves customers across all industries and of every size worldwide. Companies trust ARIS as the market leader for process excellence with more than 30 years of experience in the market, 10 million users worldwide, from 1 user companies to the Fortune 500.