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Enterprise Architecture Solutions Ltd

Essential

Composite Score

7.8 /10

CX Score

8.4 /10

28 Reviews Write a Review

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What is Essential?

Essential (former The Essential Project) Enterprise Architecture tool helps you to understand how the people, functions, processes, IT applications, data, infrastructure, suppliers, and customers interact across the business. Essential enables you to spot opportunities to improve and to assess the impacts of planned changes to the operating model. Engage your CxOs and the business in your Enterprise Architecture through Essential's beautiful and interactive visualisations of your organisation.

Company Details

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Awards & Recognition

Essential won the following awards in the Enterprise Architecture category

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6 Top Rated Capabilities

8 Top Rated Features

Latest Award, 2026

Strategy and Innovation
Conflict Resolution

2024

2 Top Rated Capabilities

0 Top Rated Features

2024

2023 Emotional Footprint Champion

2023

Strategy and Innovation
Service Experience

2023

3 Top Rated Capabilities

0 Top Rated Features

2023

2022 Emotional Footprint Champion

2022

Strategy and Innovation
Service Experience

2022

Essential Ratings

Real user data aggregated to summarize the product performance and customer experience.
Download the entire Product Scorecard to access more information on Essential.

Product scores listed below represent current data. This may be different from data contained in reports and awards, which express data as of their publication date.

83 Likeliness to Recommend

1
Since last award

100 Plan to Renew

89 Satisfaction of Cost Relative to Value

5
Since last award

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Emotional Footprint Overview

Product scores listed below represent current data. This may be different from data contained in reports and awards, which express data as of their publication date.

+90 Net Emotional Footprint

The emotional sentiment held by end users of the software based on their experience with the vendor. Responses are captured on an eight-point scale.

How much do users love Essential?

0% Negative

13% Neutral

87% Positive

Pros

Reliable
Effective Service
Respectful
Client Friendly Policies

Feature Ratings

Average 80

Architecture Governance

Collaboration

Centralized Architecture Repository

Analytics and Reporting

Business Process Modeling

Integration and Data Ingestion

Technology Portfolio Management

Application Portfolio Management

Business Capability Modeling

Architecture Modeling and Visualization

Impact and Dependency Analysis

Vendor Capability Ratings

Average 82

Ease of Customization

Breadth of Features

Business Value Created

Ease of IT Administration

Product Strategy and Rate of Improvement

Quality of Features

Ease of Implementation

Vendor Support

Usability and Intuitiveness

Availability and Quality of Training

Ease of Data Integration

Essential Reviews

Role: Information Technology
Industry: Government
Involvement: Business Leader or Manager

Validated Review

Anonymous Reviewer

Submitted Jun 2022

Easy to use, very flexible and great value

Likeliness to Recommend

7 /10

Pros

Reliable
Respectful
Trustworthy
Efficient Service

Chris G.

Role: Information Technology
Industry: Banking
Involvement: Business Leader or Manager

Validated Review

Verified Reviewer

Submitted May 2022

Easy to get started and show value

Likeliness to Recommend

10 /10

What differentiates Essential from other similar products?

The open source roots and history of how the product was initially developed differentiate it from other similar products. It came from experience working with clients and through a pragmatic architecture lens of how to solve problems and answer common questions that arise universally.

What is your favorite aspect of this product?

My favorite aspect of this product is how it is centered on collecting information and making relationships between that info within the repository. This information centered approach allows you to leverage (or create) views which support a number of use cases (research, analysis, management reporting.. and more).

What do you dislike most about this product?

Navigating the metadata repository and the nuanced class terminology can take some time to get familiar with. This has been lessened in the past couple of years through easier to use editor pages which have been (and continue to be) introduced to the product.

What recommendations would you give to someone considering this product?

Remember it's not about the tool, it's about the business and technology related processes as well as what supporting information do you have in existing sources and the quality or gaps that you may need to address. Start with a couple of specific use cases but keep in mind what else you will want to get to next, don't try to load it full of information just because you can. But if you can leverage what you have and clean up at sources along the way, then it will be easier to pull that in along with the relationships so that you can focus on the output - rather than focus on data entry and ongoing manual maintenance within the EA repository.

Pros

Trustworthy
Effective Service
Caring
Client Friendly Policies

Role: Information Technology
Industry: Healthcare
Involvement: Business Leader or Manager

Validated Review

Anonymous Reviewer

Submitted May 2022

Likeliness to Recommend

7 /10

Pros

Respectful
Helps Innovate
Continually Improving Product
Reliable

Essential

What is Essential?

Company Details

Need Assistance?

Awards & Recognition

2023 Emotional Footprint Champion

2022 Emotional Footprint Champion

Essential Ratings

83 Likeliness to Recommend

1 Since last award

100 Plan to Renew

89 Satisfaction of Cost Relative to Value

5 Since last award

Emotional Footprint Overview

+90 Net Emotional Footprint

How much do users love Essential?

Pros

Feature Ratings Average rating of all product features, some of which may not be shown below

Architecture Governance Manage architecture standards, reference patterns, and design principles; enforce compliance via review boards, intake, approval workflows, and exceptions.

Collaboration Enables stakeholder engagement through comments, reviews, intake forms, and approval workflows integrated with Teams, Confluence, and SharePoint.

Centralized Architecture Repository Central, versioned source of truth governed by a configurable metamodel that stores architectural objects, relationships, lifecycle states, and audit trail.

Analytics and Reporting Delivers EA-specific dashboards and analytics including capability heat maps, technology lifecycle views and roadmap scenarios.

Business Process Modeling Models business processes and value streams using BPMN or other process languages and links them to capabilities, applications, and data.

Integration and Data Ingestion Sync architecture data from CMDBs, cloud platforms, ITSM, PPM, and FinOps tools via pre-built connectors and APIs to keep the repository current.

Technology Portfolio Management Track technology components, vendors, versions, end-of-life dates, and obsolescence risk to manage technical debt across the architecture.

Application Portfolio Management Inventory and assess applications by business value, technical fit, cost, and lifecycle to guide investment or decommission decisions.

Business Capability Modeling Capture and visualize business capabilities, link them to applications, processes, and value streams; capability heat maps guide investment and rationalization.

Architecture Modeling and Visualization Configurable metamodel and modeling environment spanning business, data, application, and technology layers; supports ArchiMate, BPMN and UML.

Impact and Dependency Analysis Traces relationships across the architecture to surface upstream and downstream impact of proposed changes, dependency risk, obsolescence, and tech debt.

Vendor Capability Ratings Average rating of all vendor capabilities, some of which may not be shown below

Ease of Customization Don't get bogged down in a difficult customization; use this data to make sure you can easily achieve the functionality you need for your particular situation.

Breadth of Features Users prefer feature rich software that enables them to perform diverse series of tasks. This data expresses user satisfaction with the product's breadth of features.

Business Value Created Software needs to create value for employees, customers, partners, and, ultimately, shareholders. This data expresses user satisfaction - or lack thereof - with the product's business value.

Ease of IT Administration This data indicates whether IT personnel will be able to resolve issues and perform configurations efficiently and effectively.

Product Strategy and Rate of Improvement Vendors who don't stay on top of emerging needs and trends won't enable you to meet your business goals. Use this data to separate innovators from imposters.

Quality of Features Feature quality is just as important as quantity. Use this data to determine if this product will do what you're purchasing it to do, easily, intuitively, reliably, and effectively.

Ease of Implementation Successfully implementing new software is necessary to realize its full value and promote end user adoption. This data indicates whether or not the product is easy to implement.

Vendor Support The importance of vendor support will vary for each organization depending on internal capabilities, but there will always be issues that only the vendor can resolve.

Usability and Intuitiveness End user learning curves cost the organization money. Pay attention to your end users' technical ability to determine how important UX is in your purchase.

Availability and Quality of Training Effective and readily available training enables users to get the most out of the software you've chosen. Use this section to make sure your vendor's training programs and materials measure up.

Ease of Data Integration Use this data to determine whether the product will cause headaches or make data integration easy.

Essential Reviews

Easy to use, very flexible and great value

Likeliness to Recommend

Pros

Chris G.

Easy to get started and show value

Likeliness to Recommend

Pros

Likeliness to Recommend

Pros

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Feature Ratings

Architecture Governance

Collaboration

Centralized Architecture Repository

Analytics and Reporting

Business Process Modeling

Integration and Data Ingestion

Technology Portfolio Management

Application Portfolio Management

Business Capability Modeling

Architecture Modeling and Visualization

Impact and Dependency Analysis

Vendor Capability Ratings

Ease of Customization

Breadth of Features

Business Value Created

Ease of IT Administration

Product Strategy and Rate of Improvement

Quality of Features

Ease of Implementation

Vendor Support

Usability and Intuitiveness

Availability and Quality of Training

Ease of Data Integration