Do you want to replace Horizzon?
How does Boldo compare to Bizzdesign’s offering for driving IT transformation? What alternatives exist if you want to avoid an overly academic approach to Enterprise Architecture? Why are some organisations switching to a lighter-weight solution?
Discover why some teams choose to replace Horizzon.
Horizzon application view
Bizzdesign Horizzon, architecture in service of compliance
Founded in 2000 in the Netherlands, Bizzdesign is one of the historical players in the Enterprise Architecture market. Closely associated with the development and adoption of the ArchiMate language, the platform has established itself as a reference for organisations operating in highly regulated environments, where methodological rigour and compliance take precedence. Its acquisition in 2024 by Main Capital Partners marks a phase of industrial consolidation and reinforces its positioning as a robust solution for certified architects and demanding regulatory contexts. This methodological strength, however, can become an operational constraint when organisations need to move quickly, iterate, or engage stakeholders beyond the core EA expert circle.
Boldo, a living and usage-driven architecture
Boldo deliberately takes a different path, moving away from a strictly academic view of architecture. Where Bizzdesign often assumes prior mastery of frameworks such as ArchiMate or TOGAF to generate value, Boldo enables teams to model real-world operational reality directly, using vocabulary and objects that are understandable across the organisation. Architecture becomes a decision-making and steering tool, rather than a compliance exercise reserved for specialists.
Metamodel flexibility and adoption curve
Horizzon is deeply structured around the ArchiMate standard, ensuring a high level of conceptual rigour, but at the cost of accessibility for non-specialist profiles. In practice, the understanding and exploitation of models remain largely concentrated in the hands of expert architects, which can turn the platform into a methodological silo.
Boldo prioritises a deliberately flexible metamodel, built around the organisation’s own terms, objects, and relationships. Standards remain supported when required, but they do not condition usage. This approach significantly lowers the barrier to entry, enables broader adoption, and makes architectural data immediately actionable for both IT teams and business stakeholders.
Progressive deployment and value creation
Horizzon projects are often delivered through a top-down approach, with a substantial initial phase dedicated to framework selection, governance, and repository structuring before producing the first outputs. This logic provides a solid foundation, but can delay the delivery of visible results.
Boldo follows a more iterative and progressive trajectory. Existing inventories can be imported quickly, first visualisations are available within days, and complexity is added in line with practice maturity. This ability to start simple and evolve over time supports quick wins and continuous adoption, whereas highly standardised tools tend to make iteration more costly.
Sovereign hosting for your data
Horizzon is designed for highly structured, tool-heavy environments, with data access and hosting models primarily tailored to specialised EA teams. This can be well suited to very mature organisations, but it may also introduce additional friction around data location, access control, and governance.
Boldo takes a different approach, prioritising simplicity and European sovereignty. Your data is hosted in Europe, within a clear and transparent framework, with no ambiguity about where information resides or who can access it. No complex setups, no implicit dependencies, just full control and clarity by design.
Compare Boldo with 10+ other Enterprise Architecture modelling and mapping solutions.
Designed for collaboration across all stakeholders
Architecture should not live in silos. With Boldo, business teams, IT and leadership work on the same views, in a shared and living workspace. Everyone explores, comments and aligns in real time. Architecture becomes a collective alignment tool, directly understood and adopted across the organization.
Built on European data sovereignty
Boldo is a European platform, with data hosted in Europe on Scaleway, a trusted sovereign cloud infrastructure. Your architecture repository stays fully under your control, in an environment designed to meet regulatory requirements. No ambiguity, no hidden dependencies: clear hosting, clear rules, full transparency.
A flexible metamodel that adapts to your reality
Every organization has its own constraints and maturity. Boldo relies on a flexible and evolving metamodel that adapts to your context instead of forcing a rigid framework. Start simple, enrich progressively, and let your architecture evolve at your own pace.
Visual storytelling at the core of the experience
In Boldo, diagramming is not an afterthought, it’s the heart of the product. Views are intuitive, visually refined and immediately readable. Clear hierarchies, smooth navigation and embedded diagrams make architecture easy to grasp and easy to share, from executive committees to hands-on workshops.
Fair and transparent pricing
Boldo offers Pro and Team plans in self-service, with public and predictable per-user pricing. No opaque licenses, no hidden bundles, no constant renegotiation. From day one, you know what you pay, what you get, and how it scales.
We are here to drive adoption and value
Customer Success is central to our approach. We work closely with teams to build an architecture governance that is useful, alive and truly adopted. Responsive support, continuous exchanges and a long-term vision ensure architecture becomes a concrete decision-making asset, not a theoretical exercise.
Compare features, pricing, and key benefits in detail to choose the solution that best fits your organization.
| Bizzdesign Horizzon | Boldo | |
|---|---|---|
Pricing | ||
| Pricing model | Module-based pricing and user seats | User packs and modelled assets |
| Price positioning | $$$$$ | $$$ |
| Free trial | ||
| Self-service offer | ||
| Enterprise offer | ||
User experience | ||
| Modern interface | (Web only) | |
| Consistency across views | ||
| Implementation time | ~ 4 to 10 months | ~ 1 to 6 weeks |
| Learning curve for architects | Steep (certification required) | Very fast |
| Learning curve for business / C-level users | Moderate | Very fast |
Collaboration | ||
| Permissions management | Complex (role-based) | Very fine grained (fields and relationships) |
| Real-time multi-user modelling | (check-in / out logic) | |
| Comments linked to objects and views | ||
| Mentions and notifications | ||
| Object-level history and versioning | ||
Modelling | ||
| Custom object types creation | ||
| Object hierarchies | ||
| Custom properties per type | ||
| Custom relationships | ||
| Process modelling | ||
| ArchiMate metamodel support | (native) | |
| Framework-agnostic modelling | (ArchiMate-centric) | |
Storytelling and visualisation | ||
| Dynamic views (auto-synchronised) | ||
| Nested cartographies | ||
| Data visualisation | ||
| Auto-generated diagrams | ||
| Bidirectional data ↔ visuals synchronisation | ||
| Storytelling mode and scenarised views | ||
| Multi-dimensional impact analysis | ||
Data and automation | ||
| Public API | ||
| Batch imports (CSV) | ||
| Native connectors | ||
| Data validation rules | (Q4 2026) | |
| Automated triggers on changes | (Q4 2026) | |
| SaaS hosting | ||
| Sovereign hosting | ||
| On-premise hosting | ||
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