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| Criterion |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  Architecture arc42 |  Decision Making Constraint Analysis |  Architecture C4 Model |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | ARID examines how well developers can work with a technical design. It focuses on a part of the system that can still be revised, between the architecture overview and the detailed specification. | arc42 structures architecture knowledge so teams can document system, decisions, and risks consistently. The template builds a living understanding of the architecture instead of scattered notes. | When an initiative stalls, the limit often lies not in the idea but in hard or soft boundary conditions. Constraint Analysis separates these limits and shows which of them can actually be shaped. | The C4 Model makes a system legible across several resolution levels, from context down to code. It suits situations where different audiences need to understand the same architecture from different altitudes. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Low | Low |
Timedifferent | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 1-2 Tage | 30-90 min | 1-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | 1-4 | 2-8 | 1-5 |
Formatsame | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | Architecture Document, Context View, Runtime View, Deployment View | Constraint List, Hard/Soft Classification, Option Impact Notes, Decision Boundaries | Context Diagram, Container Diagram, Component Diagram |
Tagsno overlap | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | ArchitectureDocumentationCommunication | ConstraintsDecisionPlanningOptions | ArchitectureCommunicationVisualization |