We compared Camunda Platform and IBM BPM based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison of Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Camunda Platform seems to be the superior solution. Because users are divided over how easy IBM BPM is to deploy and because of its high price, users feel Camunda Platform is a better investment.
"The solution is useful for small projects."
"Easy to use and easy to integrate into the products and applications we provide for our customers."
"When I compare it with other BPM tools, like IBM, it is great, open source, and free when you use the community version."
"There's this graphic that tells you how many lines or how many tickets are in each step. In that way, you know where you stand. I find this feature very valuable."
"It has been a stable solution so far since it meets our needs, including data modeling, which we need to do before we embark on analyzing and optimizing the business processes."
"I can use any other tools to create services and the UI, and then use them together with the Camunda BPMN engine."
"Ease of use and ability to streamline a process model."
"The flexibility is great."
"Automating the whole workflow process to give our data steward the ability to take actions rapidly, and making sure we have all the data synced within the different platforms that we are using."
"IBM BPM's best features include document sharing, management document creation, widget and barcode creation, and integration."
"The most valuable features come in the bundle, the design process, creating services, creating BPDs, creating coaches, and UI/UX."
"The case management and its integration with process design are good features."
"Its workflow and integration with SAP are the most valuable features. It is also a stable solution."
"It continues to keep up with the changing needs of the business. That is the strong value proposition of BPM. It's not a one-time automation."
"This tool is very useful when it comes to enterprise-grade automation and governmental processes for the security aspects, performance, and reliability."
"It provides value and simplifies processes."
"Customization and tech stack could be up-to-date."
"The only drawback is the time that it takes to have a complete set of workflows implemented on the Camunda platform."
"Initial setup can be quite complex."
"The user interface needs improvement. It should be more tailored to the end-user and offer a better user experience design over the user interface itself."
"The documentation could use improvement."
"I think that Camunda can try to do better when it comes to solving the complexities of all the products in its software stack."
"We're trying to put the people from the business to do it. We are using APIs, and we have open APIs to define our APIs and the request-response that each call requires and sends. So, to base the mapping on that, there was nothing to help. I know that with some tools, such as Oracle tools, you can see the input and expected output. With drag and drop, you can take one property from the left and drag it to the right, and it does all the mapping itself, but that's not the case with Camunda. So, for me, this is something that can be improved."
"The initial set up could be simplified, it's complex."
"Needs better reporting. I do not think that we are fully taking advantage of what it already has yet."
"They could provide case studies to investigate and understand the functionality of business processes before development."
"I would like to see the front-end support improved because it should be fully integrated and supported."
"You must have good experience to work with it. It is not that easy. Its installation is complex, especially in the new version for business automation, and it could be improved. It has a safety application embedded inside it, and you need to do a lot of configuration to install it. I have been working for two days to resolve an issue."
"It's a bit technical, related to the instance of migrations. It's a tough thing to handle, in every new release, in every upgrade, that we have to do things in the applications or in the product. I think IBM is working on it but I know there are a lot of requests coming in from different organizations on this."
"Finding errors and bugs on the system is not easy. We can't seem to use the events or logs to find them, so it makes it difficult to debug the system. They really need to work on their debugging features to make is much, much easier. It would improve the solution considerably and should be something they add in a future release."
"IBM BPM needs to have a better and modified interface."
"It is not user-friendly."
Camunda is ranked 1st in Business Process Management (BPM) with 69 reviews while IBM BPM is ranked 5th in Business Process Management (BPM) with 105 reviews. Camunda is rated 8.2, while IBM BPM is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Camunda writes "Open-source, easy to define new processes, and easy to transition to new business process definitions". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM BPM writes "Offers good case management and its integration with process design but there's a learning curve". Camunda is most compared with Apache Airflow, Bizagi, Pega BPM, Appian and Bonita, whereas IBM BPM is most compared with Appian, Pega BPM, IBM Business Automation Workflow, Apache Airflow and AWS Step Functions. See our Camunda vs. IBM BPM report.
See our list of best Business Process Management (BPM) vendors and best Process Automation vendors.
We monitor all Business Process Management (BPM) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
Hi Leandro,
those two BPM's shouldn't be compared on the functional level. They are different type of solutions.
Camunda offers the workflow engine and decission engine, where you can create process models according to BPMN and DMM standards. This gives you the flexibility and agility in the process management. It also gives you the tools to monitor, manage and optimize those processes.
Camunda provides very limited functionalities, if it comes to end user interfaces. Usually they are built as custom applications or existing application are used. With Camunda projects you always focus on automation, that requires system integration and custom development and usually concerns core business processes.
Camunda is an openAPI solution, which makes the integration fast and easy. It is a common situation in financial industry, that you have many systems, that need to be integrated in one process, that is why Camunda is so popular in this sector.
Before you decide on the switch, you have to consider the processes you want to use it for. If this is for standard processes like holiday requests, invoice approvals etc. Camunda is not the best option. But if you want to automate sales or after sales processes, client/partner onboarding, claims management, debt collection you should definitely consider Camunda.
I found once in Camunda documents an interesting comparison between Camunda and BPM suites:
"On a blank canvas, an artist can paint a picture in exactly the way he imagines. Alternatively, there is the principle of “painting by numbers”, where even the artistic layman can create stunning images by coloring in predetermined areas. However, they can only create what was already pre-designed."
And finally, Camunda is available as open source solution and there is no vendor lock.
I hope it helped ;-) There is always an option to have a talk...
Cheers,
Piotr
You could have a look also on jBPM / jBPM based solutions (as an alternative to Camunda).
Camunda has limited capabilities in the community version. In the case of jBPM, the same capability set is provided in both the community and enterprise versions (the only difference is that with the enterprise version you pay for support).
If you are looking for the jBPM engine combined with content services in one unified platform/user experience, you could have a look at SEAL (https://star-storage.ro/product/seal-online/).