Apache Airflow vs Camunda vs IBM BPM comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Apache Airflow, Camunda, and IBM BPM based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda, Pega, Apache and others in Business Process Management (BPM).
To learn more, read our detailed Business Process Management (BPM) Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The best feature is the customization.""It's stable.""Since Apache works very well on Python, we can manage everything and create pipelines there.""The best part of Airflow is its direct support for Python, especially because Python is so important for data science, engineering, and design. This makes the programmatic aspect of our work easy for us, and it means we can automate a lot.""This is a simple tool to automate using Python.""The product integrates well with other pipelines and solutions.""One of its most valuable features is the graphical user interface, providing a visual representation of the pipeline status, successes, failures, and informative developer messages.""The solution's UI allows me to collect all the information and see the code lines."

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"The flexibility characteristic in a BPMS, through BPMN and DMN, is undoubtedly the most interesting feature for our business.""Ease of use and ability to streamline a process model.""I like everything about the entire BPM that comes with the BPM suite.""We have been able to save costs using this solution compared to the product we used before.""The Camunda BPMN Platform is very flexible and gives several options to deploy and scale it.""I've found the active community most valuable but it also provides you with a lot of other features.""Provides an easy way to integrate with the architectural environment.""We can easily define and deploy business processes. Camunda provides the tools that allow business people to design business processes. We don't have to have developers for it. It is so easy to use that our business people can go into the tool and model their business processes. We get time to do other things than just designing business processes."

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"IBM BPM is both scalable and stable.""We like that it does not require a lot of hours to train our people.""There is information during the process that the analyst will look at, their procedures. We created a part of the application such that the business can change those procedures as needed, on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. As the reps go through the process, they don't necessarily know it's changing, they just know they have to refer to some documentation, and the business can keep that up to date.""The most valuable features come in the bundle, the design process, creating services, creating BPDs, creating coaches, and UI/UX.""We can scale by increasing the infrastructure which is currently running.""Setting it up is fairly easy. If somebody has knowledge of the system, he or she will be able to do it fairly quickly.""The most valuable features are the integration capabilities - BPM can connect with almost any legacy or advanced system.""This is one of the best tools to support the business and the way we work, and the numerous processes we need to implement."

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Cons
"It would be beneficial to improve the pricing structure.""The automation capabilities could be improved; a visual workflow designer and a graphical tool to reduce coding would be very helpful. But for now, it's sufficient for our simple workflows.""I would like to see some no-code capabilities and drag and drop abilities in Airflow.""The dashboard is connected into the BPM flow that could be improved.""The graphical user interface can be improved.""We need to develop our workflow description and notations because out of the box, Apache Airflow does not provide some features that are needed.""For admins, there should be improved logging capabilities because Apache Airflow does have logging, but it's limited to some database data.""We're currently using version 1.10, but I understand that there's a lot of improvements in version 2. In the earlier version that we're using, we sometimes have problems with maintenance complexity. Actually using Airflow is okay, but maintaining it has been difficult."

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"The migration strategy needs to be improved.""I would also like a very easy to use form builder.""Community support is basically what I'm looking for. Other than that, it is okay for now.""I would like to see the forms engine available in the open-source version of this solution.""Without a proper frontend, the business cannot effectively use the platform.""When trying to design rule tables the solutions graphical user interface could improve, it could be more user friendly.""Initial setup can be quite complex.""The support definitely can be improved. Apart from that, the language should be extendable to other platforms. If I want to write, I'll run a different platform, like Python code on top of it, or COBOL code on top of it, and it should support those languages."

More Camunda Cons →

"They could provide case studies to investigate and understand the functionality of business processes before development.""The coaches and the user interface are the areas that can be improved a lot. It is good in terms of data processing, but the UI, scripting, and coaches are not very user-friendly and developer-friendly. Performance is always an issue. The scripting and the pattern that it uses are very tedious for new developers to understand, and it takes time to master it in depth. When comparing IBM BPM with IBM APN, a lot of things are provided out of the box in IBM APN. We don't have to write code or a Java connector to make a functionality work. It would be very helpful and time-saving for developers if IBM BPM is improved in this area to provide many functionalities or drag-and-drop options so that the developers don't have to write the code.""I would like to see more inclusion of RPA technologies. If we have more manual processes, we can use robotic process automation and integrate that in with the solution.""We need process monitoring. It is somewhat complex to monitor all the processes which work.""They should incorporate an API gateway functionality within it to simplify integrations.""The initial setup was complex.""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.""Also, we would like to see integration with artificial intelligence, machine learning-type of technical capabilities. Right now, there are a lot Watson libraries out there. Building those integrations more, out-of-the-box, from IBM would be a good direction."

More IBM BPM Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Apache Airflow is a free solution that can be downloaded and ready for use at any moment."
  • "The pricing for the product is reasonable."
  • "Although Airflow is open source software, there's also commercial support for it by Astronomer. We personally don't use the commercial support, but it's always an option if you don't mind the extra cost."
  • "We are using the open-source version of Apache Airflow."
  • "We use a community edition of Apache Airflow. It is open source and free."
  • "Apache Airflow is open-source and free of charge."
  • "It's open-source."
  • "The solution is open source so is free."
  • More Apache Airflow Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It is less cost-prohibitive than other solutions on the market. This solution was in our price range."
  • "We are using the open-source version of this solution."
  • "Camunda is much cheaper."
  • "I use the open-source free version."
  • "The open-source version of the product is free to use."
  • "The cost of this solution is better than some competing products."
  • "Licensing costs are anywhere from $80,000 to $100,000 USD per year."
  • "We use the open-source version, which can be used at no cost."
  • More Camunda Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It may be cheaper for organizations to pay for the Viewer licenses that are immediately up and running in the cloud, rather than paying for someone to administer publishing to an intranet."
  • "Starting out with Express can also help reduce the cost for adopting the product."
  • "​We have definitely seen ROI. When we first kicked it off, we said it had to pay for itself within three years, and it did."
  • "It gives us a good return on investment."
  • "We chose to purchase IBM BPM because it was bundled with the actual RPA program/solution that we decided to purchase. We decided to use Automation Anywhere tool (RPA), and it is was bundled with IBM BPM."
  • "Our customers do see ROI. They'll identify some particularly painful or uncoordinated processes to start with, then build out from there, picking off low hanging fruit."
  • "It has a low cost to implement. You'll get your money back in the same year that you complete the project."
  • "The cloud and license of the subscription model for IBM BPM can be complex. There are a lot of alternatives to choose from."
  • More IBM BPM Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Camunda Platform allows for visual demonstration and presentation of business process flows. The flexible Java-based… more »
    Top Answer:Since it's widely adopted by the community, Apache Airflow is a user-friendly solution.
    Top Answer:One of the things we like best about Bonita is that you can create without coding - it is a low-code platform. With… more »
    Top Answer:Appian is fast when building simple to medium solutions. This solution offers simple drag-and-drop functionality with… more »
    Top Answer:Camunda's most valuable feature is its ability to integrate with different products.
    Top Answer:We researched both IBM solutions and in the end, we chose Business Automation Workflow IBM BPM has a good user… more »
    Top Answer:The case management and its integration with process design are good features.
    Ranking
    Views
    14,418
    Comparisons
    10,317
    Reviews
    17
    Average Words per Review
    469
    Rating
    7.8
    Views
    34,031
    Comparisons
    20,642
    Reviews
    22
    Average Words per Review
    933
    Rating
    8.2
    Views
    9,798
    Comparisons
    7,620
    Reviews
    23
    Average Words per Review
    418
    Rating
    7.7
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Airflow
    Camunda BPM
    WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
    Learn More
    Camunda
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    Overview

    Apache Airflow is an open-source workflow management system (WMS) that is primarily used to programmatically author, orchestrate, schedule, and monitor data pipelines as well as workflows. The solution makes it possible for you to manage your data pipelines by authoring workflows as directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) of tasks. By using Apache Airflow, you can orchestrate data pipelines over object stores and data warehouses, run workflows that are not data-related, and can also create and manage scripted data pipelines as code (Python). 

    Apache Airflow Features

    Apache Airflow has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Smart sensor: In Apache Airflow, tasks are executed sequentially. The smart sensors are executed in bundles, and therefore consume fewer resources.
    • Dockerfile: By using Apache Airflow’s dockerfile feature, you can run your business’s Airflow code without having to document and automate the process of running Airflow on a server. 
    • Scalability: Because Apache Airflow has a modular architecture and uses a message queue to orchestrate an arbitrary number of workers, you can easily scale it. 
    • Plug-and-play operators: With Apache Airflow, you can choose from several plug-and-play operators that are ready to execute your tasks on many third-party services.

    Apache Airflow Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing Apache Airflow. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • User friendly: Using Apache Airflow requires minimal python knowledge to get started.
    • Intuitive user interface: The Apache Airflow user interface enables you to visualize pipelines running in production, monitor progress, and also troubleshoot issues when needed.
    • Easy integration: Apache Airflow can easily be integrated with cloud platforms (Google, AWS, Azure, etc).
    • Visual DAGs: Apache Airflow’s visual DAGs provide data lineage, which facilitates debugging of data flows and also aids in auditing and data governance. 
    • Flexibility: Apache Airflow provides you with several ways to make DAG objects more flexible. At runtime, a context variable is passed to each workflow execution, which is quickly incorporated into an SQL statement that includes the run ID, execution date, and last and next run times.
    • Multiple deployment options: With Apache Airflow, you have several options for deployment, including self-service, open source, or a managed service.
    • Several data source connections: Apache Airflow can connect to a variety of data sources, including APIs, databases, data warehouses, and more.  

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the Apache Airflow solution.

    A Senior Solutions Architect/Software Architect says, “The product integrates well with other pipelines and solutions. The ease of building different processes is very valuable to us. The difference between Kafka and Airflow, is that it's better for dealing with the specific flows that we want to do some transformation. It's very easy to create flows.”

    An Assistant Manager at a comms service provider mentions, “The best part of Airflow is its direct support for Python, especially because Python is so important for data science, engineering, and design. This makes the programmatic aspect of our work easy for us, and it means we can automate a lot.”

    A Senior Software Engineer at a pharma/biotech company comments that he likes Apache Airflow because it is “Feature rich, open-source, and good for building data pipelines.”

    Camunda enables organizations to orchestrate processes across people, systems, and devices to continuously overcome complexity and increase efficiency. With Camunda, business users and developers collaborate using BPMN to model end-to-end processes and run sophisticated automation with the speed, scale, and resilience required to stay competitive. Hundreds of enterprises such as Atlassian, ING, and Vodafone design, orchestrate and improve business-critical processes with Camunda to accelerate digital transformation.

    IBM BPM is a business process management tool that provides a robust set of tools to author, test, and deploy business processes, as well as full visibility and insight to managing those business processes. The solution provides tooling and run time for process design, execution, monitoring, and optimization, along with basic system integration support. To support various levels of complexity and involvement with business process management, there are two different editions of the product: IBM BPM and IBM BPM Express.

    IBM BPM Features

    IBM BPM has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Process designer authoring tool
    • Collaborative editing and immediate playback of processes
    • Interactive user interfaces
    • Process rules based on IBM Operational Decision Manager
    • IBM Integration Designer (BPEL and SOA)
    • Designing and building case management systems
    • Process portal
    • Real-time monitoring and reporting
    • Performance analytics and optimizer
    • Performance data warehouse
    • IBM Process Center with a shared asset repository
    • IBM Process Federation Server
    • Built-in enterprise service bus (ESB)
    • Transaction support
    • Integration adapters
    • Network deployment support
    • High availability: clustering and unlimited cores

    IBM BPM Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing IBM BPM. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Increased efficiency and cost savings: IBM BPM can help you optimize existing processes and incorporate more structure into the development of new processes by removing process redundancies and bottlenecks.
    • More scalable processes: The solution enables better process execution and workflow automation, which transfers well when scaling processes.
    • Greater transparency: Because IBM BPM’s process automation clearly defines owners for tasks along the process, it provides more transparency and accountability throughout a given process. In turn, this fosters more communication among teams.
    • Less dependency on development teams: IBM BPM offers low-code features which remove potential dependencies on development. Business users can be onboarded onto these tools quickly and easily, thereby increasing process automation across the company.

    Reviews from Real Users

    IBM BPM is a solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Some of its major advantages are that it’s good for developing complex apps, is robust, and has helpful team management and process performance features.

    Zoran C., Owner/CEO at IT SPHERE, says, “It is perfect if you have to develop complex apps without much coding (only java script). It is also good if you don't have much IT resources in your company and would like to involve business analysts in the process of developing apps. My opinion is that it can do about 50% of all developers' work.”

    Suhas V., BPM Architect at GBM, mentions, “Overall the solution is robust and has the ability to integrate with any product for complex workflows."

    A BPM Consultant at a financial services firm comments, "Some of the features that I like the most are team management and process performance. They are both very useful and very powerful with regard to the workflow."

    A Digital Banking & Innovation Director at a financial services firm expresses, “The processing functionality makes it easy to change processes and workflows easily.”

    Sample Customers
    Agari, WePay, Astronomer
    24 Hour Fitness, Accruent, AT&T Inc., Atlassian, CSS Insurance, Deutsche Telekom, Generali, Provinzial NordWest Insurance Services, Swisscom AG, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, VHV Group, Zalando
    Barclays, EmeriCon, Banca Popolare di Milano, CST Consulting, KeyBank, KPMG, Prolifics, Sandhata Technologies Ltd., State of Alaska, Humana S.A., Saperion, esciris, Banco Espirito Santo
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider22%
    Financial Services Firm22%
    Media Company17%
    Pharma/Biotech Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm22%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Retailer5%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company24%
    Financial Services Firm20%
    Government13%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm26%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Insurance Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm57%
    Computer Software Company17%
    Insurance Company10%
    Real Estate/Law Firm3%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm29%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Retailer6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise7%
    Large Enterprise67%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business16%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise73%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business48%
    Midsize Enterprise21%
    Large Enterprise31%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise70%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise59%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise71%
    Buyer's Guide
    Business Process Management (BPM)
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda, Pega, Apache and others in Business Process Management (BPM). Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.