Apache Airflow vs IBM BPM vs WorkflowGen comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Apache Airflow, IBM BPM, and WorkflowGen 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
"I like the UI rework, it's much easier.""The solution's UI allows me to collect all the information and see the code lines.""Its user-friendly interface makes it straightforward to operate, offering a plethora of features for data preparation, buffering, and format conversion.""Apache Airflow is in Python language, making it easy to use and learn.""This is a simple tool to automate using Python.""The best feature is the customization.""The solution is quite configurable so it is easy to code within a configuration kind of environment.""We have been quite satisfied with the stability of the solution."

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"Integration is a big plus for me.""One of the most notable things is how you can develop use cases with the customers, internal customers, but directly within. The software process model that BPM supports is really exciting in that aspect.""Technical support is pleasant to work with and always available.""IBM BPM is stable.""Enabled us to convert most of the paper-based work into an automated workflow process, and some of them were converted into straight-through processing, with no human interaction involved whatsoever.""Our customers use the solution as a workflow platform to manage their processes.""With the tester coach wherein you can interact with the interface while you're designing the process.""The process creation."

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"We use it a lot for creating workflows to transfer materials between plants, which is a signature part of what we do."

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Cons
"There is a need for more features on experimental evolution steps.""Enhancements become necessary when scaling it up from a few thousand workflows to a more extensive scale of five thousand or ten thousand workflows.""We cannot run real-time jobs in the solution.""Adding more automated components in Apache Airflow for basic things like exporting the data would be helpful.""Technical support is an area that needs improvement.""The problem with Apache Airflow is that it is an open-source tool. You have to build it into a Kubernetes container, which is not easy to maintain, and I find it to be very clunky.""The dashboards could be enhanced.""The solution could be improved by simplifying the integration process."

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"Our developers are complaining that it's too complex to maintain.""IBM BPM lacks openness, that is, the ability to become open for new options in terms of APIs, front-end development, and ecosystem. IBM BPM has been quite closed. One of the main improvements would be to somehow embed the rules engine into IBM BPM. Merging IBM BRMS and the rules engine with IBM BPM would be helpful. If there was some simpler way to define rules without having to put IBM BRMS on top of it, it would be good. It's something that we can get out of Camunda but not out of IBM BPM.""The setup was quite complex because the solution was cutting-edge at that time and IBM invested considerably in the implementation, likely at a loss to themselves.""The analysis reports could be much better.""User Interface components could be further refined to enhance and extend customizations dictated by end clients.""I'd like the tool to be more flexible.""Initial setup is very complex. Too many steps need to be done at the database and server levels, and complex configurations. From what I see, a lot of these steps can be and should be automated.""This is technology, and there's always room for improvement. It would be better to have a single solution. Trying to have an overview in terms of this solution brings together the concepts of BPM processes, customer journeys, and an automation part for KPIs. All of this working together and coming up with a single solution with privacy is more commercial than anything else."

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"This solution needs to be more customizable."

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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 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: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.
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    Also Known As
    Airflow
    WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
    Learn More
    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.”

    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.”

    Immediately accelerate business process adaptability with fluid workflow automation. Use the WorkflowGen .NET workflow software's low code environment to maximize the efficiency of process designers and developers.

    Automate any type of human and system-based enterprise process within a battle-tested infrastructure.

    Customize and integrate your workflow apps to meet your requirements in a highly configurable environment.

    Engage process participants with a full-featured workflow portal, native mobile apps, and email approvals, or through seamless integration with your own web apps.

    Leverage a solution used by Fortune 500 companies for worldwide business-critical applications.

    Sample Customers
    Agari, WePay, Astronomer
    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
    Comcast, Deloitte, Mitsui & Co Ltd, Sanofi Pasteur, Textron, XL Group. WorkflowGen accelerates business process adaptability in 70 countries for 500+ organizations and 1,000,000 users.
    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
    Financial Services Firm57%
    Computer Software Company17%
    Insurance Company10%
    Real Estate/Law Firm3%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm29%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Retailer6%
    No Data Available
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise7%
    Large Enterprise67%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business16%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise73%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise59%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise71%
    No Data Available
    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.