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IBM BPM vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM BPM
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (6th), Process Automation (5th)
IBM WebSphere Message Broker
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
16th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM BPM is 3.5%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM WebSphere Message Broker is 2.0%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

Prince Mathew - PeerSpot reviewer
More customizable than IBM FileNet and useful for automation
One suggestion for IBM BPM is to provide better integration between their products, such as DataCap, which we use for scanning. Although the new CP4BA offers offline capabilities, not everyone is on CP4BA, so enhanced integration for those on older versions would be beneficial. Another major suggestion is to offer a migration path when a product reaches its end of life. For example, there was no migration path when we moved, so we had to redo everything we had developed over ten years completely.
BrajendraKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers large-sized business information processing with a time-saving setup and impressive stability
I primarily use two previews of the product for Dev and two for QA as part of the production process. Whatever tools our company is using, the cost of a license in IBM WebSphere Message Broker is about 80% of all these software or tools. The message routing capabilities satisfy workflow efficiency. The product supports message formats of XML, JSON, and SSID, which are around 24 KB to 50 KB in size. The solution supports communication protocols like STTP and TCP. Features like DataGraph need to be introduced in IBM WebSphere Message Broker. Some of the clients of our organization are using an outdated version of IBM WebSphere Message Broker for which the vendor doesn't provide direct support anymore. For the aforementioned version, our company professionals can solve the queries on their own without seeking support from IBM. During the installation of a prior version of IBM WebSphere Message Broker, sometimes I have to configure the failovers through the cluster, where issues arise, and I often seek help from the support team. The solution is being used by some medicine companies in our organization that receive sales orders from the EDR or JDE. I would not recommend the product to others as its becoming obsolete and they can rather choose a middleware solution from Amazon or Azure. But I would overall rate the product a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Its Analytics is the most valuable feature."
"I like the APIs and the BPM coach is a good tool. But if I had to pick one, it would be the API."
"It provides a very robust environment to build an integration framework or workflow patterns that we have. A lot of changes or modifications have been made to this solution over the past few years. The features that they have added this time have helped developers like us to work on the developmental environment and leverage all the capabilities of the tool. This is what I like about this solution."
"The initial setup process is easy."
"Its most valuable features are usability and integration with other IBM products."
"We are receiving good assistance from the technical support."
"The possibility to add Java code as embedded .jar, that increases the flexibility of the solution."
"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."
"IBM WebSphere Message Broker is one of the best middleware solutions"
"It is a scalable solution...The setup is easy."
"Performance-wise, this solution is really good."
"It has many interfaces and you can connect to any backend source that has another format, and convert it to the desired format."
"The documentation, performance, stability and scalability of the tool are valuable."
"It's reliable for our day-to-day operations, ensuring fast and secure data integration across different systems."
"The transactions and message queuing are the most valuable features of the solution."
"Straightforward development and deployment."
 

Cons

"IBM BPM's UI is an area with shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The product is extremely complex to use and administrate."
"All our clients are changing to microservice and cloud service. However, BPM does not have a solution for microservice and cloud service."
"The cost of the solution has room for improvement."
"The people working on the front desk are having some problem with managing the documentation. For instance, they get a picture, and if the picture comes rotated 90 degrees, together with a picture that is not rotated, they have some problems dealing with that, technically. There are some minor aspects that on the usability side that are still lacking. That has to do with FileNet, too, I'm talking about the suite together."
"I'd like the tool to be more flexible."
"It might not be suitable for entry level clients because it comes with a huge number of modules for processing that at times might not be necessary for upcoming clients."
"The debugging needs improvement. There is some confusion surrounding the debugging."
"It is currently a weighty product."
"The solution can add container engines such as docker."
"Technical support is good but they could have a better response time."
"The installation configuration is quite difficult."
"I know that Message Broker was a very tightly copied product with another IBM product, that is, IBM MQ. I would like to have a little bit more decoupling from the IBM MQ because it should not be a prerequisite for IBM WebSphere Message Broker usage."
"The images and size of the containers are too big and I think that they should be more lightweight."
"As our business requirements evolve, we require more dynamic capabilities to adapt and scale our services accordingly."
"The user interface is designed mainly for experts, much in the way a BPM or another integration tool is."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a ten."
"I wish it was less expensive. I don't know why their pricing model is so high for a piece of software that could benefit so many. It just seems to me that they could have a lower cost, maybe with fewer features or whatever, but it should be possible to do a lower cost workflow software that uses the same interface and underlying engine but does not cost so much that you have to be a Fortune 50 company to buy it. It is annoying to me. There are a lot of solutions that IBM has that are really powerful but nobody can afford them. They know their business, but I still feel that there are a lot of customers who would benefit from this sort of thing. I don't know what this elitism is all about. I am sure they have people doing the money numbers, but it seems like you can make a lot more money by selling it to way more people for a little bit less."
"Its price is on the higher side, and it can be improved. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. There are no additional costs."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven out of ten."
"The cloud and license of the subscription model for IBM BPM can be complex. There are a lot of alternatives to choose from."
"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 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."
"The price is good but could be a little lower."
"The solution is expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
"This product is more expensive than competing products."
"The price is very high and it's the main reason that we are searching for alternatives."
"IBM software can be costly, but having a contract has helped manage and potentially lower costs over time."
"IBM products are generally more stable and have more features, but also come at a greater cost."
"The licensing cost of IBM WebSphere Message Broker needs to be reduced"
"I feel with IBM, when you want certain functions or features, you have to continuously purchase add-ons. There are always additional fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better, IBM BPM or IBM Business Automation Workflow?
We researched both IBM solutions and in the end, we chose Business Automation Workflow. IBM BPM has a good user interface and the BPM coach is a helpful tool. The API is very useful in providing en...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM BPM?
Once it is installed, maintaining it is not a big issue.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM WebSphere Message Broker?
IBM software can be costly, but having a contract has helped manage and potentially lower costs over time.
What needs improvement with IBM WebSphere Message Broker?
There could be greater flexibility and agility in service creation for the product. As our business requirements evolve, we require more dynamic capabilities to adapt and scale our services accordi...
What is your primary use case for IBM WebSphere Message Broker?
We use the product for exposing services at the application level, integrating with various architectures like WebSphere, and handling static service creation.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
WebSphere Message Broker
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
WestJet, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Sharp Corporation, Michelin Tire
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM BPM vs. IBM WebSphere Message Broker and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.