IBM BPM vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM BPM
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (5th), Process Automation (5th)
IBM WebSphere Message Broker
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (8th)
 

Market share comparison

As of June 2024, in the Application Infrastructure category, the market share of IBM BPM is 3.5% and it increased by 62.9% compared to the previous year. The market share of IBM WebSphere Message Broker is 1.6% and it increased by 67.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure
Unique Categories:
Business Process Management (BPM)
7.5%
Process Automation
11.0%
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
3.1%
 

Featured Reviews

VN
Dec 19, 2023
Easy to use, good price, easy for developers, easy to install and configure
The use cases include security and network processing for internal purposes It streamlines processes, benefits other projects, and integrates with other solutions. I appreciate its high user capacity and standard compliance. It's also helpful for multi-project deployments, design assessments,…
Ajit Pillai - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 25, 2023
Helps our organization integrate disparate systems, but it is a weighty product
We primarily use the solution as an integration platform to integrate disparate systems at the bank The solution has improved our organization by centralizing all our integrations. The documentation, performance, stability and scalability of the tool are valuable. The solution can be improved…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The solution offers great notifications."
"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."
"Technical support is good. They are very responsive. It is usually me who takes more time to get back to them than they take to get back to me, which is good."
"We can scale by increasing the infrastructure which is currently running."
"It is efficient in reducing costs."
"This product does the job in terms of executing the workflow."
"We are receiving good assistance from the technical support."
"Integration and mapping are easy, which is a major advantage."
"We only use the basic features, but the most valuable one for us is the Publish-subscribe pattern."
"Straightforward development and deployment."
"Message Broker is valuable because most of the applications are using MQ. Even in my current engagement, the few applications which I audit to onboard the bank are using MQ."
"The transactions and message queuing are the most valuable features of the solution."
"Performance-wise, this solution is really good."
"The most valuable feature of IBM WebSphere Message Broker is the ability to facilitate communication with legacy systems, offering a multitude of great capabilities. For example, if there is a mainframe system in place with a web service serving as the front end. In that case, the solution enables efficient protocol transformations to convert all request payloads into a format that the legacy systems can accept, rendering the integration and transformation processes seamless and highly effective."
"The solution has good integration."
 

Cons

"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."
"The options for customization could be improved. More customization using your own code would be beneficial."
"Except for the Lucene the index - we had a couple of issues in the Process Portal where the Lucene index went out of sync, and we had to work at least 15 - 20 hours to have it back in sync with the database."
"The initial setup was complex."
"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."
"I hope IBM uses something from IBM Content Navigator to make the interface easier to navigate."
"The analysis reports could be much better."
"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."
"Today I probably wouldn't go for Message Broker because of the cost structure, support, and the whole ecosystem around IBM."
"The user interface is designed mainly for experts, much in the way a BPM or another integration tool is."
"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."
"It is currently a weighty product."
"Technical support is good but they could have a better response time."
"The solution can add container engines such as docker."
"Technical support is very slow and needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The price of the solution is fair for an enterprise solution that has both cloud and on-premise deployments and when comparing to competitors. Recently IBM has introduced Cloud Pak which allows for more flexible licensing options for automation and other features."
"It gives us a good return on investment."
"IBM BPM cannot be considered a cheaply priced product. IBM BPM is a really expensive product compared to other companies. One needs to opt for the perpetual licensing model offered by IBM."
"It's expensive. All software is always extremely high. The manufacturing cost that we have compared to the selling cost, it's not like you're building a house or building a car. But putting that aside, considering that it's expensive, it's a lot of money. If you compare it with some of the other alternatives in the market, it's a similar price. For instance, if you compare it with Pegasystems, it's a similar price."
"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."
"We have a yearly licensing model. It is not expensive. There are no addition costs to the standard license."
"It should provide more flexibility to connect with external systems, and there should be in-built services that can be used to integrate with other systems quickly."
"The price is very high and it's the main reason that we are searching for alternatives."
"I feel with IBM, when you want certain functions or features, you have to continuously purchase add-ons. There are always additional fees."
"The solution is expensive."
"IBM products are generally more stable and have more features, but also come at a greater cost."
"This product is more expensive than competing products."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
12%
Insurance Company
8%
Manufacturing 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?
The product is expensive considering the hardware and software costs.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM WebSphere Message Broker?
The solution is expensive. I give the cost a one out of ten. We pay for an annual license.
What needs improvement with IBM WebSphere Message Broker?
Stability and pricing are areas with shortcomings that need improvement.
 

Also Known As

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

Learn More

 

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: May 2024.
787,061 professionals have used our research since 2012.