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ARIS BPA vs IBM Blueworks Live comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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

ARIS BPA
Ranking in Business Process Design
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (8th)
IBM Blueworks Live
Ranking in Business Process Design
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of ARIS BPA is 8.1%, down from 9.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Blueworks Live is 3.6%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design
 

Featured Reviews

Veronika Ellermann - PeerSpot reviewer
Very user-friendly application; ARIS has an active user community; Content-sharing in the tool to be improved
The Risk and Compliance Management tool is rather complex. So, we customized it. Customization was done by SAG and was done fast. The facility for sharing content should be enhanced. For example, it would be nice if you could share content with viewers who do not explicitly have access to the model. As it is now, if you share a process with somebody that does not have access to the model, then the person receives a link that simply tells them they have no access. Particularly, when you're in the process of modeling something and you want to share it because you want to get feedback from your colleagues, I would appreciate being able to share that content. It could be valid for a period, such as 24 hours or one week. This is something that would help.
AjarMathur - PeerSpot reviewer
An easily scalable and affordable solution that enables users to document and digitize processes with ease
IBM Blueworks is BPMN 2.0 compliant, but it does not adapt to the overarching BPMN 2.0 concepts. There is only one kind of BPMN 2.0 diagram. It is a process diagram. It doesn't have the concept of separate tools, which other products offer. If I had to do a hardcore BPMN 2.0 modeling, the product would have its own reservations. There were features we could not explore from a BPMN 2.0 perspective. Most of the time, people who are shifting from Microsoft Office tools to a digitized way of working still want the reporting capabilities to be strong. Some tools, like ARIS or Signavio, offer customized solutions from the reporting perspective. If I have documented my whole finance process and want to fetch out a complete SOP report in a very customized manner, IBM Blueworks cannot provide it. We have to rely on some other services. So that's one area in which we always struggled, how to really customize the reporting aspects. I understand that we need to keep the tool a little more asset-light. It's very difficult to keep adding many options, but at least a few BPMN 2.0 options were needed. We have been suggesting to IBM that we should have some way of customizing the reporting. At least we should get a custom way of reporting it into different formats like Excel or putting up a logo for one of the clients so that their SAP can be printed that way.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It brings transparency and 360-degree views of end-to-end processes."
"It provides the discovery functionality, and you can have a simulation on top of it to get your design corrected to ensure that it is within the right state of parameters. It is a complete package that you can use from strategy to execution because you have the design layer, and within the design, you can also do analytics."
"​The matrix model makes building relations easier.​"
"One of the many advantages of ARIS is that it is supported by a very strong BPM community, which is critical for us. Although it has been in business for many years, it is still at an early stage of evolution. There are so many instances where your specific use case or requirement for using ARIS hasn't necessarily been matured across the sector. So, you need access to a very active community to help you explore possible solutions and ways in which ARIS can be used to achieve those use cases."
"The tool defines the processes. It's the documentation of everything."
"The maintenance capabilities of ARIS BPM and the strong underlying database are particularly valuable."
"It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"This solution has helped us in terms of discovering business processes."
"It is a stable solution since there has not been any downtime. Everything loads fast."
"The licenses are transferrable between different users."
"The solution is stable. All the refreshes run very well."
"IBM Blueworks Live is cloud-based and provides easy access to all your processes in one place."
"This solution is good at utilizing standards rules for connectivity."
"For me, what I find to be the most valuable is its simplicity and the association with Microsoft Office."
"Business users understand it really well, which means we can then help them automate their business processes."
"In terms of the collaboration features, from the point of discovery, it was useful to go to load up the policies and the rule sets that the client had. And in terms of exploring options and being able to model a variety of different processes, that was incredibly useful as well."
 

Cons

"I find it difficult to access the database as I want with direct querying."
"The ​integration between ARIS, webMethods, and project versions needs improvement.​"
"Sometimes, ARIS BPA breaks down, and its stability can be improved."
"It would be helpful if ARIS BPA could have a simple database to get the extract of various attributes."
"I would like to see the reporting aspects improved."
"There are reports available in ARIS and you can modify them a bit if you want something more specific, but it's not that easy to adjust them and make modifications. It would be nice to have some kind of tool to do that, something that is more user-friendly for people who are not too technical, so that they could create reports the way they want them."
"It needs external API and the ability to navigate back, similar to "Back" in web browser."
"Since ARIS 9.X was released, the product has not been as robust and responsive as the previous versions​."
"The objects that the solution creates are not unique."
"We'd also like to see it be Six Sigma or Lean compatible, a lot of people have asked about that."
"In the Blue Works Live software boxes and lines are automatically placed by the programme and can't be easily manipulated."
"The initial setup is neither straightforward nor complex however you do need to know what you are doing."
"The font size is really, really small and it's really not useful to print out process models because you cannot read what's written in different boxes. This makes it necessary for people to have access to the tool. We view licenses to see how the printing or output is. It's not very good."
"The APIs are great, except the normal business user doesn't know how to create APIs. So it's hard because IBM comes to us as the business users and tell us to create reporting with APIs, except we don't know that, so we have to turn around and flip it to our IT people."
"I wish Blueworks Live had simulations built in, but it doesn't. It also lacks a feature of reporting; ad hoc, drag and drop reporting. A lot of senior people are always asking for reports, and there's no reporting feature within IBM Blueworks."
"The solution is a very basic discovery product so it doesn't have that much modeling capability. This can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Prices are high. However, they are worth it if the organization utilizes the tool to its full potential."
"From my point of view, no, it is not cheap, but it is not too expensive because you get this big organization behind it, technical support, and all those things. It's not so expensive to use. It's a Rolls Royce in this field, I know that. Even for small organizations, they can get so much effect from using this tool, in a very fast way, so the money will be back in the customer's pocket very fast."
"The setup cost and pricing depend on the license (Modeler, Viewer, Administrator)."
"ARIS is quite expensive."
"If you can afford it, it's the best so far."
"This is absolutely not the cheapest solution in the market, but for large companies, the price is fine."
"You will never get a fixed price for this product because they will go in and ask you what kind of environment would you like to set up? How many people will you work with? How big is your organization? Today, they have a fixed price to say, "Okay, just to start the business area, buy two licenses for modeling and eight people that can look into the product." They have this kind of fixed price. It's 50,000 Danish Krone. If you divided that by about six, then you get the pricing in dollars. Still, when you are going out, negotiate and find the right price. You will never get a fixed price: "It costs this and, if you take ten of these, seven of these and eight of these, and then it costs this." No, you negotiate every time."
"The price could be better."
"Price wise, IBM Blueworks Live is in the middle range, and I would give it a five out of ten."
"The solution is very, very cost-effective."
"There are editor licenses that are around 50 euros per month, and contributor licenses that are around 30 euros per month."
"They have a free subscription model that gives a lot of power to the users."
"Making it less expensive would be good."
"The solution is not very expensive."
"Based on the licenses purchased, from a footprint perspective, you can have as many people as you want. You have multiple different categories of licenses to keep the cost low."
"We are seeing ROI from this solution. The solution has saved us time."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ARIS BPA?
The most valuable features of ARIS BPA are its flexibility and reporting.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ARIS BPA?
Pricing for ARIS BPA is average, not cheap or expensive. It's cost-effective and worth the money we pay.
What needs improvement with ARIS BPA?
Improvement should be made as per customer requirements.
What do you like most about IBM Blueworks Live?
The solution is easy to operate. Also, there is an automatic mode to make the business flow. You don't have to put any lines or arrows in a decision point in IBM Blueworks Live; it's very automatic.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Blueworks Live?
The solution costs around 600-700 dollars/year, which is quite affordable.
What needs improvement with IBM Blueworks Live?
Sometimes, the tool is automatic, which can complicate it, but once you're accustomed to manipulating it, you can use it very effectively.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM
IBM Lombardi Blueprint
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tesco, Weifu, Airbus, Siemens, Proximus, Alicorp, Sekerbank, Bancor, Philips,Sky, Emirates NBD, Dubai Municipality, Suva, U.S. Army, Australia Post, Westfalen Weser Energie - ARIS serves customers across all industries and of every size worldwide. Companies trust ARIS as the market leader for process excellence with more than 30 years of experience in the market, 10 million users worldwide, from 1 user companies to the Fortune 500.
Cloudsoft Corp. Ltd., Bayer, S¾SS, Essex County Council
Find out what your peers are saying about ARIS BPA vs. IBM Blueworks Live and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
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