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ARIS BPA vs iServer 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) (9th)
iServer
Ranking in Business Process Design
13th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of ARIS BPA is 7.8%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of iServer is 1.6%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design
 

Featured Reviews

Libor Černý - PeerSpot reviewer
I can usually find an answer to my issue on ARIS Community
From the start, there were some difficulties on how to create outputs since there wasn't a repository tool in version 6. However, in version 7, there has been a tool for creating standards for a company, and that tool has been very intuitive. While I have been using this tool for several years, other people just starting to use it find the learning curve steep. This tool is very robust and accommodates many roles, where people can participate from compliance, IT designers, etc. This can create problems for users who have no experience with similar tools. It took me a year before I felt comfortable with this tool, because when I came from university it was the first or second tool that I worked on. It took me a year to run every feature or use it for every possibility since this tool is very robust. We sometimes have to create the link to the server and the repository twice because it is deleted once for some unknown reason. Though, this is not a big problem. There should be a more intuitive tool when creating reports.
Antonios Lazanakis - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexible, easy to use, and easy to import data
We use iServer to establish an enterprise architecture function in our organization iServer is a very flexible platform for defining your own enterprise architecture model. It is very easy to import data, and we also have good integration with Visual Drawing Tools and SharePoint. The solution is…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Process Modeling or Process Mapping/Documentation. This is the most comprehensive tool for capturing the process details. Any organization who wants to embark on a BPM journey, process mapping/documentation, lays the foundation for the BPM led implementation."
"Aris BPA has a lot of tools that are more professional than Bizagi."
"In general, the users really like it and they can get started using it very easily."
"ARIS BPA is customizable as per specific business requirements."
"It helps to maintain a single source of truth regarding the processes followed within an organization."
"Collaboration and governance over enterprise artifacts."
"Also, the UML parts have been improved very much in the last two years. And it's very powerful now to combine the BPMN and UML parts in the product, because you can make a connection between them, so that you have the right interoperability between them. So if you're doing data modeling, you can use your class diagram and bind that to the BPMN part."
"ARIS Reporting – Helps download valuable content from the tool in multiple formats."
"Good and effective reporting features, which help in decision making."
"I have to think less with this solution. It's simple."
"Integrating the Microsoft documents to the product and visualization matrix where we can see the end-to-end relationship of the network is of great importance to our company."
"There were lots of different requirements, and collaboration and review is one of the biggest things. There is also Office 360 integration, and there's flexibility to use it as a database as well."
"It has helped having data lineage in the business cluster, which is used as control artifacts."
"The most valuable feature is its reporting capability. It offers various packages for different types of reports, such as business and project management reporting packs."
"The solution is easily modified to suit your needs."
"Tech support is very responsive. They solved issues within a prompt response time."
 

Cons

"Some improvements have been done, after Software AG acquired ARIS, but I don't believe it's still integrated with the other tool WebMethods in a perfect way."
"The reporting capabilities and the ability to create custom reports need to be simplified and made easy so that people even with a good functional understanding of the tool can leverage it to create their own custom report."
"Integration with third-party tools should be improved (e.g. based on APIs)."
"ARIS BPA’s usability could be improved."
"Areas for improvement include sales, prospecting, shopping, customer service, after-sales (claims and advice for the client), and all processes pertaining to customer loyalty."
"The solution's processes are huge and it is not easy to get an overview of how things work. It needs to improve the interface. I would like to see the product include a better overview of processes and improve search."
"With ARIS BPM, the script creation is quite cumbersome. With version ten, we needed our developers to do scripting."
"Newer versions (9.x) are technically more difficult to maintain."
"I haven't used this solution long enough to know what areas could be improved."
"There are other solutions out there that have a better user interface."
"The performance is slow, which is something that should be improved."
"The migration tool needs to be included in the main package, and not as a separate license."
"It definitely needs help to improve the visual aspect of the solution."
"The one issue is that if you want to import predefined work, you need to put the licensing model in. So if you wanted to import work that was done before, you then need to buy a separate product for that."
"Requirements management needs to be improved."
"The product is more expensive than Spark."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ARIS enables you to start small and grow the use of the solution over time, although it's quite expensive. So if you want to start small, it's quite an investment for a small company."
"Pricing for ARIS BPA is average, not cheap or expensive. It's cost-effective and worth the money we pay."
"​It is on the higher side."
"The solution has a fair price for the value it delivers."
"We have a concurrent license system."
"The pricing and licensing costs are available on their website. They will assign a relationship manager to assist if you show further interest in their products."
"The setup cost and pricing depend on the license (Modeler, Viewer, Administrator)."
"It is well worth the investment in the enterprise."
"The solution is cheaper than its competitors."
"The price of iServer is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"It's about 13K to set up and 9K for the license for three months. I think it's about 20K a year, but we haven't firmed up on pricing yet because the price depends on how long we commit to the solution."
"Aim for the exact number of people who shall define/review approve and view the processes, as it will impact the cost."
"The product has a moderate pricing."
"They offer annual subscriptions for developing countries, which are not affordable for small or medium businesses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
35%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

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?
I find it difficult to access the database as I want with direct querying. I must write scripts, which requires specific knowledge. Software AG could improve this by making the database more open. ...
What do you like most about iServer?
iServer has valuable features for workflow and document management.
What needs improvement with iServer?
iServer should invest in enhancing the capabilities of the embedded drawing tool, draw.io. draw.io is a drawing tool used to draw architectural diagrams, flow diagrams, etc. It is an alternative to...
What is your primary use case for iServer?
We use iServer to establish an enterprise architecture function in our organization.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM
No data available
 

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.
Barclays, Cathay Pacific, Deloitte, British Gas, MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about ARIS BPA vs. iServer and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.