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Bonita vs IBM BPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 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

Bonita
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
30th
Ranking in Process Automation
28th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (17th)
IBM BPM
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
5th
Ranking in Process Automation
9th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of Bonita is 1.9%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM BPM is 4.1%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM BPM4.1%
Bonita1.9%
Other94.0%
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

Featured Reviews

Paparao Nadipineni - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at Evoke
A simple and lightweight college course automation system with third-party integrations
The initial setup is straightforward and can be completed with the environment within an hour. First, take the latest from the git repository and check the git code to the monitor studio and a bar file, a deployable Bonita archive file. Then, take that process to the Bonita server, running at runtime on another server. Finally, deploy and enable it by selecting the proper organization.
Ateeq Rehman - PeerSpot reviewer
Unit Head System Implementor at Allied Bank Limited
Automation platforms streamline processes and offer flexibility, but AI integration and version upgrades pose challenges
In the technology world, there is always room for improvement. Technologies evolve day by day, especially with the emergence of artificial intelligence and generative AI models. Although IBM BPM is a substantial product, adopting and integrating new technologies quickly is not easy due to the migration and upgrade paths involved. Every time new versions are released, we face business and production challenges that make rapid adoption challenging. The main concern bothering me today regarding IBM BPM is the integration of AI components.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Bonita BPM is simple and fast; it is very easy to install and use."
"Process automation with Bonita BPM is really easy."
"Our lead generation system involves both automated and human tasks. By centralizing the workflow to our internal Bonita BPM system, we have improved the conversion rate (leads to customers) and lowered the number of leads dropped."
"Of the three BPM vendors I evaluated, Bonita was the best in creating forms, ease of customization of forms, and versatility of supported platforms, and it is the only BPM platform that I've seen so far that allows for versioning of artifacts."
"Bonita is user-friendly."
"With Bonita BPM, you can run the process (as it will in the final stage) immediately after the design stage, giving you 100% control over the quality of your processes and flows."
"I really enjoy using the workflow management tool."
"Compared to other products on the market, Bonita presents a pretty acceptable level of robustness."
"The most valuable features are the integration capabilities - BPM can connect with almost any legacy or advanced system."
"It has brought huge benefits to our organization."
"This solution is very stable."
"Using it, I have created elegant, user-friendly, and performant end-user graphical interfaces that allow end users to complete their tasks in the most enjoyable and easy way."
"The product causes all the processes in the company to be centralized."
"The performance is fine."
"I think the best way it can be it improved, is to make it easier to install. It's a very complicated piece of software, and there are a lot of things you have to do to get it set up. It's not just running an installer. You install WebSphere. You install the BPM product, and there's a large host of other steps you have to do: run queries against the database, you have to manually configure a bunch of properties files for your environment. I think if they could streamline all that, so it wasn't a considerable effort to install, that would be very useful. Because from an engineering point of view, you want to spend as little time as possible actually installing a product."
"If you're trying to lower and contain your costs or mitigate a lot of risk, there is nothing like the IBM Cloud."
 

Cons

"I should be able to park the tasks that are within a process in a kind of container, and dynamically, a super admin should be able to connect these processes. This kind of feature might be helpful."
"We are struggling a bit with integrations."
"There is a considerable learning curve."
"The community edition has limited module functionality. If they could release some of the functionality that's available in the enterprise edition that would be helpful to those learning to use the solution."
"The community edition has limited module functionality."
"So Bonita is easy to use but it seems to be missing some powerful features that competing products have."
"The price is good, but I do not like the process instance annual quantity pricing base used today."
"I should be able to park the tasks that are within a process in a kind of container, and dynamically, a super admin should be able to connect these processes."
"The debugging needs improvement. There is some confusion surrounding the debugging."
"Import/export of attachments Transfer of attachments to/from JIRA"
"IBM BPM needs to have a better and modified interface."
"We had a weird problem that whenever the database would go down, even for a few seconds, it broke the connection. It would not come back up as it was supposed to. However, working with IBM, we were able to figure out a fix, then it came back up, even after an interruption of the database."
"Process versioning was tricky, not straightforward."
"Performance in the development environment space. I know that they have been taking it off the desktop version and putting on the web, and it is not 100% yet."
"Stability wavers. We have some opportunities for improvement in this space, especially as we approach our target volume of a million transactions a day. It is tough, because it is not necessarily the product. It is more around the platform and infrastructure to support it, so the connectivity to the database, web sessions, and reverse proxies in front of that."
"IBM BPM uses JavaScript as a programming language for the server-side. I don’t know why it’s not Java, as it’s more powerful and the JavaScript part is translated into Java anyway."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not cheaper, not costlier; it is reasonable. Bonita’s license is very flexible, with options to meet the needs of different customers and clients. Previously, it was less flexible, but now, many different licensing options are available."
"I believe this is a very good financial choice."
"The Enterprise edition is very expensive."
"You pay an annual fee and can have an unlimited number of processes and users."
"have installed the image of Bonita BPM on Amazon AWS and there is just one option to use and pay for."
"Licensing cost for the Enterprise edition comes out to be around 40,000 a year. There is also a Community edition, which is free. Some customers can go for the Community edition, but some of them require the Enterprise edition. Big companies go for the Enterprise edition, which comes with a lot of additional features such as a mobile app."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"I am using the free version of Bonita."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a ten."
"IBM BPM is expensive, so most large companies opt for IBM based on their licensing options."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven out of ten."
"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."
"I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten."
"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 good but could be a little lower."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise72
 

Questions from the Community

How does Bonita compare with Camunda Platform?
One of the things we like best about Bonita is that you can create without coding - it is a low-code platform. With Bonita, you can build the entire mechanism using the GUI, it’s that simple. You c...
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 needs improvement with IBM BPM?
There are negative aspects, such as IBM BPM being quite heavy and not lightweight, and the licensing cost is higher, which has caused some companies to shift away. IBM BPM is complicated to install...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Bonita BPM
WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

With more than 1000 customers in 75 countries, and its ecosystem of more than 120,000 members, Bonitasoft is the largest provider of open-source Business Process Management, Low-code and Digital Transformation software worldwide.
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Bonita vs. IBM BPM and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
886,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.