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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
27th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (18th)
IBM BPM
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
5th
Ranking in Process Automation
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of Bonita is 1.8%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM BPM is 4.1%, down from 7.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM BPM4.1%
Bonita1.8%
Other94.1%
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

"The Connector implementation is a great addition to an out-of-box solution providing robust features for the developer to build hassle-free integrations."
"It is a great product that is powerful in developing applications."
"Its user-friendliness, along with the availability of comprehensive and clear documentation on the website is the most valuable."
"One of the most valuable features is you can create without coding, it is a low code platform."
"I think Bizagi is a powerful software or tool for organization, but Bonita is user-friendly and easy-to-use — easier to use for development."
"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."
"Process automation with Bonita BPM is really easy."
"Compared to other products on the market, Bonita presents a pretty acceptable level of robustness."
"When you use it for the right use cases (e.g., a loan origination process for a bank, claims processing for an insurance company, or a healthcare provider accepting a claim and settling it), processes which typically range from hours to weeks, then when you apply BPM, you bring the processes down by an order of magnitude to minutes to hours, respectively."
"The initial setup process is easy."
"The product causes all the processes in the company to be centralized."
"Overall, I'm satisfied with the product. If you compare it with other products, it's probably not as easygoing or as simple to implement as the rest. But after you get used to it, it works. It has a lot of capabilities and potential, but the people, who come from different technologies, have some difficulty getting used to the way of working with IBM products."
"Our organization has improved by using IBM BPM because our development time has reduced and connectivity improved."
"It has reduced the amount of code that we write in a process to achieve the required functionality."
"It makes the company business processes work more efficiently."
"IBM BPM's most valuable features are its speed in implementing and providing any changes."
 

Cons

"There is a considerable learning curve."
"The price is good, but I do not like the process instance annual quantity pricing base used today."
"The support is mandatory to access all features (Subscription), maybe they can have a different business model."
"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."
"It would be nice to have a wizard to help walk through the development process and create a backbone."
"There is a need for more components in the library and additional customization options for these components."
"There could be an improvement in IoT connectivity."
"The documentation and examples definitely could be enhanced."
"We never got to a comfort level with the product; we ended up not using it that much."
"I'm hearing things might be improving, to really deliver on BPM as opposed to simply workflow. That really should be emphasized a lot more than it has been, because a lot of customers will simply implement the process and leave it there, because the product maybe doesn't emphasize BPM as much as it should, as much as maybe they talk about it in the sales process. The whole idea of BPM, is to iteratively improve the process, and in order to do that you have to have the analytics tool with it. A lot of times that doesn't go as far as it should simply because there's a lot more work to be done for that to happen, and just some sort of technical limitations that don't make that as easy as it should be."
"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."
"We place a lot of importance on security and one area they could make improvements in is to definitely increase the vulnerability and security patches to make it more robust and stable."
"I would like to see more inclusion of RPA technologies. If we have more manual processes, we can use robotic process automation and integrate that in with the solution."
"I would like to see a lot more case studies."
"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 integration could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The Community Edition comes free of charge."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"Price to service ratio with Bonita BPM is good."
"We are using the Community Version, which can be used free of charge."
"The price is fair for what we are using the solution for."
"have installed the image of Bonita BPM on Amazon AWS and there is just one option to use and pay for."
"The product's pricing is acceptable. Pricing is yearly."
"I believe this is a very good financial choice."
"The price is good but could be a little lower."
"IBM BPM is expensive, so most large companies opt for IBM based on their licensing options."
"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 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."
"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."
"The solution is expensive since it is an enterprise application."
"​We have definitely seen ROI. When we first kicked it off, we said it had to pay for itself within three years, and it did."
"When considering the features of the solution the price is expensive compared to competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
Computer Software 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.
892,611 professionals have used our research since 2012.