No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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

"In general, Bonita is a very good solution."
"The most valuable features of Bonita are the connectors, detailed documentation, and web applications. The documentation was useful because it is how I learned how to use it."
"Process automation with Bonita BPM is really easy."
"I really enjoy using the workflow management tool."
"Its user-friendliness, along with the availability of comprehensive and clear documentation on the website is the most valuable."
"The most valuable features of Bonita are the connectors, detailed documentation, and web applications."
"The solution is stable. Even the older versions are stable."
"Studio provides an opportunity to get early feedback from real users and quickly change the process and forms."
"The most valuable feature of IBM BPM is the low code design, and ease of maintenance, and additionally, the integration is good and easy to do."
"There is a good return on investment, because some of them were using paper-based processing, and introducing BPM has actually improved the time involved."
"IBM's deployment box is one huge black box. We can create all the services with our own code or without a codebase, however, we have a huge amount of space with practically no limitation."
"I liked its robustness the most; it was a very robust platform in my experience, and it seemed like a very stable and powerful tool for handling lots of concurrent users and hammering at the system."
"The platform's most valuable features are its process automation capabilities and its ability to provide a comprehensive view of business operations."
"Automation is the most valuable feature of IBM BPM."
"In terms of ROI and scaling use of the product, my feeling is yes, they do see return on investment."
"The process creation."
 

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."
"There could be an improvement in IoT connectivity."
"The main issue with Bonita is that the workspace crashes sometimes."
"That said, creating custom connectors for 3rd party applications and APIs is still a challenging task."
"Bonita can improve by offering more flexibility. The developer does not receive the code of the application to modify it. Most of the other solutions I have used allow the developers to change or improve the code that is generated."
"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."
"There could be an improvement in IoT connectivity."
"There is a considerable learning curve."
"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."
"It needs more customization. We like to customize the screens to show more things related to our company."
"The business would like to use the product with a lot less IT and equipment involvement."
"Needs better reporting. I do not think that we are fully taking advantage of what it already has yet."
"We are a government organization, and we are the largest government power sector in India. We generate around 30% of power in India. Therefore, our processes are quite complex. Although IBM BPM is a low-code or no-code software, if you want to have extremely complex workflows, just the business process diagrams are not helpful in creating those workflows. While implementing complex workflows, only the process flow diagrams did not help us. We had to write a lot of Java scripts and Java queries to achieve what we wanted. Its integration capabilities with the SAP environment have to be improved. At present, we are only talking at the web services environment level. Its price also needs to be improved. It is currently expensive. Previously, Active Directory required a heterogeneous environment, but now they want a homogeneous environment. We had onboarded employees through Microsoft Active Directory, and now I have to implement Microsoft AD only from the cloud for my vendors."
"Consider an admin console during deployment. I would like to migrate single instances, not the whole bunch at once."
"The major issue is the pricing, which is very high. IBM BPM also lacks smaller solutions, so I must purchase multiple solutions to start with workflows and applications."
"There needs to be better documentation for IBM BPM in a central place; there is not any standard documentation for each component available and it has been a barrier for developers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"have installed the image of Bonita BPM on Amazon AWS and there is just one option to use and pay for."
"I am using the free version of Bonita."
"The Community Edition comes free of charge."
"The price is fair for what we are using the solution for."
"Price to service ratio with Bonita BPM is good."
"We are using the Community Version, which can be used free of charge."
"The Enterprise edition is very expensive."
"Starting out with Express can also help reduce the cost for adopting the product."
"It gives us a good return on investment."
"The price is good but could be a little lower."
"When considering the features of the solution the price is expensive compared to competitors."
"The cloud and license of the subscription model for IBM BPM can be complex. There are a lot of alternatives to choose from."
"The solution is expensive since it is an enterprise application."
"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."
"I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business Process Management (BPM) solutions are best for your needs.
890,027 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
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.
890,027 professionals have used our research since 2012.