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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

"I find process management and user interface designing the most valuable features."
"One of the most valuable features is you can create without coding, it is a low code platform."
"It is more than helpful, it is worth the effort of learning to better our company."
"Bonitasoft helped us automate complicated and labor intensive processes"
"Development of forms and flows."
"Bonita BPM is simple and fast; it is very easy to install and use."
"Process automation with Bonita BPM is really easy."
"In general, Bonita is a very good solution."
"We use it for automating certain processes which previously took a lot of time for agents to set up different products for customers. They would have to enter a lot of different systems. This has now mostly been automated."
"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."
"Scalability is good. In the time that I have been there, we have added more JVMs to help with the increased workload, so it does scale."
"It provides a very robust environment to build an integration framework or workflow patterns that we have, and the features that they have added this time have helped developers like us to work on the developmental environment and leverage all the capabilities of the tool."
"I like the APIs and the BPM coach is a good tool. But if I had to pick one, it would be the API."
"It allowed us to automate some important logistic-related business processes."
"If time matters, if your company has a lot of processes that could be automated, BPM is the right solution, definitely."
"It has improved my organization quite a bit. It brought awareness to what the business processes are, even to the business side, who did not necessarily know what they are."
 

Cons

"Scalability of the Bonita BPM Community version is low."
"We are struggling a bit with integrations."
"Installation could be made easier. I would like to see more automated processes."
"It would be nice to have a wizard to help walk through the development process and create a backbone."
"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."
"I would like to improve the product's load balancing."
"Installation could be made easier."
"That said, creating custom connectors for 3rd party applications and APIs is still a challenging task."
"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."
"I would like to see the solution be able to interact with other customer software solutions."
"They should incorporate an API gateway functionality within it to simplify integrations."
"Except for the Lucene the index - we had a couple of issues in the Process Portal where the Lucene index went out of sync, and we had to work at least 15 - 20 hours to have it back in sync with the database."
"IBM BPM lacks openness, that is, the ability to become open for new options in terms of APIs, front-end development, and ecosystem. IBM BPM has been quite closed. One of the main improvements would be to somehow embed the rules engine into IBM BPM. Merging IBM BRMS and the rules engine with IBM BPM would be helpful. If there was some simpler way to define rules without having to put IBM BRMS on top of it, it would be good. It's something that we can get out of Camunda but not out of IBM BPM."
"IBM BPM needs to have a better and modified interface."
"The major issue is the pricing, which is very high."
"All our clients are changing to microservice and cloud service. However, BPM does not have a solution for microservice and cloud service."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the Community Version, which can be used free of charge."
"The product's pricing is acceptable. Pricing is yearly."
"The Enterprise edition is very expensive."
"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."
"I am using the free version of Bonita."
"have installed the image of Bonita BPM on Amazon AWS and there is just one option to use and pay for."
"Price to service ratio with Bonita BPM is good."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a ten."
"The product is expensive considering the hardware and software costs."
"It's expensive. All software is always extremely high. The manufacturing cost that we have compared to the selling cost, it's not like you're building a house or building a car. But putting that aside, considering that it's expensive, it's a lot of money. If you compare it with some of the other alternatives in the market, it's a similar price. For instance, if you compare it with Pegasystems, it's a similar price."
"We chose to purchase IBM BPM because it was bundled with the actual RPA program/solution that we decided to purchase. We decided to use Automation Anywhere tool (RPA), and it is was bundled with IBM BPM."
"The solution is highly-priced."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven out of ten."
"Licensing is managed by the client, but we know it is yearly. Camunda is relatively cheaper. There is not much difference in pricing of IBM and PEGA. For large licensing, there are discounts as well."
"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."
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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.
889,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.