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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 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."
"It is more than helpful, it is worth the effort of learning to better our company."
"The user interface is easy to use."
"We use the on-premises deployment model and the Bonita Community Edition of the solution."
"The most valuable features of Bonita are the connectors, detailed documentation, and web applications."
"Process automation with Bonita BPM is really easy."
"I really enjoy using the workflow management."
"Some of the features that I like the most are team management and process performance. They are both very useful and very powerful with regard to the workflow."
"When compared to other BPMs, it's very efficient for the developers to develop and deliver on time with an effective process."
"So far, the tool is fantastic."
"The most valuable feature for the organization is the Document Store."
"It is being able to see the process, and understanding what the process is versus having to bury it in code somewhere."
"It has reduced the amount of code that we write in a process to achieve the required functionality."
"IBM BPM is easy to deploy."
"It's a solid product. It covers most of the pain points for clients."
 

Cons

"We are struggling a bit with integrations."
"The community edition has limited module functionality."
"Bonita can improve by offering more flexibility."
"There is a need for more components in the library and additional customization options for these components."
"Scalability of the Bonita BPM Community version is low."
"BPMN 2.0 notations are not all supported, would love to see them all coming in (e.g. complex gateway)."
"Automation in vacation of a human resources replacement would be a good improvement in the product."
"Installation could be made easier. I would like to see more automated processes."
"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."
"Yes, on the Process Center (development environment), especially when you have too many developers working on it. Then, it becomes unstable."
"Though I am quite satisfied with the product, and especially the introduction of responsive UI, I still believe that the overall development environment must be desktop based rather web based."
"We thought there might have been a little more discussion early on about, "Hey, if you're doing this, set it up this way," or some best practices or some guidance that we didn't get."
"It needs more customization. We like to customize the screens to show more things related to our company."
"From the testing perspective and minor enhancements perspective, customization is something that is a little tedious as compared to new tools. In addition, various open-source tools that are available are not working with IBM BPM."
"It is a really powerful tool, but its entry price is so high, which makes it a very exclusive club for who gets to use it. The thing that seemed to be the most intolerable was that you could put lots and lots of users on it, and it worked fine, but if you put lots and lots of developers on it, it sure seemed to have challenges. The biggest challenge was the development because of the Eclipse tool. It just seemed like irrespective of the development team that you put together, whether it had 10 or 50 people, you would end up having to reboot the development server throughout the day when you concurrently had lots of people hammering on the system. The development server just got sluggish. This was true for every project I was on. Once you got more than about five people working on the system at the same time, it would just get slower and slower during development work, and the only way to fix it was to reboot the server. It became just like a routine. Sometimes, we would reboot at lunch or dinner time, which is silly. After the cloud instances started rolling out, I never saw that again. That was probably the one big advantage of the cloud version. Instead of using an independent Eclipse-based process development tool, we moved to web-based process and design. The web-based tool definitely had greater performance than the Eclipse-based tool. I never got onto another project after that with 50 people, so I don't know how the performance is when you get a large team on it, but it definitely seems that the cloud design tool was a massive improvement."
"It is a really powerful tool, but its entry price is so high, which makes it a very exclusive club for who gets to use it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The Community Edition comes free of charge."
"The Enterprise edition is very expensive."
"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."
"The price is fair for what we are using the solution for."
"You pay an annual fee and can have an unlimited number of processes and users."
"I am using the free version of Bonita."
"I believe this is a very good financial choice."
"have installed the image of Bonita BPM on Amazon AWS and there is just one option to use and pay for."
"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."
"​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."
"The pricing is quite high, I would rate it two out of five."
"The solution might be expensive, but I can't give you a precise number. In the market here, I've seen two main products for BPM: IBM BPM and Camunda. Camunda is very popular and open-source, so there's no direct comparison."
"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."
"I give the pricing an eight out of ten."
"Its price is on the higher side, and it can be improved. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. There are no additional costs."
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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.
887,041 professionals have used our research since 2012.