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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 (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 (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of Bonita is 1.8%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM BPM is 4.0%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM BPM4.0%
Bonita1.8%
Other94.2%
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

"Compared to other products on the market, Bonita presents a pretty acceptable level of robustness."
"Development of forms and flows."
"Flexible and drag-and-drop type of UI is very valuable. The integrations are also very good. You can build workflows very quickly, which is my favorite activity. By using the GUI, you can build the entire mechanism, notifications, and all this kind of stuff."
"The Connector implementation is a great addition to an out-of-box solution providing robust features for the developer to build hassle-free integrations."
"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."
"Process automation with Bonita BPM is really easy."
"Customer Service: Very good, also the commercial team !Technical Support: Perfect ! and the community is a great help also"
"IBM BPM and Automation Anywhere working together automate manual tasks with a reduction in FTEs, creating about a 30% reduction in FTEs by automating processes."
"We use it for handling all the human tasks, people who were doing repetitive tasks, the tasks are now done by BPM."
"It helps improve your process through continual measurement."
"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 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."
"IBM BPM and Automation Anywhere working together automate manual tasks with a reduction in FTEs, creating about a 30% reduction in FTEs by automating processes."
"Responsive Portal + Process Federation Server. This set of solutions offers a unified worklist to our customers."
"Automating the whole workflow process to give our data steward the ability to take actions rapidly, and making sure we have all the data synced within the different platforms that we are using."
 

Cons

"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."
"Installation could be made easier."
"The support is mandatory to access all features (Subscription), maybe they can have a different business model."
"The community edition has limited module functionality."
"The initial setup is not easy compared to other products."
"We are struggling a bit with integrations."
"I would like to improve the product's load balancing."
"Bonita can improve by offering more flexibility."
"IBM BPM integrated with Spark UI and the UI is now much better, but they still need to improve the UI because competitors have predefined templates and other additional features. In these competitor's solutions, you are able to use the templates, map your data, and the form is ready to use. With this solution, you need to write a lot of code to have the same quality as the competitor's templates. It would be a benefit to make this platform more towards low-code or no-code."
"The major issue is the pricing, which is very high."
"Importing and exporting between multiple environments is more difficult with other tools."
"I'd like the tool to be more flexible."
"The coaches and the user interface are the areas that can be improved a lot. It is good in terms of data processing, but the UI, scripting, and coaches are not very user-friendly and developer-friendly. Performance is always an issue. The scripting and the pattern that it uses are very tedious for new developers to understand, and it takes time to master it in depth. When comparing IBM BPM with IBM APN, a lot of things are provided out of the box in IBM APN. We don't have to write code or a Java connector to make a functionality work. It would be very helpful and time-saving for developers if IBM BPM is improved in this area to provide many functionalities or drag-and-drop options so that the developers don't have to write the code."
"So far, we have not put huge volumes onto it, so it's been working fine. I am not sure how it will behave when we put really large volumes onto it."
"Finding errors and bugs in the system is not easy. We can't seem to use the events or logs to find them, so it makes it difficult to debug the system."
"Process versioning was tricky, not straightforward."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The Enterprise edition is very expensive."
"have installed the image of Bonita BPM on Amazon AWS and there is just one option to use and pay for."
"I believe this is a very good financial choice."
"You pay an annual fee and can have an unlimited number of processes and users."
"The Community Edition comes free of charge."
"The product's pricing is acceptable. Pricing is yearly."
"I am using the free version of Bonita."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"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."
"We have a yearly licensing model. It is not expensive. There are no addition costs to the standard license."
"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."
"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 have definitely seen ROI. When we first kicked it off, we said it had to pay for itself within three years, and it did."
"It has a low cost to implement. You'll get your money back in the same year that you complete the project."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
 

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.
896,692 professionals have used our research since 2012.