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Camunda vs Flowable comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Camunda
Ranking in Process Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (1st), Business Process Management (BPM) (1st)
Flowable
Ranking in Process Automation
20th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of Camunda is 24.8%, down from 28.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Flowable is 6.6%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Camunda24.8%
Flowable6.6%
Other68.6%
Process Automation
 

Featured Reviews

FABIO NAGAO - PeerSpot reviewer
Reduces costs with hardware abstraction and simplifies scaling
There is an issue where, in some situations, I need to scale up by observing both CPU and memory usage of containers, yet under the current options available at Amazon, this is not possible. I have to choose between monitoring CPU or memory to scale my solution. Not every software is built for deployment as a container service, although the current architecture trend is changing this.
Simon Greener - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps to control the workflow and business process components of customers' operations but OSGi integration can be challenging
I'd rate my experience with the initial setup of Flowable at about a three out of ten, but for our developers, it's probably closer to a six. I found it challenging due to the complexity of the user and help documents and the fact that much of the Flowable documentation and tutorials are focused on cloud-based implementations. Since we're primarily interested in basic components like BPMN models and form design, which aren't included in the product, the learning process was more difficult for me. In contrast, our developers are more comfortable diving into the code and technology stack, which allows them to be more proactive in their approach. The deployment took three months to complete. We're still in the deployment process. Our main challenge is integrating the Flowable process engine into our product, which uses OSGi. This has led to complexity in managing the Java versions and dependencies, as the tool has around 150 Java files. We could have chosen to interact with Flowable via a Docker container and the REST API, which would have isolated the OSGi Java dependencies, but we decided to integrate it directly. This has required resolving Java version control issues and upgrades, leading to various development challenges that must be addressed. It is a learning process for all of us. As an integrated solutions architect, I would have probably opted for the Docker route rather than the direct OSGi integration chosen by the developers. However, since they went with the OSGi integration, it's taking us longer to complete the deployment. Currently, we have one full-time developer dedicated to deployment, along with one part-time developer, and my involvement at about a quarter of my time. So, we have about two people working on deployment. As for maintenance, we're not entirely sure yet. Given our direct OSGi integration choice instead of Docker and REST, maintenance may be more challenging. However, we'll have a clearer picture once deployment is complete.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It is a scalable product. I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten."
"The BPMN diagram is valuable. For our use case of transferring money from one account to another, the connections have to be done in the traditional financial ways. There are a lot of unexpected errors and a lot of instability with this kind of system, and we are using Camunda in order to have clear flows. With BPMN, I can show a flow to my business partner, and the business team can easily understand what's going on. The technical team can understand what the implementation is, and we can model different errors and the process for recovering from these errors."
"The speed and execution of DMN was a big selling point for us. It's very good at conducting business processes that are easily modeled and presented in a way that's easy to understand."
"The solution is easily compatible with HTML forms and HTML language programming and that is the most significant part."
"It allows me to present or to demonstrate the business process flow, visually, without having to resort to PowerPoint, Visio, or other products."
"I've found the active community most valuable but it also provides you with a lot of other features."
"The most valuable features are that it's lightweight, can be embedded in existing Java code, and keeps track of the workflow state and the instances that we need."
"The best feature is the automation."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the process engine. It allows us to define BPM-based workflows, deploy them into our process engine, and interact with them within our product."
 

Cons

"When addressing a complex and extensive process, the domain it belongs to, be it banking, healthcare, or HR, requires widespread access."
"There should be a multi-tenant solution for the platform where it supports multiple organizations on one platform instead of having to spin up multiple clusters for each organization. There should be an easy way to integrate different departments into one platform without having to operate multiple platforms. The operations should be easier with the enterprise solution. It should not create more overhead for the operations people."
"The cockpit features of the Camunda Platform can be improved to make it a bit more user-friendly, in terms of providing a bit more user experience for non-technical users. There could be some additional documentation added."
"I would like to have a feature for audit logging, audit logs and audit log management. And some history of use for the audit logs."
"Customization and tech stack could be up-to-date."
"The migration strategy needs to be improved."
"The only drawback is the time that it takes to have a complete set of workflows implemented on the Camunda platform."
"We have to wait to see if Bonita provided us with some features that Camunda does not or if we experience any stability issues."
"In my opinion, areas of improvement for Flowable include the management and creation of forms within the open-source components and the documentation and examples provided. While the cloud-based Flowable implementation with no-code features is attractive, we prefer more control over integration, especially since we deploy our product onto AWS. We also want to avoid additional licensing fees for Flowable runtime user components on top of our software development and implementation charges."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The evaluation of my customers on pricing is that it is reasonable."
"We are using the open-source version of this solution."
"We are using the community version. There is no licensing cost."
"We use the free version."
"It is good for a startup. When we started, its price was fair, but the way we are using it to orchestrate microservices makes it expensive. When you are growing as a company, you would have more microservices, and you would have more users. There is an exponential effect when you are growing in terms of the number of conditions, processes, and users because they bill you per process. So, the price was increasing very quickly for us, and it was very difficult."
"Generally, the price could be better, as well as the licensing fees."
"The open-source version of the product is free to use."
"Its price is decent. Everything is included in the license. The Community version is also good to start with. We are using the Community version."
"Since the tool is open-source, we don't have to pay anything for it. It's free to download and use, which is great for us. If Flowable hadn't been available as open source and required a license fee for us to integrate it into our product, we might not have chosen it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
6%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise29
No data available
 

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 do you prefer - Appian or Camunda Platform?
Appian is fast when building simple to medium solutions. This solution offers simple drag-and-drop functionality with easy plug-and-play options. The initial setup was seamless and very easy to imp...
Which would you choose - Camunda Platform or Apache Airflow?
Camunda Platform allows for visual demonstration and presentation of business process flows. The flexible Java-based option was a big win for us and allows for the integration of microservices very...
What do you like most about Flowable?
The tool's most valuable feature is the process engine. It allows us to define BPM-based workflows, deploy them into our process engine, and interact with them within our product.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Flowable?
Since the tool is open-source, we don't have to pay anything for it. It's free to download and use, which is great for us. If Flowable hadn't been available as open source and required a license fe...
What needs improvement with Flowable?
In my opinion, areas of improvement for Flowable include the management and creation of forms within the open-source components and the documentation and examples provided. While the cloud-based Fl...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Camunda BPM
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

24 Hour Fitness, Accruent, AT&T Inc., Atlassian, CSS Insurance, Deutsche Telekom, Generali, Provinzial NordWest Insurance Services, Swisscom AG, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, VHV Group, Zalando
1. Adobe 2. BMW 3. Cisco 4. Dell 5. Ericsson 6. Ford 7. General Electric 8. Honda 9. IBM 10. Johnson & Johnson 11. Kia Motors 12. LG Electronics 13. Microsoft 14. Nike 15. Oracle 16. PepsiCo 17. Qualcomm 18. Red Bull 19. Samsung 20. Toyota 21. Uber 22. Visa 23. Walmart 24. Xerox 25. Yahoo 26. Zara 27. Accenture 28. Bank of America 29. Citigroup 30. Deutsche Bank 31. ExxonMobil 32. Facebook
Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda, BMC, Temporal Technologies and others in Process Automation. Updated: August 2025.
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