Camunda vs IBM Cloud Pak for Automation comparison

Camunda and IBM are both solutions in the Process Automation category. Camunda is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3, while IBM is ranked #21 with an average rating of 9.0. Camunda holds a 28.0% mindshare in PA, compared to IBM’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of Camunda users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Camunda

Read 77 Camunda reviews

15,091 Views
10,176 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

Read 2 IBM Cloud Pak for Automation reviews

261 Views
150 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Camunda

IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Camunda and IBM Cloud Pak for Automation compete in business process management. IBM often holds an edge due to its expansive features, while Camunda is preferred for cost-effectiveness and support.

Features: Camunda delivers process automation with tools favorable to developers and flexible deployment. Its open architecture allows integration with other tools. IBM Cloud Pak for Automation includes comprehensive automation, advanced analytics, and AI insights to cater to complex needs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Camunda offers simple deployment with its lightweight design, providing easy maintenance and responsive customer service. IBM, with robust infrastructure, necessitates a more complex setup but offers thorough documentation and premium support.

Pricing and ROI: Camunda is valued for its lower costs, benefiting businesses with limited budgets, while IBM Cloud Pak involves more upfront investment, promising higher long-term ROI with its enterprise features.

To learn more, read our detailed Camunda vs. IBM Cloud Pak for Automation Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Camunda vs. IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

April 2025

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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

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Design (1st), Business Process Management (BPM) (1st)

IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

Ranking in Process Automation

21st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of Camunda is 28.0%, up from 27.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Cloud Pak for Automation is 0.4%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Process Automation

Featured Reviews

FABIO NAGAO

Chief Technology Officer at Looplex SA

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.

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SYEDMUJTABA

Vice President - Digital Automation Services at Techvista Systems

Effectively handles parallel instances effectively

I find it quite straightforward, perhaps around 8.5 out of 10 in terms of ease. When we upgraded from the old version of IBM BPM to the new one within IBM Cloud Pak for Automation, we didn't encounter any major issues. There were some minor ones, but they were easy to overcome.The migration process was part of our deployment strategy. We had a plan to migrate two processes per week from on-premises to the cloud. The migration involved taking the instances and migrating them to the new environment. There is an inbuilt feature in IBM Cloud Pak for Automation that facilitates the migration process, although I personally haven't conducted it myself; it's managed by my team. Overall, the setup process was relatively smooth.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the scheduling."

"The graphical interface is very beneficial."

"Being able to use a Java-based solution makes the product flexible."

"Camunda's most valuable feature is its ability to integrate with different products."

"EC2 makes scaling horizontally incredibly easy, especially when working under the ECS service."

"The flexibility characteristic in a BPMS, through BPMN and DMN, is undoubtedly the most interesting feature for our business."

"I love that Camunda is a very developer-friendly platform, and my customers have evaluated the pricing as reasonable."

"The most valuable feature of Camunda Platform is its Microservices architecture, which is easily integrable with APIs."

More Camunda pros

"I believe two significant features of IBM Cloud Pak for Automation are the focus on SLA management and the capability to handle parallel instances effectively. Parallel instances, for instance, are valuable when dealing with a large number of users, enabling tasks to be performed concurrently for efficient system operation. The SLA aspect is crucial for tracking and ensuring timely completion of tasks. Additionally, the cloud compatibility of IBM BAW allows for seamless migration from on-premises to the cloud. This version also includes a business rule management system for storing and managing business rules effectively."

"What this product allows us to do is to move from on-prem instances where we are running independent instances of FileNet, Datacap, and ODM. It allows us to leverage container-based resiliency and availability modeling so that we have some visibility across the CP4BA ecosystem. We're now migrating all of our data to be in the Cloud Object Storage, and we can now use some of the features of Azure in terms of how we store and retrieve content for our members and our providers."

Cons

"We're trying to put the people from the business to do it. We are using APIs, and we have open APIs to define our APIs and the request-response that each call requires and sends. So, to base the mapping on that, there was nothing to help. I know that with some tools, such as Oracle tools, you can see the input and expected output. With drag and drop, you can take one property from the left and drag it to the right, and it does all the mapping itself, but that's not the case with Camunda. So, for me, this is something that can be improved."

"They could provide more documentation regarding the integration of different programming languages."

"I would like to see the forms engine available in the open-source version of this solution."

"When building interfaces, there are limited tools to work with, especially when dealing with different types of tasks, such as user tasks and system tasks."

"The deployment model could be improved for easier implementation. More open documentation would be beneficial to understand the deployment process better and facilitate easier setup."

"Process interfaces between diagrams could be improved."

"I think that Camunda can try to do better when it comes to solving the complexities of all the products in its software stack."

"I don't like the UI of the Camunda Platform, I have found the Signavio solution to be much better for me to create the process designs and execute them. Additionally, I have found the tools in the Camunda Platform are not compatible with some of my other tools. They should improve this in the future."

More Camunda cons

"I believe there is room for improvement in the user interface, particularly in the Process Portal that customers use to view and manage their tasks. The UI of the Process Portal needs enhancement. Additionally, in the next release, I would like to see improved compatibility with Angular, allowing for direct integration with front-end systems. It would be beneficial to have built-in GUI features based on Angular within the system, rather than developing separate applications externally. This, in turn, would provide a more seamless and enhanced front-end experience."

"One of the challenges we're having is finding vendors who have experience in developing on the cloud. We can find developers on the old platform, but it is leading-edge technology. So, we are having some challenges, and IBM is assisting us to find vendor partners. To be able to leverage all the capabilities of the new platform, we have to upgrade our existing ecosystem of FileNet applications. Upgrading to the new platform while trying to modernize is always challenging because it is like you have a moving target."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The most attractive feature of the product is that it is open source."

"Licensing costs are anywhere from $80,000 to $100,000 USD per year."

"I use the open-source free version."

"The cost of this solution is better than some competing products."

"We have an annual subscription to this solution."

"We use Camunda's community edition, which is free."

"Generally, the price could be better, as well as the licensing fees."

"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."

More Camunda pricing and cost advice

"IBM Cloud Pak for Automation is relatively expensive, especially considering it is designed for long-living processes, not for normal automation needs. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the pricing at around 9. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees, but IBM has multiple pricing models that make it expensive in its own way. Different plans are available, but overall, the experience suggests it is a costly solution."

"Its cost is almost the same or comparable to what we pay with FileNet, but I'm not sure what we pay a year. A good part of CP4BA is the CPU-based licensing model. When we're dealing with 50,000 dentists, for example, if we were to use Salesforce, we would be hit with the licensing of 50,000 dentists, whereas when we build out in CP4BA, it is just based on our CPU usage, not on individual licenses."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

27%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

See all answers

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...

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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...

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Cloud Pak for Automation?

I believe two significant features of IBM Cloud Pak for Automation are the focus on SLA management and the capability to handle parallel instances effectively. Parallel instances, for instance, ar...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Cloud Pak for Automation?

IBM Cloud Pak for Automation is relatively expensive, especially considering it is designed for long-living processes, not for normal automation needs. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the pr...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Cloud Pak for Automation?

I believe there is room for improvement in the user interface, particularly in the Process Portal that customers use to view and manage their tasks. The UI of the Process Portal needs enhancement. ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 12% of the time

Flowable vs Camunda

Compared 9% of the time

Bizagi vs Camunda

Compared 9% of the time

Temporal vs Camunda

Compared 7% of the time

IBM BPM vs Camunda

Compared 7% of the time

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IBM BPM vs IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

Compared 100% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Camunda

April 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Process Automation

April 2025

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Also Known As

Camunda BPM

No data available

Overview

Camunda enables organizations to orchestrate processes across people, systems, and devices to continuously overcome complexity and increase efficiency. A common visual language enables seamless collaboration between business and IT teams to design, automate, and improve end-to-end processes with the required speed, scale, and resilience to remain competitive. Hundreds of enterprises such as Atlassian, ING, and Vodafone orchestrate business-critical processes with Camunda to accelerate digital transformation. To learn more visit camunda.com.

Camunda

IBM Cloud Pak for Automation offers design, build, run, and automation services to rapidly scale your programs and fully execute and operationalize an automation strategy.

IBM

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Camunda vs. IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

April 2025

Free Report: Camunda vs. IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

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