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FICO Blaze Advisor vs IBM Operational Decision Manager 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

FICO Blaze Advisor
Ranking in Business Rules Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Operational Decision Ma...
Ranking in Business Rules Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Business Rules Management category, the mindshare of FICO Blaze Advisor is 33.4%, up from 32.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Operational Decision Manager is 35.4%, up from 35.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Rules Management
 

Featured Reviews

PIOTR SHUBIANOK - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution is stable and has the ability to extend the built-in logic, but is difficult to deploy
FICO needs to provide a better user experience and user interface. Unfortunately, our clients are not able to add customization by themselves. So this limits their ability to use the solution. FICO Blaze is a complex technology, so it's more about engineering work. This means that we need to hire developers who will learn FICO Blaze as technology and use it. Without development knowledge, it is impossible to use the solution. Our clients do not always have a budget to hire huge salaried engineers, and they want to be able to tune small changes by themselves, but unfortunately, they can't because again, Blaze is really a complex technology. Currently, the solution's interface allows for really simple changes to be made by our clients. I would like to have an easier user-friendly interface to allow for more changes to be made by the client without the need for an engineer. This is not true for all companies. We are talking about some real strategies when we have a lot of decision tables, rules, and decision graphs. Because it's really hard for our business users/customers to make low-level customizations by themselves. The main reason why we switched to other solutions is that we don't see the possibility with FICO Blaze Advisor and vector of FICA company that they think to improve this because they created the decision model. This is an extension of FICO Blaze with some new modern UI items, but it's still not working 100 percent. Unfortunately, we see that it's a huge gap nowadays with this old technology that's why we continue to search for new software which we'll use.
Bhasker ReddyPIdintla - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution provides an efficient, comprehensive way to manage polices for all the applications.
We use ODM to set complex business rules. For instance, we deploy this solution for most of our banking customers because there are frequent changes in the policies and business rules. These are complex to manage for enterprise applications.  ODM provides an efficient, comprehensive way to manage…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very stable."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is the algorithm they use in the retail version. The execution there is very optimized - so even though we have a huge service with huge counter rules, we still get the results in milliseconds. That is something amazing I found about this tool."
"The most valuable feature is the IDE."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is that it has a fast engine for decisioning."
"FICO Blaze Advisor's most valuable features are the analytics, the code change is not required, and even a business analyst can do that change in the rules when we set it up."
"The solution is customizable, so you can create your own data items and variables to suit your needs."
"The rules management application is the best feature because BAs or even, perhaps, a businessperson, can directly create rules, change rules, and deploy them to production directly."
"So far, the usability is great. It's also easy to set up."
"It has benefited our organization by having less coding changes. Thus, we save time and don't have to hire as many people."
"The solution has reduced the backlog for IT."
"The most valuable feature is the deployment part because it is very easy to deploy. Even a businessperson or someone from a non-technical background can easily deploy it and the rules will work."
"ODM has probably been one of the more stable IBM products I have used."
"Its ability to untangle hard coded rules and put them in a more manageable structure."
"The business owns the rules and they're taken away from IT, so business doesn't need to ask IT to implement them, and IT doesn't need to implement them. So the business owns their decisions and their rules, and therefore, finally, they take proper ownership, and model and maintain them properly."
"With ODM as a centralized rules engine, it's easy to track. You can version the rules in the ODM engine itself."
 

Cons

"More online support such as a knowledge base should be available."
"The initial setup of FICO Blaze Advisor was somewhat complex. The implementation took approximately three to four months. However, I left halfway through the process, I am not sure of the exact timeframe."
"FICO needs to provide a better user experience and user interface."
"Lacks notifications when code changes have been made."
"I would like to see more help on the internet and more training over the internet. They only have a few blogs there, so that should be increased."
"FICO Blaze Advisor is still missing things for maintaining the version of something. For example, we have gates for programming, for storing, or scripts. In there, one developer can prepare a file or a piece of code or something, and another developer can work on the same code or on the same text file or something, and you can manage it. This is missing in FICO Blaze Advisor."
"The developer's tools on their optimized version should be a little bit more user friendly. Additionally, it really doesn't pick up the actual exception or error of what the developers are getting."
"Get to the cloud."
"I think there should be a facility for business to really create rules from scratch. The only part for IT should be to make sure the platform is stable, the technology platform, but everything else, the business should be able to create those rules."
"There is some promise of how decisions could take advantage of machine learning and artificial intelligence. That has been slow to develop. It is still not clear where the market will take it, but that is something that I am looking forward to down the road."
"It hasn't totally helped our decision-making."
"The solution's licensing cost needs improvement."
"The errors I get from time to time are not easy to debug or easy to understand. They are very vague because if a XOM file is missing or there is a deserialization problem, on the client's side I only get a 500 Internal Server Error. To learn where the problem is, I have to go on the Rule Execution Server and test it myself. The deserialization issue is very vague. The error messages should be more straightforward and easy to understand."
"ODM could be improved with better integration with other platforms."
"The platform is good. Its footprint is a little heavy. Other than that, the product works great."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There was an annual license required to use FICO Blaze Advisor. There were not any additional features."
"The biggest disadvantage of Blaze Advisor is the initial cost... The price could be reduced to increase profit margins and the number of clients."
"As a starting price, it is around $40,000 for a perpetual license."
"ODM's pricing could be more competitive as there are open-source business rules engines that are becoming standard."
"We have a client who had a three-month ROI on this tool, just in additional sales, from sort of the next best action of what product that they should offer to their clients. ROI can be very quick with this product."
"It will definitely improve the cash flow of our clients, thereby it will improve the cash flow to us."
"We made a lifetime purchase. We purchased it by number of PVUs for our stage and product environments."
"It was not a large cost. It was a one-time cost."
"It is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Insurance Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
34%
Insurance Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FICO Blaze Advisor?
FICO Blaze Advisor has two licensing models in addition to a free trial. One model is yearly maintenance, with regular costs and yearly payments. The other is related to payments for Blaze Advisor ...
 

Also Known As

Blaze Advisor
IBM Operational Decision Management, ILOG JRules, IBM ODM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aviva, Absa, Nationwide Building Society
Odyssey Transportation & Logistics Corporation, Swiss Customs, Athletes' Performance, L_elo, Versicherungskammer Bayern
Find out what your peers are saying about FICO Blaze Advisor vs. IBM Operational Decision Manager and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.