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FME vs TIBCO BusinessWorks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 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

FME
Ranking in Data Integration
26th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
TIBCO BusinessWorks
Ranking in Data Integration
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of FME is 1.8%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO BusinessWorks is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

Alan Bloor - PeerSpot reviewer
Great for handling large volumes of data, but it is priced a bit high
When I do coding, I think about every single function. Some of these functions can be very elementary, like doing a substring or some capitalization. But FME removes all that coding because it's a transformer, so the time to develop an application to get to a point where you're producing results is decreased massively. It used to take weeks and months to develop software, and now I can use something like FME, and within one day, we get results. We can look at and validate data. We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else.
Moustafa Fares - PeerSpot reviewer
Connects systems securely, simplifies data communication, and benefits from AI integration potential
I would like to see an AI project with BusinessWorks. I haven't worked with cloud architecture using BusinessWorks, so I would like to work with it as a cloud architect. I am still learning the documentation, so I don't have a complete experience with TIBCO. The learning curve takes time compared to webMethods.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has a very friendly user interface. You don't need to use a lot of code. For us that's the most important aspect about it. Also, it has a lot of connectors and few forms. It has a strong facial aspect. It can do a lot of facial analysis."
"The most valuable feature of FME is the graphical user interface. There is nothing better. It is very easy to debug because you can see all steps where there are failures. Overall the software is easy to optimize a process."
"It has standard plug-ins available for different data sources."
"We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else."
"All spatial features are unrivaled, and the possibility to execute them based on a scheduled trigger, manual, e-mail, Websocket, tweet, file/directory change or virtually any trigger is most valuable."
"The tool's most valuable feature is BusinessConnect. It's an older product but still quite useful, especially for transferring files from one location to another."
"One of the most valuable features is data transformation. We have some legacy systems which are in old technology, like SOAP, whereas the new ones are in REST. So we use BusinessWorks to transform data from one format to another, from SOAP to REST."
"Areas for improvement would be the cloud fitness of the product and the ease of migrating to newer versions."
"I work in operations, so I value BusinessWorks' performance the most."
"The OSGI console is available to debug different issues and get low level informations on the applications development, like bundle, dependencies, etc."
"Customer support is very efficient."
"Drag and drop make it easier to build the service end to end."
"I like TIBCO BusinessWorks because it has a user-friendly GUI for developing solutions."
 

Cons

"FME can improve the geographical transformation. I've had some problems with the geographical transformations, but it's probably mostly because I'm not the most skilled geographer in-house. The solution requires some in-depth knowledge to perform some functions."
"To get a higher rating, it would have to improve the price and the associated scalability. These are the main issues."
"FME's price needs improvement for the African market."
"The one thing that always appears in the community is the ability to make really easy loops to loop through data efficiently. That needs to be added at some point."
"Improvements could be made to mapping presentations."
"Could be more user friendly in the development area."
"The learning curve takes time compared to webMethods."
"The solution’s customer support should be improved."
"The creation of XSDs should be much simpler. They should ensure that what was working in the previous version must also work in the new version of BW six."
"The creation of XSDs should be much simpler."
"Its price can be improved. For medium enterprises, it is a very expensive tool. In the market, you won't get many resources for this solution. You won't find many developers in the market very easily. The latest version of TIBCO (6.4 or 6.x) is not very stable. It has got many issues. We have raised this with TIBCO, and they are taking a lot of time to come up with a fix, which is making us move away from this product. Some of the performance-tuning aspects are also missing in version 6. They should provide performance-related fixes, which will be helpful for the customers. If you are migrating from the current version to the container-supported version, it is quite expensive. The product has evolved, but it is very pricey. That's one of the challenges. They have provided all the features that are there in other products, but this is a platform upgrade. The platform has completely been changed from 5.x to 6.x, and we can't use the same environment. We can't run both versions on the same server as VM. The development environment is entirely different. In version 5.x, there was a proprietary designer. Now, it has common plug-ins developed on top of Eclipse."
"Though it is a stable product, if we have an issue with the product, it gets difficult, and it gets really difficult to explain the issue to the support team. Also, it takes a long time to get resolved."
"The Business Studio tool can be improved, which is the tool for designing the processes. Improving the Business Studio tool will make this solution more stable. It has a steep learning curve, and it is pretty tough to learn."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's price is reasonable."
"We used the standard licensing for our use of FME. The cost was approximately €15,000 annually. We always welcome less expensive solutions, if the solution could be less expensive it would be helpful."
"FME Server used to cost £10,000; now it can cost over £100,000."
"The product is not cheap."
"I think BusinessWorks is more expensive compared to other products. We have the ELA, so at least we have some sort of bargain or discount with that. But for a start-up, it's very expensive compared to other ESBs."
"It is a bit expensive for medium-sized companies. If you are migrating from the current version to the container-supported version, it is quite expensive. The existing licensing will not work because the product platform itself is different."
"I don't have the prices of the products, but I know that TIBCO is not a cheap solution. I think that this solution is more suitable for large companies because I don't think that small- or medium-sized companies would have the money for this solution. WSO2 has the community version for free, so many of the smaller companies can use it. I'm not sure what the prices are for support, though, so I suppose the support for WSO2 is not cheap either."
"TIBCO BusinessWorks is a very expensive solution."
"The payments made for service are the only addition to the standard licensing fees that we pay for the solution."
"My understanding is that the licensing is very costly."
"I give the cost of the solution a four out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
30%
Energy/Utilities Company
13%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about FME?
We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FME?
The pricing is really bad. Last year, they rebranded the whole pricing structure. It used to be moderately priced at about £400 per user per year. Now they've changed the whole thing, and it's expe...
What needs improvement with FME?
The one thing that always appears in the community is the ability to make really easy loops to loop through data efficiently. That needs to be added at some point. There must be a technical or comm...
How does TIBCO BusinessWorks compare with Mule Anypoint Platform?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether TIBCO BusinessWorks or Mule Anypoint platform integration and connectivity software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Mule...
What do you like most about TIBCO BusinessWorks?
The ability to link to different technologies is valuable to us.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TIBCO BusinessWorks?
Pricing is for an enterprise application, so the company pays for it with a company license. Everything comes packaged with the license.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Shell, US Department of Commerce, PG&E, BC Hydro, City of Vancouver, Enel, Iowa DoT, San Antonio Water System
Euler Hermes, QSuper, Scandinavian Airlines
Find out what your peers are saying about FME vs. TIBCO BusinessWorks and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,862 professionals have used our research since 2012.