Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM Blueworks Live vs SAP Signavio Process Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 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

IBM Blueworks Live
Ranking in Business Process Design
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP Signavio Process Manager
Ranking in Business Process Design
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of IBM Blueworks Live is 3.5%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Signavio Process Manager is 8.8%, up from 8.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design
 

Featured Reviews

AjarMathur - PeerSpot reviewer
An easily scalable and affordable solution that enables users to document and digitize processes with ease
IBM Blueworks is BPMN 2.0 compliant, but it does not adapt to the overarching BPMN 2.0 concepts. There is only one kind of BPMN 2.0 diagram. It is a process diagram. It doesn't have the concept of separate tools, which other products offer. If I had to do a hardcore BPMN 2.0 modeling, the product would have its own reservations. There were features we could not explore from a BPMN 2.0 perspective. Most of the time, people who are shifting from Microsoft Office tools to a digitized way of working still want the reporting capabilities to be strong. Some tools, like ARIS or Signavio, offer customized solutions from the reporting perspective. If I have documented my whole finance process and want to fetch out a complete SOP report in a very customized manner, IBM Blueworks cannot provide it. We have to rely on some other services. So that's one area in which we always struggled, how to really customize the reporting aspects. I understand that we need to keep the tool a little more asset-light. It's very difficult to keep adding many options, but at least a few BPMN 2.0 options were needed. We have been suggesting to IBM that we should have some way of customizing the reporting. At least we should get a custom way of reporting it into different formats like Excel or putting up a logo for one of the clients so that their SAP can be printed that way.
Cirvesh-Daga - PeerSpot reviewer
Good visual representation for modelling and business process mapping but room for improvement in reporting functionalities
There is room for improvement in analytics. People don't realize it, but the world has changed in the last six to eight months. Customers want to see AI like ChatGPT and ML capabilities in all aspects of business processes and reporting. That would be my recommendation for any OEM in this value chain. Reporting could definitely be improved. I would like to see new features in analytics. I like that they analyze the process and give it to me visually, but I'd like the option to use DPMM instead of just DPC. I'd also like the option to have the process map laid out top to bottom instead of horizontally. Especially a choice between DPMN and EPC as a format. Because there are some people who are very comfortable with the EPC notation. The process is very clearly event-driven. There's an event, there's an action. It's very simple to understand. BPMN, which is the most popular business process notation, generally tends to have multiple frames. Actually, in multiple swimlanes rather. And those frames could each represent a particular kind of entity. Maybe it's an action, maybe it's an actor, maybe it's an event. So there are two different ways of notation. I just like Signavio to give us the ability to choose that notation. Because some companies use BPMN and some use the EPC. And then, if the minute you make that change, I'd like them to give us the flexibility of having an already plotted or vertically plotted option. Moreover, I would like to see improvement in the visual part. It's the piece that needs improvement. Currently, you can plot the diagram horizontally or vertically. However, I'd like the option to change the way the diagram is created, like switching between different notations.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The business process discovery is excellent. The diagram or blueprinting functionality of the solution are very good. It's quite easy. You can link the sub-processes and get a big overview of the whole process then."
"For me, what I find to be the most valuable is its simplicity and the association with Microsoft Office."
"The stability is pretty good. It is highly available, which is key. You don't lose your work and can autosave."
"In terms of the collaboration features, from the point of discovery, it was useful to go to load up the policies and the rule sets that the client had. And in terms of exploring options and being able to model a variety of different processes, that was incredibly useful as well."
"Collaboration is most valuable. You can collaborate online with many people. People can comment, and you can comment back. It is just like a social network, and that, for me, is very good."
"The solution is stable. All the refreshes run very well."
"It has a built-in capability to capture process owners and managers against processes along with other process governance roles."
"The licenses are transferrable between different users."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the portal for spreading it over the organization, the usability, and the workflow generator in the background."
"The ability to leave comments in the Collaboration Hub is a good and easy way for the employees to give feedback on the processes."
"The solution is user-friendly."
"The collaboration hub is good because it allows us to share the models that we've captured and to get comments back, and we don't all have to be in the same room, it can be remote and over time."
"The collaboration function in the project views is valuable because people can comment on the processes and we can respond."
"As a business transformation suite, Signavio offers a number of integrated helpful tools. The Process Modeler helps with the conceptual work, but is directly integrated with the components of the Workflow Accelerator (Automation) and the Process Intelligence (Mining). This makes Signavio an indispensable service package."
"The most valuable feature of SAP Signavio Process Manager is the ability to do business process models."
"The most valuable feature is the glossary. It is really nice because all of the information is centralized, and that is a big help to the company."
 

Cons

"It is BPMN-compliant but the tool needs to be more involved to get into a completely 2.0 oriented tool. It has a few things but it's not the complete BPMN model."
"We haven't yet been able to dabble in case management with Blueworks Live, as it is not yet offered with the product."
"I wish Blueworks Live had simulations built in, but it doesn't. It also lacks a feature of reporting; ad hoc, drag and drop reporting. A lot of senior people are always asking for reports, and there's no reporting feature within IBM Blueworks."
"The objects that the solution creates are not unique."
"The solution is a very basic discovery product so it doesn't have that much modeling capability. This can be improved."
"The font size is really, really small and it's really not useful to print out process models because you cannot read what's written in different boxes. This makes it necessary for people to have access to the tool. We view licenses to see how the printing or output is. It's not very good."
"I can't insert any images. For example, within the process map, if I want to put it in the box or rectangle, or circle. If I have to use one image or icon, that's not possible."
"Some of the import functionality was a bit restrictive, in terms of loading data in from other data sources. Something as simple as Excel, loading data tables from Excel, wasn't great. And vice-versa. Some of the export and import functionality with something like Visio - which, I know it's a slightly different tool - but being able to work seamlessly with those other tool sets would've been quite useful. I know it was something that was in the pipeline to be looked at. So that would be useful."
"It is sometimes difficult to find the match between what is possible and what is wanted, or what is helpful with the product, so better documentation may assist in this regard."
"From what I have experienced when I worked with a process team, we would like to work with dummy process diagrams. Right now, I don't know if I would set up a process as a dummy, since it very often gets mixed up with diagrams in production. There are many process diagrams linked to the production environment. I would like to have some kind of sandbox to work with. That would be very good. I don't even know if they already have it, but I would certainly like that."
"There are a few bugs when you use the Microsoft Surface Hub with the big screen."
"For me, given I've got a lot of experience working with BPMN and other process management tools, in terms of the interface, I think there's a little bit more that can be improved to match what the conventional BPMN offers. I've been constantly trying to give this feedback to Signavio, to let them know that it needs to be more coherent with the original BPMN version of the stencil."
"The licensing model could be better."
"There is always room for improvement is the capability of integration with other solutions."
"Two executives cannot work on one modeling process simultaneously."
"Moreover, the functionality to show different process variations with "views" could be improved to allow more customization of these views. I believe this would increase the user experience and administrative efforts maintaining these process variations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They have a free subscription model that gives a lot of power to the users."
"We are seeing ROI from this solution. The solution has saved us time."
"Based on the licenses purchased, from a footprint perspective, you can have as many people as you want. You have multiple different categories of licenses to keep the cost low."
"The solution is not very expensive."
"Making it less expensive would be good."
"There are editor licenses that are around 50 euros per month, and contributor licenses that are around 30 euros per month."
"Price wise, IBM Blueworks Live is in the middle range, and I would give it a five out of ten."
"The solution is very, very cost-effective."
"SaaS has no setup cost, just licensing fees."
"The solution is expensive."
"I found the pricing of the solution to be moderate compared to other choices."
"Comparatively, it is a bit costly when you look at similar tools with similar features."
"SAP Signavio charges a lot of money."
"The customer Journey Modeler is more than twice the price of Process Manager, which is a lot."
"We are only able to use the free academic licenses because we have a financial constraint. We are not able to pay for commercial licenses to use this kind of tool."
"We are using the free trial version."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business Process Design solutions are best for your needs.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Blueworks Live?
The solution is easy to operate. Also, there is an automatic mode to make the business flow. You don't have to put any lines or arrows in a decision point in IBM Blueworks Live; it's very automatic.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Blueworks Live?
The solution costs around 600-700 dollars/year, which is quite affordable.
What needs improvement with IBM Blueworks Live?
Sometimes, the tool is automatic, which can complicate it, but once you're accustomed to manipulating it, you can use it very effectively.
Which is better - Signavio Process Manager or Celonis?
SAP Signavio Process Manager is a very robust industrial-grade business process modeling tool. It is easy to use and does not require too much technological involvement. This solution has a collabo...
What do you like most about Signavio Process Manager?
The visual representation is extremely powerful and easy to use in process modeling and analysis. I can show it to someone who doesn't know business process mapping, and they still understand bec...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Signavio Process Manager?
Due to its SaaS nature, it is slightly challenging as a BPM tool. The pricing could be reduced further. I don't have the exact figures, but I believe it can be lowered because it's cloud-based.
 

Also Known As

IBM Lombardi Blueprint
Signavio Process Editor
 

Learn More

Video not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cloudsoft Corp. Ltd., Bayer, S¾SS, Essex County Council
DHL, Coca Cola EP, Prudential, Zalando, T-Systems, Jabil, Endress+Hauser, Rakuten
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Blueworks Live vs. SAP Signavio Process Manager and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.