IBM Blueworks Live vs Visual Paradigm comparison

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IBM Blueworks Live

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

IBM Blueworks Live and Visual Paradigm compete in the process modeling and diagramming tools category. Visual Paradigm appears to have an advantage with its extensive diagramming capabilities and flexibility in integration.

Features: IBM Blueworks Live excels in real-time process modeling with intuitive collaboration tools and supports BPMN 2.0, providing a central repository for processes. Visual Paradigm offers extensive diagramming across various engineering fields, supporting standards like UML and enabling integration of different models with strong functionality for enterprise architecture, along with a valuable simulation feature for process analysis.

Room for Improvement: IBM Blueworks Live needs enhanced simulation capabilities and more flexible reporting options, while its integration and collaboration features require improvements for handling complex process models. Visual Paradigm should focus on faster visualization of complex models and better integration for process mining. Enhanced documentation and reduced resource consumption would also improve its usability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Blueworks Live is mainly deployed on public cloud and offers responsive support but has limited direct interaction due to user proficiency. Visual Paradigm provides flexible deployment options, including on-premises and hybrid cloud, along with an effective support structure, though performance issues can impact deployment ease in resource-heavy situations.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Blueworks Live offers competitive pricing and varied licensing options, making it accessible for businesses of all sizes, and demonstrates significant ROI through time savings and reduced operating costs. Visual Paradigm provides affordable licenses with free tiers, allowing scalable features, and is preferred for its cost-effectiveness and comprehensive capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Blueworks Live vs. Visual Paradigm Report (Updated: January 2025).

IBM Blueworks Live vs. Visual Paradigm

January 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

IBM Blueworks Live

Ranking in Business Process Design

12th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Visual Paradigm

Ranking in Business Process Design

8th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of IBM Blueworks Live is 3.6%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Visual Paradigm is 6.4%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Process Design

Featured Reviews

AjarMathur

Global Innovation Director at Ernst & Young

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.

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Angie Ibrahim Eissa

Founder & Managing Partner at BBL

A software application designed for software development teams to model business information systems and manage development processes

Setting up Visual Paradigm is easy. There's hardly any configuration needed, unlike some other tools. You just choose your method and diagram type, and you're good to go. As for improvements, integrating project management features with diagrams could be better. Viewing outputs could also be smoother, especially when working with multiple files.Deployment is quick and painless. It practically takes no time at all to set up. And because I also teach at the university, I use Visual Paradigm for my classes and case studies. It's easy to switch between products, and my students have no trouble using it on their own.

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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

"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 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."

"It is a stable solution since there has not been any downtime. Everything loads fast."

"It enables decisions based upon processes that we do model, and ultimately move forward with."

"We are you using the product as a process mapping tool and as part of a larger process improvement project. We use it with IBM BPM and IBM ODM. We get an automated workflow solution for our customers, an improved workflow automation."

"It has a built-in capability to capture process owners and managers against processes along with other process governance roles."

"It's very easy, very quick to create a process map. It has templates. The look and feel is very nice. What we want to achieve out of the process map, we can achieve it using Blueworks."

"The reporting that we can generate from IBM Blueworks Live has been interesting. We found the KPIs, risks, process modeling, format, and colors, to be very good. We use the EY template and it is interesting to generate reporting in this format."

More IBM Blueworks Live pros

"I find it very user-friendly for my purposes, which is creating business process models that I can publish as HTML pages. It has worked flawlessly for my project, and my clients are able to utilize it as an internal web portal for their process documentation and other needs."

"The Visual Paradigm business process forms for designing we good. There was not a lot of configuration for the process diagram."

"I like the fact that this solution is complete."

"It is easy and intuitive to use, not excessively rigid, and quite flexible."

"It is easy-to-use and it helps understand its data modeling structure through the intuitive user interface."

"I like the structure. I can see the diagrams and everything I created."

"Visual Paradigm is simple and easy to use."

"The pricing model is attractive."

More Visual Paradigm pros

Cons

"The APIs are great, except the normal business user doesn't know how to create APIs. So it's hard because IBM comes to us as the business users and tell us to create reporting with APIs, except we don't know that, so we have to turn around and flip it to our IT people."

"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."

"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."

"The user interface is quite easy at first but process analysts soon run into roadblocks of limited functionality, which is disappointing."

"Spaces are not well organized; space controls are lacking."

"The solution is a very basic discovery product so it doesn't have that much modeling capability. This can be improved."

"In the Blue Works Live software boxes and lines are automatically placed by the programme and can't be easily manipulated."

"IBM Blueworks is BPMN 2.0 compliant, but it does not adapt to the overarching BPMN 2.0 concepts."

More IBM Blueworks Live cons

"I would like to see the ability to easily export to groupware, such as Atlassian Confluence."

"The solution could be more compatible with other products in the future."

"The user interface is not easy to navigate, so it should be made easier."

"It's still early for me to comment since I've only been using it for two months, but the responsiveness when diagramming needs to be improved."

"Visual Paradigm could improve many aspects. The performance could be better because it can be low. When we have large and complicated models, it has a low speed and many bugs. Sometimes the solution stops and you have to restart Microsoft Windows on your PC. The larger database modeling cannot be done properly, I have to use another solution called SAP PowerDesigner."

"There are some connectivity issues that crop up rarely when used with SQL Server."

"The solution's technical support can be improved and accessible for our company location since Visual Paradigm follows a remote support model with some challenges."

"From time to time, we experience some troubles when we work as teams."

More Visual Paradigm cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"We are seeing ROI from this solution. The solution has saved us time."

"The solution is very, very cost-effective."

"They have a free subscription model that gives a lot of power to the users."

"Price wise, IBM Blueworks Live is in the middle range, and I would give it a five out of ten."

"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."

"The solution is not very expensive."

"You can use Paradigm on a subscription basis and you can choose from different tiers of subscription."

"This product is fairly cheap, but if you want more complex features, e.g. integration with other products, it does require an additional cost."

"Visual Paradigm costs $99 per license. I chose the cheapest option from the pricing list."

"The pricing of Visual Paradigm is very appropriate and affordable. There are no hidden costs involved."

"You can move between the tiers from month to month so you are not restricted to one pricing model."

"Pricing for Visual Paradigm is a four out of five for me. I'm happy with its pricing."

"Visual Paradigm has two models available. One of them is the educational edition, and another is the business edition. For my personal usage, I use the educational version mostly. In a project, my customers have to purchase a license."

"Compared to other solutions such as IBM Rational which is expensive, This solution is priced low."

More Visual Paradigm pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Educational Organization

10%

Manufacturing Company

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.

What do you like most about Visual Paradigm?

The solution is the best application for data modeling. It helps to architect business processes. Its best features are pricing and functionality.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Visual Paradigm?

I purchased Visual Paradigm on my own, and it was competitively priced, so I was fine with the pricing.

What needs improvement with Visual Paradigm?

The product can always get better as the industry changes, however, I didn't necessarily feel it was lacking for what I did with it.

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Product Reports

Download IBM Blueworks Live product report

IBM Blueworks Live

February 2025

Download Visual Paradigm product report

January 2025

Also Known As

IBM Lombardi Blueprint

No data available

Overview

IBM Blueworks Live is a cloud-based business process modeling tool that helps you discover, map and document your processes. It is easy to use, allowing you to learn and perform business process modeling in minutes.

With Blueworks Live you can:

Simplify business process modeling
Quickly build business processes in a straightforward, cloud-based interface designed for both IT and business users.

Improve process efficiency and accuracy
A central process repository eliminates version control and consistency issues by providing users real-time access to process workflows.

Enhance cross-team collaboration
A shared team workspace engages all business process owners, encouraging cross-team participation and continuous process improvement.

IBM

Visual Paradigm is a UML tool. The tool is designed for a wide range of users including software engineers, system analysts, business analysts and system architects, or for anyone who is interested in reliably building large-scale software systems using an object-oriented approach. In addition, Visual Paradigm supports the latest standards of UML notation.

Sample Customers

Cloudsoft Corp. Ltd., Bayer, S¾SS, Essex County Council

Adobe, Apple, at&t, Caterpillar, Intel, NASA, Nokia, Toyota