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IBM BPM vs Microsoft .NET Framework comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

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 BPM
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (5th), Process Automation (4th)
Microsoft .NET Framework
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM BPM is 3.0%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft .NET Framework is 5.8%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Kamran - PeerSpot reviewer
Has efficient processes and intuitive workflow with many valuable features
You will have access to make any needed changes. Additionally, the review will be published on PeerSpot.com in written or audio format, available to other people. You can stay anonymous if you wish. Notifications and the use of the review are subject to PeerSpot's terms of use, which you can find at PeerSpot.com/TOS. I would give the solution an overall rating of ten out of ten points.
Pavan Kodur - PeerSpot reviewer
Intuitive, easier to develop, maintain, and migrate from the old framework to newer versions
There are a few areas where they could compete better with products like React or Angular – the popular SPA (Single Page Application) frameworks. Microsoft has its own product called Blazor, but I don't think it's quite as powerful yet as React or Angular. I think that's an area for improvement. For example, HR asked me to build something that worked offline and online. Microsoft products don't really support that well, as I'd have to rely on browser databases. React and Angular are better for that. If I need something faster, I'd definitely use React. So, I see Microsoft lagging a bit in that area.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It excels at analytics. It provides visibility across all activities of a company's processes and performance."
"This solution is very stable."
"Agility is the key. It gives our customers a faster way to be able to implement processes, get ownership of task, visibility into a process. The ability to modify that process, optimize that process over time, is probably the biggest benefit that they get from the software."
"The Process Designer is good. We like how we can drag and drop and link the processes up, that works out great for us."
"The performance is fine."
"One of the most notable things is how you can develop use cases with the customers, internal customers, but directly within. The software process model that BPM supports is really exciting in that aspect."
"They have some quick-win programs that are designed to come in, they'll bring a developer in and they'll work with your developer to get you started. That's what we did and that worked really great. We got an understanding of the product, we got an understanding of how to deploy the product. And when we were done with that engagement, we were off and running."
"We made the transformation to agile. Altogether with BPM, it is the total package."
"Proven solution with valuable customization."
"If we take low code, no code platform such as RPA platforms, you might end up writing 100 lines of code and you might do it in a single line of code using. NET."
"The solution is not limited in storage, is customizable and simple to use."
"I'd rate the solution as highly stable."
"The Windows Communication Foundation is the biggest advantage we get from the .NET Framework."
"The most valuable feature is the financial accounting."
"The addition of generics to handle common functionality across types, and the more recent upgrade of the dataset to the Entity Framework, has cut development time drastically, while increasing quality and confidence between builds."
"It is a stable solution."
 

Cons

"IBM BPM can improve the dashboards and reports. It only has two dashboards, and reporting is very difficult to build."
"I would like to see the front-end support improved because it should be fully integrated and supported."
"The initial setup was complex."
"The constant switch between Eclipse and its web versions can be annoying and confusing."
"We would like better performance and more ​visibility on each step of the tool.​"
"The solution has scalability issues; on a scale, I would rate it at eight out of ten."
"We have had to use Mule as an alternative integration tool because it is more flexible than IBM BPM."
"It is a really powerful tool, but its entry price is so high, which makes it a very exclusive club for who gets to use it. The thing that seemed to be the most intolerable was that you could put lots and lots of users on it, and it worked fine, but if you put lots and lots of developers on it, it sure seemed to have challenges. The biggest challenge was the development because of the Eclipse tool. It just seemed like irrespective of the development team that you put together, whether it had 10 or 50 people, you would end up having to reboot the development server throughout the day when you concurrently had lots of people hammering on the system. The development server just got sluggish. This was true for every project I was on. Once you got more than about five people working on the system at the same time, it would just get slower and slower during development work, and the only way to fix it was to reboot the server. It became just like a routine. Sometimes, we would reboot at lunch or dinner time, which is silly. After the cloud instances started rolling out, I never saw that again. That was probably the one big advantage of the cloud version. Instead of using an independent Eclipse-based process development tool, we moved to web-based process and design. The web-based tool definitely had greater performance than the Eclipse-based tool. I never got onto another project after that with 50 people, so I don't know how the performance is when you get a large team on it, but it definitely seems that the cloud design tool was a massive improvement."
"You need to have the technical expertise to use this product."
".NET Is still heavy or dependant on other Microsoft libraries and frameworks."
"I would want the product to be integrated with the different AI tools in the future since it is one of the areas where the product has certain shortcomings."
"The solution could improve by optimizing the memory for better performance."
"The solution needs to update its security periodically because there are many security concerns."
"The product’s reliability needs improvement."
"The .NET open source community could be larger."
"The cloud features must be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive considering the hardware and software costs."
"I give the pricing an eight out of ten."
"The solution is highly-priced."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a ten."
"It gives us a good return on investment."
"The solution might be expensive, but I can't give you a precise number. In the market here, I've seen two main products for BPM: IBM BPM and Camunda. Camunda is very popular and open-source, so there's no direct comparison."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven out of ten."
"​We have definitely seen ROI. When we first kicked it off, we said it had to pay for itself within three years, and it did."
"Microsoft .NET Framework is a free, open-source solution."
"Do your homework. Consider the partnership program."
"Microsoft .NET Framework is very cost-effective for corporate users."
"The solution is free but you need to pay for a license for the hosting service."
"Microsoft .NET Framework is free of cost."
"The pricing could be cheaper."
"In the interim, there's no need to purchase videos for viewing. Microsoft has made significant moves in the .NET space, starting with their response in Visual Studio Code and now providing Visual Studio entirely for free. This is a notable shift from the past when we used to pay substantial amounts for technical subscriptions. Previously, a group of ten developers could cost several thousand dollars annually for licensing. However, the current trend is to offer these tools for free to maintain their dominance in the developer market. The market dynamics have changed, and now developers can freely download Visual Studio, making it a preferred choice over other paid options."
"Microsoft .NET Framework is licensed under the Windows License."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Real Estate/Law Firm
11%
Construction Company
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better, IBM BPM or IBM Business Automation Workflow?
We researched both IBM solutions and in the end, we chose Business Automation Workflow. IBM BPM has a good user interface and the BPM coach is a helpful tool. The API is very useful in providing en...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM BPM?
Once it is installed, maintaining it is not a big issue.
What do you like most about Microsoft .NET Framework?
Microsoft .NET Framework continually innovates, particularly in Visual Studio, which focuses on improving languages, debugging, and .NET functionality.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft .NET Framework?
The company is not paying anything for the license. I am not familiar with this area. For us, it's free.
What needs improvement with Microsoft .NET Framework?
There may be some topics regarding connectivity and management of certificates that require attention. We are currently facing some issues.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
MS .NET Framework
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Barclays, EmeriCon, Banca Popolare di Milano, CST Consulting, KeyBank, KPMG, Prolifics, Sandhata Technologies Ltd., State of Alaska, Humana S.A., Saperion, esciris, Banco Espirito Santo
Curtin University, Rockwell Automation, Aruba Networks, Insurity Inc., City of Barcelona, Pennsylvania DCNR, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, A1 Telekom Austria AG, Eastman Chemical Company
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM BPM vs. Microsoft .NET Framework and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.