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IBM BPM vs Oracle BPEL comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 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 BPM
Ranking in Process Automation
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (5th), Application Infrastructure (7th)
Oracle BPEL
Ranking in Process Automation
21st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of IBM BPM is 8.8%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle BPEL is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Mohammed Almalki - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good case management and its integration with process design but there's a learning curve
If you're already an IBM shop with the necessary skills and personnel, then I would recommend using it. However, it requires a yearly investment. So, if you're prepared for that, then go for it. New users will need at least six months to get comfortable with IBM BPM, at least initially. So, there's a learning curve. Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. Two main reasons: the skillset required to manage it and its integration complexity.
PN
A highly scalable solution that provides various features for the execution of business processes
I'm a consultant. I do architecting, designing, and development. I have used two versions, 1.1 and 2.0. I’m unsure about the prices because I oversee the development and implementation. I'll highly recommend the product depending on an organization’s requirements. As someone who has worked with BPEL for 13 years, I highly recommend the product for an on-premise or hybrid integration. Multiple products or alternate solutions have come into the integration domain. However, the product has been in the industry from SOA 11g to SOA 12c and OIC. Though there are multiple competitors, the product has been here for a long time and has been helping multiple customers improve their business. Overall, I rate the solution a nine or nine and a half out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has improved my organization quite a bit. It brought awareness to what the business processes are, even to the business side, who did not necessarily know what they are."
"It helps maintain, and in many instances, lower costs, as well as to maintain those costs, keeping them stable."
"I liked its robustness the most. It was a very robust platform in my experience. It seemed like a very stable and powerful tool for handling lots of concurrent users and hammering at the system."
"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."
"The solution is stable."
"IBM BPM's best features include document sharing, management document creation, widget and barcode creation, and integration."
"There is a component of this BPM pool - I can't recall the name. What it does is, it allows you to create various scenarios and then run them quickly, before actually putting them onto a tool. So I think that part of the tool is really fantastic, because that enables you to create scenarios, create simulations, before actually going out and putting it into the tool itself"
"Setting it up is fairly easy. If somebody has knowledge of the system, he or she will be able to do it fairly quickly."
"The solution is very seamless and fast."
"The product has everything we need."
"The most valuable feature is the support for human tasks."
"What I find the most valuable about Oracle BPEL is that it saves me time."
 

Cons

"One of the things that we are looking at is cognitive learning. IBM has another product called IBM RPA, I think, which is doing some of that stuff. We would like to see more of that with respect to cognitive learning and AI put back into the process engine to help."
"The initial setup was complex."
"They could provide case studies to investigate and understand the functionality of business processes before development."
"We would appreciate more user-friendly definitions of processes with a more user-friendly interface for documenting processes."
"UI is an area with a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"The major issue is the pricing, which is very high. IBM BPM also lacks smaller solutions, so I must purchase multiple solutions to start with workflows and applications."
"IBM BPM can improve the dashboards and reports. It only has two dashboards, and reporting is very difficult to build."
"The debugging needs improvement. There is some confusion surrounding the debugging."
"The solution's integration with SAP should be seamless because some formats are not accepted in SAP but are accepted in Oracle BPEL."
"In the next release, I would like to see REST improved and new technologies for microservices. I'd like to see more containers for separating containers."
"Some user-defined functions for transformation must be added to the next release of the solution."
"They need to have support for new protocols like GraphQL and possibly some out-of-the-box adapters for SAP and other big systems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Starting out with Express can also help reduce the cost for adopting the product."
"Our customers do see ROI. They'll identify some particularly painful or uncoordinated processes to start with, then build out from there, picking off low hanging fruit."
"It may be cheaper for organizations to pay for the Viewer licenses that are immediately up and running in the cloud, rather than paying for someone to administer publishing to an intranet."
"The price of the solution is fair for an enterprise solution that has both cloud and on-premise deployments and when comparing to competitors. Recently IBM has introduced Cloud Pak which allows for more flexible licensing options for automation and other features."
"IBM could improve the price. It is far too expensive."
"Due to its extensive features and capabilities, the product pricing is more aligned with medium—to large enterprises."
"The cloud and license of the subscription model for IBM BPM can be complex. There are a lot of alternatives to choose from."
"The solution is expensive since it is an enterprise application."
"The product is moderately priced."
"The solution's pricing is moderate and not expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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?
SAP is more expensive, but IBM BPM is very expensive. If a scale of one to ten is used, I would rate IBM BPM at nine in terms of pricing.
What needs improvement with Oracle BPEL?
They need to have support for new protocols like GraphQL and possibly some out-of-the-box adapters for SAP and other big systems. It should be better if the SAP adapter were included in the bundle.
What is your primary use case for Oracle BPEL?
We primarily use Oracle BPEL for process automation. It is used for workflows for documents, data transfers, and other processes implemented for our customers.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
BPEL Process Manager
 

Learn More

 

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
Nacional Monte de Piedad IAP, Bimbo S.A. de C.V., Intelligent Pathways, DVZ Datenverarbeitungszentrum Mecklenburg-Vorpommern GmbH, Arqiva
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM BPM vs. Oracle BPEL and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.