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

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
111
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (4th), Application Infrastructure (8th)
Oracle BPEL
Ranking in Process Automation
25th
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 February 2025, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of IBM BPM is 7.6%, down from 10.8% 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

SureshThota1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Good automation, stable, and scalable
The initial setup is complex, but once we have a mature framework in place, it has been working well. When deployed properly and as expected, customers are happy to use the solution. However, there is still a lot of configuration and installation taking time. IBM BPM provides a cloud-fast model, where it is possible to integrate automation of the process and where manual interaction is only necessary if automation is not available. We have implemented an ultimate installation that includes both capabilities, but some features were not enabled in the process access station. For example, I could not open KFC documents, they all uploaded, and saved the data, but could not do a profile page without manual interaction. IBM is still working on a permanent solution for this. The deployment time depends on the requirements, which can be critical, low, or medium-high. If the requirements are critical, it will take six to eight months. For medium requirements, it will take five months, and for low requirements, it will take only one month. Eight people were part of the deployment team.
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

"One thing that I love about them is that they make it easier to integrate with other systems, especially with the use of smaller files."
"The initial setup is straightforward and easy. I would give it a nine out of ten."
"IBM's deployment box is one huge black box. We can create all the services with our own code or without a codebase, however, we have a huge amount of space with practically no limitation."
"Responsive Portal + Process Federation Server. This set of solutions offers a unified worklist to our customers."
"The solution is stable."
"It is easy to take a requirement, put it in the code, and deploy it."
"It helps maintain, and in many instances, lower costs, as well as to maintain those costs, keeping them stable."
"One of the reasons for adopting this solution ten years ago was its ease of use. It had a lot of off-the-shelf functionality, and it did not need to be developed specifically for the project that we were implementing. That was the main reason for adopting it in the beginning."
"The most valuable feature is the support for human tasks."
"The product has everything we need."
"What I find the most valuable about Oracle BPEL is that it saves me time."
"The solution is very seamless and fast."
 

Cons

"We care about technology and support because support is very important and a BPM is not easy to implement."
"The engine itself tends to accumulate a lot of data that needs to be cleaned up, and that's the kind of thing that keeps it from, in some scenarios, scaling as much as it needs to. And then, when you're building solutions, if you're not careful to keep the screens from being associated with too much data, if you're going to just do things the way that a lot of people would just assume that they can do, without having experience of having made those mistakes before, it will accumulate a lot of data, and that will cause it to perform very badly."
"Needs better reporting. I do not think that we are fully taking advantage of what it already has yet."
"New users will need at least six months to get comfortable with IBM BPM, at least initially. So, there's a learning curve."
"We had a weird problem that whenever the database would go down, even for a few seconds, it broke the connection. It would not come back up as it was supposed to. However, working with IBM, we were able to figure out a fix, then it came back up, even after an interruption of the database."
"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 setup was quite complex because the solution was cutting-edge at that time and IBM invested considerably in the implementation, likely at a loss to themselves."
"The constant switch between Eclipse and its web versions can be annoying and confusing."
"The solution's integration with SAP should be seamless because some formats are not accepted in SAP but are accepted in Oracle BPEL."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"When considering the features of the solution the price is expensive compared to competitors."
"Due to its extensive features and capabilities, the product pricing is more aligned with medium—to large enterprises."
"It's expensive. All software is always extremely high. The manufacturing cost that we have compared to the selling cost, it's not like you're building a house or building a car. But putting that aside, considering that it's expensive, it's a lot of money. If you compare it with some of the other alternatives in the market, it's a similar price. For instance, if you compare it with Pegasystems, it's a similar price."
"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."
"It gives us a good return on investment."
"It is pricey."
"The product is moderately priced."
"The solution's pricing is moderate and not expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Process Automation solutions are best for your needs.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
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?
Once it is installed, maintaining it is not a big issue.
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
 

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.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.