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IBM BPM vs Oracle SOA Suite 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)
Oracle SOA Suite
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
SOA Governance (1st)
 

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 Oracle SOA Suite is 3.9%, down from 4.7% 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.
MANOHAR SADDALA - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables seamless integration with multiple systems
I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten. It's not much more dynamic, not as dynamic as you may think, like seeing it in the cloud. In order to use it, you need to have the download servers and then scale up your systems. Oracle SOA Suites serves as a middle layer between applications. For example, let's say you have SAP, and we have Salesforce or Oracle ERP system. Users connect to those systems and perform certain activities or transactions on the applications. Now, if any data needs to be synchronized or any integration needs to happen between these applications, we use the Oracle SOA Suite. It acts as the bridge between the applications, not between the users. It's like having endpoints between the applications. Currently, we have 20 endpoints; 20 systems are connected to it, which is great. Oracle SOA Suite is being used daily. We are using it to its maximum potential.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is being able to see the process, and understanding what the process is versus having to bury it in code somewhere."
"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 functionality to design UI to be responsive and can run on multiple devices."
"This solution has always been lacking in the user interface (UI), it needed to be improved a lot. However, from the acquisition of Spark UI, the UI is much better. Overall the solution is robust and has the ability to integrate with any product for complex workflows."
"The solution offers great notifications."
"Everything is coupled together and comes as one solution."
"Automating the whole workflow process to give our data steward the ability to take actions rapidly, and making sure we have all the data synced within the different platforms that we are using."
"Process Modelling, simulation and optimization, integration, UI components."
"This is one of the critical products for my company and we use it extensively. We currently use each and every feature of Oracle SOA."
"I found the adapters to be most useful."
"We were able to scale out using multiple application and web servers balanced by hardware load balancers and Weblogic clustering."
"The stability of the solution is the most valuable feature."
"The Oracle SOA Suite has many useful features, and different organizations may place different emphases on the importance of each feature. Certain features are particularly important to the organization, such as the ability to access databases and transform messages, as well as the use of proxy services to secure web services with usernames and passwords. These features can be critical for enabling effective integration and data exchange between systems and applications."
"What I like best about Oracle SOA Suite is Oracle support. I also like the tool features, especially the integration feature."
"In case there is something that doesn't work out of the box, you have the flexibility to customize it."
"Middleware jobs developing for EC, ERP, and shipping systems become easier."
 

Cons

"Better integration with other products in the automation suite."
"The solution can improve integration with SAP, CRM, and Salesforce, which is not capital-intensive."
"They should incorporate an API gateway functionality within it to simplify integrations."
"I hope IBM uses something from IBM Content Navigator to make the interface easier to navigate."
"There is a lot of room for improvement of the dashboards."
"The stability varies because it involves a lot of other components like databases, so sometimes if something goes wrong there, it can't recover from the fatal errors."
"Process versioning was tricky, not straightforward."
"We had hoped that the product would provide us with plug-ins like Salesforce. Its development environment needs to improve. We expect to see elastic features like containerization. We don't just need an on-prem virtual machine."
"The Maven integration in JDeveloper is very basic and might be enhanced to allow the proper use of Maven."
"Another area of improvement is performance. Because with multiple solutions connecting to the SOA platform, the performance of the SOA platform can be affected in time. So, that could be one area that could be improved with the SOA."
"Its function options can be improved."
"SOA, OSB, SOA Cloud Service."
"If the disk space expansion can be made more flexible, not requiring a database restart, it would be a major benefit."
"The solution’s initial setup is complex and could be improved."
"The web services need to be more robust."
"An area for improvement in Oracle SOA Suite is the cost. It could be lower."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM BPM cannot be considered a cheaply priced product. IBM BPM is a really expensive product compared to other companies. One needs to opt for the perpetual licensing model offered by IBM."
"The pricing is quite high, I would rate it two out of five."
"Licensing is managed by the client, but we know it is yearly. Camunda is relatively cheaper. There is not much difference in pricing of IBM and PEGA. For large licensing, there are discounts as well."
"IBM could improve the price. It is far too expensive."
"It is pricey."
"The pricing is very high."
"I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten."
"Price wise, IBM BPM is cheaper than other similar solutions and has excellent pricing."
"Oracle SOA Suite is an expensive solution."
"This product is WebLogic based, hence it can be both resource hungry as well as expensive from a licensing point of view."
"The pricing is not very high as compared to its competitors."
"Oracle pricing is expensive. Support is based on your license. AWS is much better than Oracle in this regard."
"The product is moderately priced."
"It is necessary to evaluate the requirement regarding the platform usage and what the main operation area of the platform will be."
"Based on my knowledge, Oracle SOA Suite doesn't have user-based licensing. It has a system-based licensing model, so you pay for whole systems. Oracle SOA Suite is an expensive solution, so it's a four out of ten for me."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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 Oracle SOA Suite?
The solution's XSLT or XSL Transformation feature was very useful.
What needs improvement with Oracle SOA Suite?
The solution’s initial setup is complex and could be improved. A big challenge for Oracle SOA Suite is that you don't get too many technical resources.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
SOA Suite
 

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
7-Eleven, Arcor SAIC, Banca Transilvania, Eaton Corporation, Emdeon, Ferrovial, Griffith University, National Instruments, Pella Corporation, Vodafone Group Plc,
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM BPM vs. Oracle SOA Suite and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.