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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

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"We made the transformation to agile. Altogether with BPM, it is the total package."
"It is a stale solution."
"We can scale by increasing the infrastructure which is currently running."
"The system integration layer is valuable because this enables an organization to create a single point where all the key organizational master data is held in different IT applications across different functions, that can be accessed and updated."
"It helps improve your process through continual measurement."
"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."
"I think the best way it can be it improved, is to make it easier to install. It's a very complicated piece of software, and there are a lot of things you have to do to get it set up. It's not just running an installer. You install WebSphere. You install the BPM product, and there's a large host of other steps you have to do: run queries against the database, you have to manually configure a bunch of properties files for your environment. I think if they could streamline all that, so it wasn't a considerable effort to install, that would be very useful. Because from an engineering point of view, you want to spend as little time as possible actually installing a product."
"Middleware jobs developing for EC, ERP, and shipping systems become easier."
"The most valuable features for us are the APIs, which we commonly use, as well as the scheduling capabilities and file transfers."
"The new product has come out with SOA Cloud Service and Integration Analytics as well, which gives more options for clients to pick their point of requirements."
"In case there is something that doesn't work out of the box, you have the flexibility to customize it."
"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."
"In Oracle SOA Suite some applications are not able to use REST, but it can support both SOAP and REST. You're able to integrate quite a lot of systems, which may not be able to in other solutions. You can also use XML and JSON. It is a standardizing type of tool. It doesn't matter whether I'm using JSON or XML, it can convert them."
"The solution's XSLT or XSL Transformation feature was very useful."
 

Cons

"They should incorporate an API gateway functionality within it to simplify integrations."
"The analysis reports could be much better."
"I would like it more documentation during the design phase."
"There is room for improvement in the stability."
"The front end is not customised for a good user experience."
"We care about technology and support because support is very important and a BPM is not easy to implement."
"There needs to be better documentation for IBM BPM in a central place. There is not any standard documentation for each component available and has been a barrier for developers."
"IBM BPM can improve the dashboards and reports. It only has two dashboards, and reporting is very difficult to build."
"The technical support is good, we have premier support which costs extra."
"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."
"The installation and adjustment process seems too complex."
"Other solutions might be better componets such as Salesforce."
"It's also not developer-friendly."
"I want to see easier integration connections with other cloud-based tools."
"SOA"
"The web services need to be more robust."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a yearly licensing model. It is not expensive. There are no addition costs to the standard license."
"It is pricey."
"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."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a ten."
"I think it's a reasonably priced tool, but it's important to consider which customers should buy this solution. It's designed for enterprise customers, not small ones."
"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."
"IBM could improve the price. It is far too expensive."
"It has a low cost to implement. You'll get your money back in the same year that you complete the project."
"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."
"Oracle pricing is expensive. Support is based on your license. AWS is much better than Oracle in this regard."
"The pricing is not very high as compared to its competitors."
"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 product is moderately priced."
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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
14%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
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: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.