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IBM BPM vs SAP NetWeaver Business Rules Management 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)
SAP NetWeaver Business Rule...
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
25th
Average Rating
6.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
2
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 SAP NetWeaver Business Rules Management is 0.4%, up from 0.3% 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.
HG
Good stability and good visibility but requires a better user interface
We're an SAP partner. We do also deploy some clients to the cloud, but 95% of the work we do with the solution is on-premises. I'd rate the solution six out of ten. I'm an architect, so I don't know enough about the implementation side to really be able to share any relevant first-hand experience in regards to setting the solution up.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution has streamlined our operation and improved the TAT of sales, operations, and underwriters."
"The most valuable features come in the bundle, the design process, creating services, creating BPDs, creating coaches, and UI/UX."
"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."
"We have automated processes with IBM BPM and DocuSign. Its valuable features include low-code, timer, etc. It makes it simple to implement the products. We generate reports using the solution."
"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."
"Initially, the process architecture studio was very helpful and it was compliant with BPMN standards."
"Its most valuable features are usability and integration with other IBM products."
"Enabled us to convert most of the paper-based work into an automated workflow process, and some of them were converted into straight-through processing, with no human interaction involved whatsoever."
"There are many features of the solution that are quite useful. For us, the most valuable aspect may be visibility."
 

Cons

"User Interface components could be further refined to enhance and extend customizations dictated by end clients."
"I believe that if the license were cheaper, it would have a greater impact."
"IBM BPM integrated with Spark UI and the UI is now much better, but they still need to improve the UI because competitors have predefined templates and other additional features. In these competitor's solutions, you are able to use the templates, map your data, and the form is ready to use. With this solution, you need to write a lot of code to have the same quality as the competitor's templates. It would be a benefit to make this platform more towards low-code or no-code."
"Except for the Lucene the index - we had a couple of issues in the Process Portal where the Lucene index went out of sync, and we had to work at least 15 - 20 hours to have it back in sync with the database."
"Finding errors and bugs on the system is not easy. We can't seem to use the events or logs to find them, so it makes it difficult to debug the system. They really need to work on their debugging features to make is much, much easier. It would improve the solution considerably and should be something they add in a future release."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in the stability."
"The solution could improve its user interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM could improve the price. It is far too expensive."
"Its price is on the higher side, and it can be improved. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. There are no additional costs."
"The cloud and license of the subscription model for IBM BPM can be complex. There are a lot of alternatives to choose from."
"IBM BPM is expensive, so most large companies opt for IBM based on their licensing options."
"​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."
"Due to its extensive features and capabilities, the product pricing is more aligned with medium—to large enterprises."
"We chose to purchase IBM BPM because it was bundled with the actual RPA program/solution that we decided to purchase. We decided to use Automation Anywhere tool (RPA), and it is was bundled with IBM BPM."
"I give the pricing an eight out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
No data available
 

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.
Ask a question
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Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
NetWeaver Business Rules Management
 

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
Dansk Supermarked A/S, Ego Pharmaceuticals Pty. Ltd, Kaeser Kompressoren, Lenovo
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