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IBM BPM vs SS&C Blue Prism comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 7, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM BPM
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
8th
Ranking in Process Automation
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (8th)
SS&C Blue Prism
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
21st
Ranking in Process Automation
23rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (21st), Medical Insurance Claims Software (3rd), Insurance Claims Processing (5th), Document Management Software (14th), Low-Code Development Platforms (23rd), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (12th), Loan Management Software (2nd), Document Automation Software (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of IBM BPM is 7.7%, up from 7.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SS&C Blue Prism is 0.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

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.
Venkat Sivaprakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Advanced language processing, useful for global business operations, and a quick setup
Some important features include the language capabilities, which are crucial since RPA has to read the documents provided by the customer. A separate OCR needs to be brought in if the language is different from English. Blue Prism was once the most expensive and advanced, especially when working with Java applications. However, the distinctions between Blue Prism and UiPath are blurring, offering similar advantages. UiPath has features that allow it to read and break down scanned copies into readable text, which is beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The installation was straightforward."
"Responsive Portal + Process Federation Server. This set of solutions offers a unified worklist to our customers."
"It is efficient in reducing costs."
"IBM BPM is both scalable and stable."
"IBM BPM is easy to deploy."
"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."
"This solution has streamlined our operation and improved the TAT of sales, operations, and underwriters."
"The solution is stable."
"Some important features include the language capabilities, which are crucial since RPA has to read the documents provided by the customer."
 

Cons

"We have had to use Mule as an alternative integration tool because it is more flexible than IBM BPM."
"It is a rather thick stack because you have to have WebSphere skills, IBM BPM skills, and an understanding of how the product runs on WebSphere. A lot of this will start to get a lot easier as they put it in containers, which will allow the platform to manage itself in some regards."
"I would say the scalability is very good but it's not perfect. It is much more scalable than it has been in the past but... it does require some work to keep it stable. So that is an area that should be improved."
"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."
"I suggest establishing a developer forum for better communication and issue resolution. Also, the administration panel could be improved for task management."
"They could provide case studies to investigate and understand the functionality of business processes before development."
"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."
"Consider an admin console during deployment. I would like to migrate single instances, not the whole bunch at once."
"Blue Prism is more costly than UiPath in terms of robotic licenses and orchestrators."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I wish it was less expensive. I don't know why their pricing model is so high for a piece of software that could benefit so many. It just seems to me that they could have a lower cost, maybe with fewer features or whatever, but it should be possible to do a lower cost workflow software that uses the same interface and underlying engine but does not cost so much that you have to be a Fortune 50 company to buy it. It is annoying to me. There are a lot of solutions that IBM has that are really powerful but nobody can afford them. They know their business, but I still feel that there are a lot of customers who would benefit from this sort of thing. I don't know what this elitism is all about. I am sure they have people doing the money numbers, but it seems like you can make a lot more money by selling it to way more people for a little bit less."
"I already compared some solutions related to business process management, and I saw that the cost of IBM BPM is more expensive compared with that of Camunda, for example."
"The pricing is very high."
"It is pricey."
"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."
"Its price is on the higher side, and it can be improved. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. There are no additional costs."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a ten."
"​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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
15%
Insurance Company
14%
Construction Company
4%
 

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 SS&C Blue Prism?
Blue Prism is more costly compared to UiPath with regard to robotic licenses and orchestrators.
What needs improvement with SS&C Blue Prism?
Blue Prism is more costly than UiPath in terms of robotic licenses and orchestrators. Blue Prism initially had more security features, differentiating Bluetooth services from UiPath. I am not sure ...
What is your primary use case for SS&C Blue Prism?
I am into GBS transformation, global business services transformation, as well as operations activation services. The work scope includes process mining projects, generative AI projects, and managi...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
SS&C AWD
 

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
AWS, EY, Deloitte, ABBYY, Microsoft, GLYNT.AI, Pfizer, Invesco, Western Union
Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda, Apache, Pega and others in Business Process Management (BPM). Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.