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IBM BPM vs TIBCO iProcess Suite comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 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 Business Process Management (BPM)
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (8th), Process Automation (5th)
TIBCO iProcess Suite
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
39th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of IBM BPM is 7.4%, up from 7.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO iProcess Suite is 0.3%, down from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

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.
SA
An easy-to-use solution with great integration
It involves a lot of investment. The learning curve is not similar to other products, like K2. Regarding the user interface, I have to access workflows and define and manage the processes on the variant of a Windows application, which is not accessible if you don't have access from the client to install it on the workstation. And most of the solutions we're currently evaluating are web-based. Our customers and developers have complained that the UI is a little bit confusing. It has lots of elements. It's not user-intuitive compared to other products. Other than that, the licensing model is our main concern.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is efficient in reducing costs."
"They have some quick-win programs that are designed to come in, they'll bring a developer in and they'll work with your developer to get you started. That's what we did and that worked really great. We got an understanding of the product, we got an understanding of how to deploy the product. And when we were done with that engagement, we were off and running."
"The performance is fine."
"Some of the features that I like the most are team management and process performance. They are both very useful and very powerful with regard to the workflow."
"IBM BPM should become cloud-native. It should also add a cloud deployment feature."
"It is easy to take a requirement, put it in the code, and deploy it."
"Good user interface and good add option."
"The integration capabilities of IBM BPM are excellent."
"It's very simple to use and the integration features between Java and other services within the workflow are very easy."
 

Cons

"We have been experiencing bad performance and instability."
"The initial setup process is complex for basic users."
"It is a really powerful tool, but its entry price is so high, which makes it a very exclusive club for who gets to use it. The thing that seemed to be the most intolerable was that you could put lots and lots of users on it, and it worked fine, but if you put lots and lots of developers on it, it sure seemed to have challenges. The biggest challenge was the development because of the Eclipse tool. It just seemed like irrespective of the development team that you put together, whether it had 10 or 50 people, you would end up having to reboot the development server throughout the day when you concurrently had lots of people hammering on the system. The development server just got sluggish. This was true for every project I was on. Once you got more than about five people working on the system at the same time, it would just get slower and slower during development work, and the only way to fix it was to reboot the server. It became just like a routine. Sometimes, we would reboot at lunch or dinner time, which is silly. After the cloud instances started rolling out, I never saw that again. That was probably the one big advantage of the cloud version. Instead of using an independent Eclipse-based process development tool, we moved to web-based process and design. The web-based tool definitely had greater performance than the Eclipse-based tool. I never got onto another project after that with 50 people, so I don't know how the performance is when you get a large team on it, but it definitely seems that the cloud design tool was a massive improvement."
"The product is extremely complex to use and administrate."
"Our developers are complaining that it's too complex to maintain."
"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 coaches and the user interface are the areas that can be improved a lot. It is good in terms of data processing, but the UI, scripting, and coaches are not very user-friendly and developer-friendly. Performance is always an issue. The scripting and the pattern that it uses are very tedious for new developers to understand, and it takes time to master it in depth. When comparing IBM BPM with IBM APN, a lot of things are provided out of the box in IBM APN. We don't have to write code or a Java connector to make a functionality work. It would be very helpful and time-saving for developers if IBM BPM is improved in this area to provide many functionalities or drag-and-drop options so that the developers don't have to write the code."
"IBM BPM can improve the dashboards and reports. It only has two dashboards, and reporting is very difficult to build."
"Our customers and developers have complained that the UI is a little bit confusing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cloud and license of the subscription model for IBM BPM can be complex. There are a lot of alternatives to choose from."
"When considering the features of the solution the price is expensive compared to competitors."
"Its price is on the higher side, and it can be improved. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. There are no additional costs."
"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."
"Price wise, IBM BPM is cheaper than other similar solutions and has excellent pricing."
"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."
"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."
"I give the pricing an eight out of ten."
"The price could definitely be lower."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

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
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
iProcess 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
Delta Air Lines, Detroit Water and Sewerage, DVLA, E-Plus, FedEx, Geisinger Health System, ING Turkey, Kempen & Co., KPN, LCL, Merck, Merial
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM BPM vs. TIBCO iProcess Suite and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.