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IBM BPM vs vCenter Orchestrator comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 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 Process Automation
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (5th), Application Infrastructure (8th)
vCenter Orchestrator
Ranking in Process Automation
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of IBM BPM is 7.2%, down from 10.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vCenter Orchestrator is 0.2%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation
 

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.
David Villota - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides automatic monitoring capabilities that save time for users
In my company's IT environment, we use the tool to deploy production environments for products, including live manufacturing systems. The product improves my company's IT automation processes since we can use fewer resources currently. In my company, we need to spend less time considering that vCenter Orchestrator monitors everything. In general, we don't have to be present in our company to do active monitoring. Automatic monitoring is available for everything with vCenter Orchestrator, so we have proactive alerts in our company. The most valuable feature of the product in streamlining our company's workflow stems from the fact that we need to spend fewer resources and less time in general. Our company can spend time on more effective tasks like working with the plans to improve processes and so on, instead of taking care of the systems. The benefits of the product's integration capabilities were useful for HPE. My company has HPE infrastructure, and we are keen to integrate everything into the host, VMware ESXi. It is really important to have an easy integration method that allows for everything to be installed easily in a matter of minutes. I was not involved in the product's setup process. My colleague took care of the product's setup process. From what I know, I can say that the product's setup phase was straightforward. Some custom setups were to be done manually in the tool, but everything was well documented. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. One of the benefits of the product is that it is a low-cost and stable solution that offers a lot of resources. I rate the overall tool a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"It has an elaborated way to explore the IBM BPM processes."
"There is information during the process that the analyst will look at, their procedures. We created a part of the application such that the business can change those procedures as needed, on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. As the reps go through the process, they don't necessarily know it's changing, they just know they have to refer to some documentation, and the business can keep that up to date."
"This tool is very useful when it comes to enterprise-grade automation and governmental processes for the security aspects, performance, and reliability."
"Its workflow and integration with SAP are the most valuable features. It is also a stable solution."
"The Process Designer is good. We like how we can drag and drop and link the processes up, that works out great for us."
"There are two or three valuable features, like BPM."
"The designer feature, compared to other solutions is easy to use."
"We have excellent technical support. They have always been helpful when we have needed them."
"What I like best about vCenter Orchestrator is that it makes life easier through automation. People can request to automate all processes with vCenter Orchestrator, such as adding storage, creating VMs, removing VMs, and extending VMs."
"The most valuable feature for us is the performance stability of vCenter Orchestrator, especially in complex situations, making it excellent for managing virtual machines."
"The hardware abstraction layer, being able to make the VMs portable when moving to a different platform or over a WAN."
"User-friendly and easy to deploy."
"I like the tool's DNS feature."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is availability."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
 

Cons

"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."
"I'd like the tool to be more flexible."
"You must have good experience to work with it. It is not that easy. Its installation is complex, especially in the new version for business automation, and it could be improved. It has a safety application embedded inside it, and you need to do a lot of configuration to install it. I have been working for two days to resolve an issue."
"We have had to use Mule as an alternative integration tool because it is more flexible than IBM BPM."
"We still have a couple of issues that we are working on right now with stability. Mostly on the configuration side of the tool, and it has been about a month that we have been working to stabilize the platform.​"
"The configuration is not that easy, and the initial deployment took three months."
"I see room for improvement in terms of the overall experience."
"The debugging needs improvement. There is some confusion surrounding the debugging."
"Enhancing the platform's setup process intuitiveness and offering more flexible pricing options could further improve its accessibility across different company sizes."
"I would like to see better performance."
"The product’s cost needs improvement."
"The GUI should be enhanced in the future."
"I believe a transparent view and better terms of condition between Oracle and vCenter Orchestrator would be helpful."
"The interface could be improved to bring greater user-friendliness and ease of use."
"VMware tools would benefit from more automation. When installing our devices and servers, we often need to install the VMware tools manually. This process should be automated during the VM installation process."
"There can be compatibility issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When considering the features of the solution the price is expensive compared to competitors."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven out of ten."
"It gives us a good return on investment."
"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 solution is expensive since it is an enterprise application."
"It has a low cost to implement. You'll get your money back in the same year that you complete the project."
"It's expensive. All software is always extremely high. The manufacturing cost that we have compared to the selling cost, it's not like you're building a house or building a car. But putting that aside, considering that it's expensive, it's a lot of money. If you compare it with some of the other alternatives in the market, it's a similar price. For instance, if you compare it with Pegasystems, it's a similar price."
"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."
"This solution is expensive and the licensing is more attractive for Haveri."
"The price is reasonable, and one of the reasons that this product was selected."
"My company needs to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the product."
"The product is expensive."
"The licensing cost is manageable because they have different versions available, standard, essential, and advanced."
"The licensing module is somewhat complex. Calculating the cost is complicated. Many of our clients are unclear about the billing system and the traffic metering."
"We provide the VMware solution to our clients, for which they pay a perpetual license."
"vCenter Orchestrator could be more affordable."
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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
24%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
10%
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 vCenter Orchestrator?
The stability of the product is very good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for vCenter Orchestrator?
We're running a low-profile budget. This is not our main focus on investment technology, so we're trying to reduce costs due to the change from perpetual to subscription licenses.
What needs improvement with vCenter Orchestrator?
After the change from perpetual licensing to subscriptions, the cost model changed. We are considering alternatives since we lost the perpetual aspect, and support is changing.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
No data available
 

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
Beiersdorf Shared Services
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM BPM vs. vCenter Orchestrator and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.