IBM Operational Decision Manager vs Pega Platform comparison

IBM and Pega are both solutions in the Business Rules Management category. IBM is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.5, while Pega is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.2. IBM holds a 35.4% mindshare in BRM, compared to Pega’s 22.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Pega users who would recommend it.

IBM Operational Decision Ma...

Read 15 IBM Operational Decision Manager reviews

1,085 Views
505 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Pega Platform

Read 82 Pega Platform reviews

388 Views
330 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

IBM Operational Decision Ma...

Pega Platform

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Pega Platform and IBM Operational Decision Manager compete in business process management and decision automation. While Pega Platform stands out with strong integration capabilities and low-code development, IBM Operational Decision Manager excels in advanced decision management, making it the better option for complex decision-making needs.

Features: Pega Platform offers robust integration options, dynamic case management, and agility in low-code development. IBM Operational Decision Manager provides powerful decision automation, rule authoring, and rule execution capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Pega could enhance its advanced rule-handling capabilities and decision automation features. Improvements to update processes from older versions could be beneficial. IBM might simplify deployment to reduce complexity and improve initial user engagement. Enhancing ease of use for beginners might also be considered.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Pega Platform simplifies deployment with cloud-native services and responsive support, facilitating faster implementation. IBM Operational Decision Manager requires more intricate configuration but offers comprehensive customer support for navigating complex features.

Pricing and ROI: Pega Platform presents a flexible pricing model that offers significant ROI through efficient development processes, lowering overall costs. IBM Operational Decision Manager involves higher setup costs but provides long-term value with its robust decision automation, making it a strategic investment for decision-heavy environments.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Operational Decision Manager vs. Pega Platform Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Operational Decision Manager vs. Pega Platform

January 2025

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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 Operational Decision Ma...

Ranking in Business Rules Management

2nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Pega Platform

Ranking in Business Rules Management

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Management (BPM) (3rd), Process Automation (2nd), Rapid Application Development Software (6th), Low-Code Development Platforms (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Business Rules Management category, the mindshare of IBM Operational Decision Manager is 35.4%, up from 35.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pega Platform is 22.4%, down from 22.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Rules Management

Featured Reviews

Bhasker ReddyPIdintla

Technical Delivery Head at Tech Mahindra Limited

The solution provides an efficient, comprehensive way to manage polices for all the applications.

We use ODM to set complex business rules. For instance, we deploy this solution for most of our banking customers because there are frequent changes in the policies and business rules. These are complex to manage for enterprise applications. ODM provides an efficient, comprehensive way to manage…

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Mallik-Kesavaraju

Independent Consultant at Selfemployed

Significantly improves the overall cycle time, and offers robotic automation, and the BPM workflow

The extensive availability of ready-made gadgets in Pega BPM is a double-edged sword. While it offers convenience, it also leads to a steeper learning curve. Our developers and business analysts need to invest significant time and effort to fully understand and utilize the platform's capabilities. In essence, it's a complex product that demands a deep understanding to be used effectively. So, it cuts both ways. This complexity can be both an advantage and a disadvantage, depending on the user's expertise. So, the learning curve is pretty high! So, it's very good if you are a professional user, but you need to be a really good professional user to use this solution effectively.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The business owns the rules and they're taken away from IT, so business doesn't need to ask IT to implement them, and IT doesn't need to implement them. So the business owns their decisions and their rules, and therefore, finally, they take proper ownership, and model and maintain them properly."

"It has benefited our organization by having less coding changes. Thus, we save time and don't have to hire as many people."

"The solution has reduced the backlog for IT."

"It's easy to build, easy to adopt for the business. Business can change those rules. I think IBM has done a good job in re-architecting the product with Decision Center as its centralized view, where the business can make changes to the rules dynamically."

"So far, the usability is great. It's also easy to set up."

"I like the fact that I don't have to deal with business rules, and then our business partners deal with it. I'm a developer, so I don't have to deal with that kind of stuff. I just make the code, then our business people take care of the business side. It's a great split."

"It reduces operating costs because you are taking some of this work out of the high cost IT people, freeing them up to work on new initiatives and getting them out of maintenance mode. Now, the business people are the ones making business decisions on what needs to change. They are hands on making these changes."

"ODM provides an efficient, comprehensive way to manage all the applications. Regardless of the BPM tool we are using, we choose ODM because it's flexible."

More IBM Operational Decision Manager pros

"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the various workflows."

"Pega BPM offers a lot of out-of-the-box functionalities."

"The most valuable feature of the product is that it's very customer-centric. It's easy to use for a customer or a user. It's also easy for someone who is developing an application. You can develop different features in just one place. You don't have to go to different places."

"The solution's most valuable feature is its quick setup. Nowhere else you can create a good-looking application this quick. It's a fairly robust system."

"Pega's technical support team is very helpful and I would rate them ten out of ten."

"Pega BPM has features for process and operation efficiency, business security texture, various report definitions like bar chart and pie chart, and management capabilities such as dashboards."

"Can do a lot of things with minimum time and cost."

"The most valuable features of the solution are case management, routing, and low-code environment."

More Pega Platform pros

Cons

"The platform is good. Its footprint is a little heavy. Other than that, the product works great."

"If merging could be just like SVN, that would help. It should be a lot simpler. That's the only thing I don't like about ODM, merging from our local computer up to the Decision Server. I feel like it could be a lot easier."

"The solution's licensing cost needs improvement."

"I think there should be a facility for business to really create rules from scratch. The only part for IT should be to make sure the platform is stable, the technology platform, but everything else, the business should be able to create those rules."

"An area for improvement is that the documentation for ODM is huge and not very clear."

"ODM could be improved with better integration with other platforms."

"Get to the cloud."

"I would like to have integration of the user interfaces, and they are putting them together in the next version of the solution."

More IBM Operational Decision Manager cons

"Pega is claiming they're into low code but as per Gartner Magic Quadrant, Pega is not there now."

"I've spent some hands-on time with the platform, and you can do those things, and it is all low code, but is it as easy as they make it sound? No. That's my two cents. For example, if I want to do something, there is no way to switch from low code. I just want to do a simple If-Then-Else rule, but I have to go through their low-code tool and do dragging and dropping. I'm a development person, and in my opinion, even some business users could do this easier. There is no way to go back and forth to an editor where I can just type in an If-Then-Else rule, which would be much faster than drawing in their low-code editor. They don't support that. They lead you too much."

"The cost of licensing could be improved."

"Pega BPM could be improved by including token-based authentication and extending its integration options."

"The solution needs to invest more in its technology. For public and private clouds, for example, the development environment is slow. Saving events should take one to two seconds, max, and because you are making changes often, the slowness cuts down on productivity because we have to wait for things to save before continuing."

"Pega currently is trying to add chatbots to their systems, and it's still quite immature. This part definitely needs to be improved."

"The UI needs reworking."

"The product's artificial intelligence capabilities could be improved. More advanced AI features could further optimize process automation and decision-making."

More Pega Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It was not a large cost. It was a one-time cost."

"We made a lifetime purchase. We purchased it by number of PVUs for our stage and product environments."

"We have a client who had a three-month ROI on this tool, just in additional sales, from sort of the next best action of what product that they should offer to their clients. ROI can be very quick with this product."

"It will definitely improve the cash flow of our clients, thereby it will improve the cash flow to us."

"It is an expensive solution."

"ODM's pricing could be more competitive as there are open-source business rules engines that are becoming standard."

"I rate Pega BPM a seven out of ten."

"The licensing model for Pega BPM needs to be improved."

"Pega BPM is expensive because it's a leading product, but it also delivers a good return on investment (ROI)."

"They have both on-premise and cloud licensing. If you are a small to medium company, go for the cloud option because that eliminates a lot of the setting up of your DevTest and performance environments, multiple environments, because you can buy that from Pega with the cloud option. So your setup time really goes down. If you're a large company, then you're better off putting it within your company. You have other skill resources within your company to create environments."

"In terms of the pricing for Pega BPM, other solutions may be cheaper, but it doesn't matter if Pega BPM has a higher price tag because what's important is that it's the best solution, and that is what people look for. If I would rate the pricing for the solution, I'd give it three out of five. You have to pay extra for additional features in Pega BPM."

"Its pricing is on the higher side, but they have come up with different plans and different small products that can be used by smaller organizations that don't have that much money to spend. They have different pricing packages depending on the number of users or depending upon the number of cases created in the production or live environment."

"The pricing is pretty good, compared to other similar products."

"It is cost-effective for medium enterprises. It is cheaper than ServiceNow."

More Pega Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

34%

Insurance Company

11%

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

29%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Operational Decision Manager?

It is a scalable solution.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Operational Decision Manager?

I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Operational Decision Manager?

The solution's licensing cost needs improvement.

See all answers

Is Pega BPM easy to work with and can beginners utilize this software?

You do need some preparation to be able to use all functions of Pega BPM. However, all users of this platform are in luck as it comes with good documentation and you can learn pretty much everythin...

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Have you encountered any issues while using Pega BPM and were you assisted by the company?

My company has been using this tool for years and the only issue we have had, if you can call it that, was while setting it up. When we were setting it up initially, we had some drawbacks and could...

See all answers

When you consider the features and benefits of Pega BPM, would you say this product is fairly priced?

Pega BPM can be considered overpriced for some; it all depends on the size of your company and the requirements of your customers. Sure, there are products out there that do the things that Pega B...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 68% of the time

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ServiceNow vs Pega Platform

Compared 20% of the time

Camunda vs Pega Platform

Compared 17% of the time

Appian vs Pega Platform

Compared 7% of the time

IBM BPM vs Pega Platform

Compared 6% of the time

Temporal vs Pega Platform

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Operational Decision Manager

February 2025

Download IBM Operational Decision Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

Pega Platform

February 2025

Download Pega Platform product report

Also Known As

IBM Operational Decision Management, ILOG JRules, IBM ODM

Pega BPM, Pegasystems, SmartBPM, PegaRULES

Overview

IBM Operational Decision Manager is a comprehensive decision automation platform that helps you discover, capture, analyze, automate and govern rules-based business decisions. Anyone can work with it―from IT to business-line leaders. In seconds, it can authorize a loan, decide on a promotion or detect a cross-sell opportunity with high precision and customization. With IBM Operational Decision Manager, your applications will continuously remain up to date and well aligned with the changing business objectives of your organization. It is available in editions for both cloud and private cloud environments.

IBM

Pega Platform facilitates business process management, case management, and workflow automation for industries like banking, insurance, and healthcare. It supports digital transformation and customer service enhancements with its low-code capabilities and seamless integrations.

Pega Platform enables users to create efficient systems for case management, financial operations, and digital transformations. It provides tools for client onboarding, quoting, claims processing, customer experience improvements, and content management. Pega's low-code approach allows for the automation of complex processes, making it suitable for enterprises looking for adaptability and rapid deployment. While it offers strong real-time analytics and decision automation, users acknowledge challenges in user interface, integration, and performance aspects. High costs and a learning curve need attention, and enhancements in AI features and cloud services are desired.

What are the key features of Pega Platform?

Easy Implementation: Quick setup for fast project kick-off.
Seamless Process Adaptation: Adapts processes efficiently as business needs evolve.
Fast Prototyping: Enables rapid model creation and testing.
Unified Architecture: Streamlines operations across the platform.
Low-Code Environment: Facilitates swift application development.
Scalability: Supports growth and high-demand scenarios.
Real-Time Analytics: Provides immediate insights into operations.
Decision Automation: Automates standard decision-making processes.
Reusable Components: Encourages efficiency in development through component reuse.

What benefits do organizations find with Pega Platform?

Rapid Deployment: Quick launch of new processes saves time and resources.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces costs through automation and streamlined workflows.
Customer-Centric Solutions: Enhances customer experiences through integrated systems.
Improved Productivity: Automation frees up employee resources for other tasks.
Reliable Performance: Consistent platform performance ensures business continuity.

In banking, Pega Platform automates loan processing, accelerates customer onboarding, and manages compliance. Insurance companies benefit from streamlined claims processing and policy management. Healthcare sectors use the platform for patient engagement and care coordination, enabling organizations to adapt quickly to changing industry requirements.

Pega

Sample Customers

Odyssey Transportation & Logistics Corporation, Swiss Customs, Athletes' Performance, L_elo, Versicherungskammer Bayern

The State of Maine, ANZ, Coca-Cola, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), ME, New South Wales, OptumRx, Texas Department of Transportation, UnitedHealthcare Medicare & Retirement

Buyer's Guide

IBM Operational Decision Manager vs. Pega Platform

January 2025

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