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TIBCO Nimbus Control vs Visio comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Blueworks Live
Sponsored
Ranking in Business Process Design
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
TIBCO Nimbus Control
Ranking in Business Process Design
24th
Average Rating
5.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Visio
Ranking in Business Process Design
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
Mind Mapping Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of IBM Blueworks Live is 3.5%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Nimbus Control is 0.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Visio is 12.5%, down from 13.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design
 

Featured Reviews

AjarMathur - PeerSpot reviewer
An easily scalable and affordable solution that enables users to document and digitize processes with ease
IBM Blueworks is BPMN 2.0 compliant, but it does not adapt to the overarching BPMN 2.0 concepts. There is only one kind of BPMN 2.0 diagram. It is a process diagram. It doesn't have the concept of separate tools, which other products offer. If I had to do a hardcore BPMN 2.0 modeling, the product would have its own reservations. There were features we could not explore from a BPMN 2.0 perspective. Most of the time, people who are shifting from Microsoft Office tools to a digitized way of working still want the reporting capabilities to be strong. Some tools, like ARIS or Signavio, offer customized solutions from the reporting perspective. If I have documented my whole finance process and want to fetch out a complete SOP report in a very customized manner, IBM Blueworks cannot provide it. We have to rely on some other services. So that's one area in which we always struggled, how to really customize the reporting aspects. I understand that we need to keep the tool a little more asset-light. It's very difficult to keep adding many options, but at least a few BPMN 2.0 options were needed. We have been suggesting to IBM that we should have some way of customizing the reporting. At least we should get a custom way of reporting it into different formats like Excel or putting up a logo for one of the clients so that their SAP can be printed that way.
CW
It is overly complicated. It tends to get more engagement from people across the business.
Capturing business processes so they can be used as an operating manual for the business or a quality management system I have used it with clients. It helps them find information when they need to know how to do their jobs effectively. The process mapping approach is ideal for understanding how…
IckyDu Buisson - PeerSpot reviewer
Good modeling and flexibility but object oriented features needed
Visio should be object-oriented to enable the reusability of objects across different models. Currently, changes made in one model do not automatically reflect in other related models. Having a repository behind the objects would significantly improve its utility, providing a structured environment for managing various architectural components and their relationships.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has a built-in capability to capture process owners and managers against processes along with other process governance roles."
"The stability is pretty good. It is highly available, which is key. You don't lose your work and can autosave."
"It enables decisions based upon processes that we do model, and ultimately move forward with."
"This solution is good at utilizing standards rules for connectivity."
"It's very easy, very quick to create a process map. It has templates. The look and feel is very nice. What we want to achieve out of the process map, we can achieve it using Blueworks."
"The solution is easy to operate. Also, there is an automatic mode to make the business flow. You don't have to put any lines or arrows in a decision point in IBM Blueworks Live; it's very automatic."
"I like the two-tiered approach, that is, discover and then drill down to the main steps. You can right click and attach risk, policies, and much more. It is a user-friendly solution."
"Valuable features include real-time modeling and design work, the ability to perform workshops with clients in real-time with the tool, and getting instant output."
"It helps clients find information when they need to know how to do their jobs effectively."
"It tends to get more engagement from people across the business."
"I think the best part of Visio is that you can import drawings very well into Microsoft Word. For example, if you put the Visio drawing into Word, you can double click on it and it opens in Visio. It is a very useful feature and something which I miss switching to Enterprise Architect. In Enterprise Architect, if I import a drawing into Word it does not open the diagram in Enterprise Architect. This is one of the strongest features and the ability to create your own stencils."
"A good designation feature."
"The main reason I choose Visio is that it is easy to use. The user interface is familiar and straightforward. Additionally, it offers a variety of templates, such as those for Cisco solutions, which make it easy to create diagrams for specific use cases. For example, we use a Cisco Meraki switch and we can find the exact template for it, then we can easily drop in the components and connect the cables to create the diagram."
"The primary functionality revolves around the creation of flow diagrams and diverse Building Information Modeling (BIM) using contemporary and pre-established notations. In my perspective, these ready-made notations prove highly beneficial. Despite being a compact tool, it is effective for tasks such as drawing organizational charts, making it a straightforward and uncomplicated tool."
"Just the fact that a majority of the industry uses it, and you've got third-party templates that were created."
"I like that once you create what you need, you can group that, at least within that drawing, and you have access to that new stencil object or that custom object throughout that drawing."
"Architecture modeling software with satisfactory standard features. It's also stable and effective in facilitating communication with others."
"It is stable. I have never experienced any issues."
 

Cons

"Spaces are not well organized; space controls are lacking."
"In the Blue Works Live software boxes and lines are automatically placed by the programme and can't be easily manipulated."
"Some of the import functionality was a bit restrictive, in terms of loading data in from other data sources. Something as simple as Excel, loading data tables from Excel, wasn't great. And vice-versa. Some of the export and import functionality with something like Visio - which, I know it's a slightly different tool - but being able to work seamlessly with those other tool sets would've been quite useful. I know it was something that was in the pipeline to be looked at. So that would be useful."
"We'd also like to see it be Six Sigma or Lean compatible, a lot of people have asked about that."
"I would like to see integration with ERP systems. This would help us to simulate the process and see where the problems are. Though IBM Blueworks Live is a good tool for documenting, it is not good for simulating."
"The APIs are great, except the normal business user doesn't know how to create APIs. So it's hard because IBM comes to us as the business users and tell us to create reporting with APIs, except we don't know that, so we have to turn around and flip it to our IT people."
"In the solution Signavio, they have a customer journey mapping feature that should be added to IBM Blueworks Live. It's valuable to map or document the customer journey to identify the pains and opportunities in this process."
"There should be an option to import from and export to Microsoft Visio. Being able to move files back and forth between Blueworks Live and Visio would be good."
"This product could probably do with less features rather than more. It is overly complicated. In recent releases, it has become harder to use."
"Sometimes, there is a little bit of a learning curve with it, especially while doing complex network diagrams and getting the lines to snap the way you want them and not overlap or be confusing. It would be great if there was a built-in tutorial. It is not that you can't YouTube, but it would be nice if they gave you some free training. I've been using it forever, but every now and then, I got to do something complicated with it and I wonder how do I do that again. Maybe they do have such information, and I don't know. I have not done research on it because a bunch of people work for me, and some of them are better at it than I am, so I just ask them to do this for me."
"The solution could improve by having more integration."
"Visio can be more user-friendly."
"It's not the easiest software to use. It's not user-friendly out-of-the-box."
"Visio should be object-oriented to enable the reusability of objects across different models."
"The performance sometimes lags and has room for improvement."
"Indeed, Visio should progress beyond its current stage of solely drawing diagrams and transition into a more advanced phase, possibly integrating with different packages or aligning with Microsoft's offerings. It could potentially evolve into a comprehensive business process management solution, comparable to tools like Addis or Signavio, thereby competing in the realm of process management tools. It might be advantageous to explore functionalities such as process simulations or benchmarking, introducing simulators to discern potential bottlenecks or errors within complex flow diagrams. This addition would prove valuable for business analysts seeking insights into the intricacies of their diagrams, aligning with the evolving trends observed over the past six years."
"Extremely large complex drawings need to be saved on the cloud for access."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not very expensive."
"The solution is very, very cost-effective."
"Price wise, IBM Blueworks Live is in the middle range, and I would give it a five out of ten."
"We are seeing ROI from this solution. The solution has saved us time."
"They have a free subscription model that gives a lot of power to the users."
"There are editor licenses that are around 50 euros per month, and contributor licenses that are around 30 euros per month."
"Based on the licenses purchased, from a footprint perspective, you can have as many people as you want. You have multiple different categories of licenses to keep the cost low."
"Making it less expensive would be good."
Information not available
"The pricing of Visio is much better. It has a free version of the cheapest functionality which is enough for us."
"Visio is included with our Microsoft enterprise license."
"It is a free solution for us. It is integrated with our pack. We are trying to use the solutions that we already have."
"I haven't looked at the prices lately. We have an older copy, and it was a couple of hundred dollars for this software. That's a huge expense."
"We have about 10 to 15 people with Visio licenses in my company, but I wasn't involved in the direct negotiation of the prices since this was taken care of by my administrative office."
"It has a lower price point than the competition."
"Now we pay about $200, which is maybe $10 per user per month."
"You have to purchase a license to use the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
No data available
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Blueworks Live?
The solution is easy to operate. Also, there is an automatic mode to make the business flow. You don't have to put an...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Blueworks Live?
The solution costs around 600-700 dollars/year, which is quite affordable.
What needs improvement with IBM Blueworks Live?
Sometimes, the tool is automatic, which can complicate it, but once you're accustomed to manipulating it, you can use...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
How easy is it to migrate process flow charts (modeled using tools like Visio) into Bizagi?
I have been using Bizagi with a major project for a state government agency for about four years now. It is pretty st...
What do you like most about Visio?
The diagrams Visio creates are quite impressive in the sense that we can cooperate with more colleagues in one task a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Visio?
One of the main problems with Visio is its licensing options and associated issues, which lead to discussions about t...
 

Also Known As

IBM Lombardi Blueprint
Nimbus Control
Microsoft Visio
 

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cloudsoft Corp. Ltd., Bayer, S¾SS, Essex County Council
Air France-KLM, Airbus Helicopters, Alestra, Allianz Ireland, Ausgrid, Avantium, Bank of Montreal, Barclaycard, BNL, BVC (Columbia Stock Exchange), Cameron, Child Support Agency
Thomas College, Hamburg Port Authority, Portigon AG, Conseil G_n_ral du d_partement des Hautes-Alpes, AAA Auto a. s., Commonwealth Financial Network, ICA, Abu Dhabi National Energy Company
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Camunda, Software AG and others in Business Process Design. Updated: November 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.