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ARIS BPA vs IBM BPM 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.8
ARIS BPA varies in ROI timelines, enhancing process understanding and control but with hard-to-quantify financial impacts.
Sentiment score
7.5
Businesses using IBM BPM reported improved efficiency, automation, and cost savings despite high costs and moderate ROI.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
ARIS BPA's support is praised for technical assistance and flexibility but could improve in responsiveness and communication.
Sentiment score
6.6
IBM BPM customer service is generally positive, with effective support, though response delays and communication issues are noted.
The consultants are fine, however, reliance on single experts for modules can be risky.
The customer service is outstanding.
We had a contract that provided on-site support, which was very satisfactory.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
ARIS BPA is scalable for small to large enterprises, offering flexibility, modular features, and easy licensing for process management expansion.
Sentiment score
6.9
IBM BPM offers impressive scalability, efficiently managing high user volumes with varied experiences and requiring occasional careful tuning.
For user scalability, it is a matter of licenses, while functional scalability is supported and easy to implement.
ARIS BPA has high scalability and wide scalability for any enterprise or organization.
The solution has scalability issues; on a scale, I would rate it at eight out of ten.
I found IBM BPM to be scalable to a certain level but it struggled with large volumes of concurrent transactions.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
ARIS BPA is generally stable, with minor issues primarily in large environments, but responsive support enhances stability perception.
Sentiment score
7.1
IBM BPM stability varies; recent versions improve reliability, but issues remain with infrastructure, configuration, and developer expertise.
The stability of ARIS BPM is quite strong, rated eight out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

ARIS BPA needs better integration, user interface, scripting, documentation, training, pricing, and simplicity for wider accessibility.
IBM BPM needs improved customization, integration, and user-friendliness, addressing complexity and high cost with enhanced API and AI features.
Software AG should focus on developing AI models for ARIS BPA on-premises, particularly in user interfaces, as well as creating predefined business processes for common areas such as HR and finance.
Software AG could improve this by making the database more open.
ARIS BPA needs to be more accurate when generating documents.
IBM BPM also lacks smaller solutions, so I must purchase multiple solutions to start with workflows and applications.
 

Setup Cost

ARIS BPA pricing is high but valued by large enterprises; smaller firms may find costs prohibitive due to complex licensing.
IBM BPM's high costs suit large enterprises, while flexible Cloud Pak and tiered licensing offer varied pricing options.
SAP is more expensive, but IBM BPM is very expensive.
 

Valuable Features

ARIS BPA offers powerful modeling, customization, and collaboration tools, integrating SAP and databases, ensuring strategic alignment and governance.
IBM BPM offers integration, scalability, and low-code development with strong UI, enhancing efficiency and reducing complexities.
ARIS BPA is a tool to build models and frameworks for organizations or reengineer business processes from both functional and business perspectives.
The solution is very stable with no stability issues.
The maintenance capabilities of ARIS BPM and the strong underlying database are particularly valuable.
The integration capabilities of IBM BPM are excellent.
 

Categories and Ranking

ARIS BPA
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (5th)
IBM BPM
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (6th), Process Automation (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of ARIS BPA is 4.8%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM BPM is 6.9%, down from 7.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

Featured Reviews

Tamer Eldamanhouri - PeerSpot reviewer
Empowers teams with robust business process modeling capabilities
They should examine competitor solutions to identify differentiators. One issue related to ARIS BPA is its integration with AI; it has AI features for cloud solutions, yet many in the government sector in Kuwait do not view the cloud as viable. Software AG should focus on developing AI models for ARIS BPA on-premises, particularly in user interfaces, as well as creating predefined business processes for common areas such as HR and finance. This aspect is crucial for adapting to the market's needs and streamlining custom solutions. While they have been helpful regarding pricing, I cannot compare ARIS BPA to other business process modeling tools because I understand some competitors have significantly lower costs than ARIS BPA. To maintain market share, good discounts should be provided to customers.
Prince Mathew - PeerSpot reviewer
More customizable than IBM FileNet and useful for automation
One suggestion for IBM BPM is to provide better integration between their products, such as DataCap, which we use for scanning. Although the new CP4BA offers offline capabilities, not everyone is on CP4BA, so enhanced integration for those on older versions would be beneficial. Another major suggestion is to offer a migration path when a product reaches its end of life. For example, there was no migration path when we moved, so we had to redo everything we had developed over ten years completely.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business Process Management (BPM) solutions are best for your needs.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ARIS BPA?
The most valuable features of ARIS BPA are its flexibility and reporting.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ARIS BPA?
Pricing for ARIS BPA is average, not cheap or expensive. It's cost-effective and worth the money we pay.
What needs improvement with ARIS BPA?
I find it difficult to access the database as I want with direct querying. I must write scripts, which requires specific knowledge. Software AG could improve this by making the database more open. ...
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM
WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tesco, Weifu, Airbus, Siemens, Proximus, Alicorp, Sekerbank, Bancor, Philips,Sky, Emirates NBD, Dubai Municipality, Suva, U.S. Army, Australia Post, Westfalen Weser Energie - ARIS serves customers across all industries and of every size worldwide. Companies trust ARIS as the market leader for process excellence with more than 30 years of experience in the market, 10 million users worldwide, from 1 user companies to the Fortune 500.
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
Find out what your peers are saying about ARIS BPA vs. IBM BPM and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.