No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

AWS Step Functions vs Bonita 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

AWS Step Functions
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Workload Automation (9th)
Bonita
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
29th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (17th), Process Automation (28th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of AWS Step Functions is 1.4%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Bonita is 1.7%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AWS Step Functions1.4%
Bonita1.7%
Other96.9%
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

Featured Reviews

YM
Senior Software Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Central orchestration has streamlined complex data workflows and now drives timely aviation alerts
The best features AWS Step Functions offers include the ability to deploy it via code. It helps us orchestrate anything that we want. Even if we have Glue jobs for another use case or Lambda that we are currently looking forward to, we are using Lambda to take DynamoDB data for real-time sales monitoring, then it goes to our S3 bucket. We have multiple workflows that are orchestrated by AWS Step Functions, and at the core, the main functionality is based on different frameworks. We have an Athena complete workflow, Glue job-based workflow, and a separate Lambda-based workflow. All of these are separately handled in AWS Step Functions. This is a good point and again with the inbuilt facilities of it, including how we can construct those workflows and add up a catch state or roll back or do multiple iterations using the Map state, that is very helpful for us.The Map state feature has specifically helped my team create a rollback state of the data since we were dropping some of our data assets. In case we want them back, we just wanted to do this. We took a particular layer and provided the data list, including the tables list, and using the Map state, we iterated over this list and one by one we did the backups of this data at the concurrency of five tables in a single execution. The Catch state, on the other hand, allows us to identify any error immediately. If we encounter an error, the Catch state immediately picks it up and we integrated webhooks or email notifications. That is how we are able to identify immediately if we face any error. At the core of our data engineering platform, AWS Step Functions sit at the topmost core of whatever pipelines we have. It is a main orchestration tool for us and helps us save costs. It is a key component of our engineering platform.
Paparao Nadipineni - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at Evoke
A simple and lightweight college course automation system with third-party integrations
The initial setup is straightforward and can be completed with the environment within an hour. First, take the latest from the git repository and check the git code to the monitor studio and a bar file, a deployable Bonita archive file. Then, take that process to the Bonita server, running at runtime on another server. Finally, deploy and enable it by selecting the proper organization.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If you want to create a workflow to call one Lambda function after another, and other serverless features, it could save you a ton of money. That's for sure."
"It's a general solution that you can adapt to your own needs and is simple to use. We like that it can be integrated with everything in the AWS suite, and that the creation of the pipeline can be done using the graphical user interface."
"It is a scalable solution."
"Overall, I would rate AWS Step Functions at least nine out of ten."
"The JSON app launched recently allows us to define data execution more easily."
"It has enabled my organization to create workflows with a lot of different AWS services; it's a general solution that you can adapt to your own needs and is simple to use."
"At the core of our data engineering platform, AWS Step Functions sit at the topmost core of whatever pipelines we have, is a main orchestration tool for us, helps us save costs, and is a key component of our engineering platform."
"The integration capability is easy, whereas building state machines is tricky."
"This product is very easy-to-use and user-friendly."
"The user interface is better than all of the open-source BPMs that I have tried."
"Flexible and drag-and-drop type of UI is very valuable. The integrations are also very good. You can build workflows very quickly, which is my favorite activity. By using the GUI, you can build the entire mechanism, notifications, and all this kind of stuff."
"Bonita is user-friendly, and the features are useful."
"Bonitasoft helped us automate complicated and labor intensive processes"
"Development of forms and flows."
"When there is heavy customization in the process Bonita is the best compare to other products in the market."
"Process automation with Bonita BPM is really easy."
 

Cons

"I think AWS Step Functions is good, but the UI in the console can be much more user-friendly."
"The price and support are areas with shortcomings where the solution needs to improve."
"Increasing the payload size would be beneficial."
"If AWS Step Functions keeps adding more integrations, it would be even better."
"It is difficult to suggest improvements at the moment."
"It is hard to coordinate the declaratory language."
"Setup took about one day. We had some errors to understand in the beginning, but now everything is working good."
"One area for improvement is the payload size. Currently, I sometimes have to save data as a file since I cannot pass it within Step Functions, necessitating caching in processes."
"The initial setup is not easy compared to other products."
"At times Bonita BPM Studio crashes, intermittently."
"Automation in vacation of a human resources replacement would be a good improvement in the product."
"Bonita can improve by offering more flexibility."
"We are struggling a bit with integrations."
"There is a considerable learning curve."
"I have run into a lot of problems because there is not enough documentation."
"There could be an improvement in IoT connectivity."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's price is reasonable."
"The solution is expensive."
"You pay an annual fee and can have an unlimited number of processes and users."
"We are using the Community Version, which can be used free of charge."
"The Enterprise edition is very expensive."
"The product's pricing is acceptable. Pricing is yearly."
"Price to service ratio with Bonita BPM is good."
"Licensing cost for the Enterprise edition comes out to be around 40,000 a year. There is also a Community edition, which is free. Some customers can go for the Community edition, but some of them require the Enterprise edition. Big companies go for the Enterprise edition, which comes with a lot of additional features such as a mobile app."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"I am using the free version of Bonita."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business Process Management (BPM) solutions are best for your needs.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for Amazon Step Functions?
My main use case for AWS Step Functions is in our data platform where we are trying to generate alerts. For generating the alerts, we are getting the data on a daily basis. This is mainly for the a...
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon Step Functions?
I rate AWS Step Functions a nine out of ten on a scale of one to ten. I chose a nine out of ten because it is basically everything that we are really looking for. It is a great service and a great ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Step Functions?
AWS Step Functions helps us save costs as it is a self-managed service and is serverless. We look out for the inbuilt services that are orchestrated via AWS Step Functions, and we only pay for that...
How does Bonita compare with Camunda Platform?
One of the things we like best about Bonita is that you can create without coding - it is a low-code platform. With Bonita, you can build the entire mechanism using the GUI, it’s that simple. You c...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Amazon Step Functions, Step Functions
Bonita BPM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Alpha Apps, The Guardian, SGK, Bigfinite
With more than 1000 customers in 75 countries, and its ecosystem of more than 120,000 members, Bonitasoft is the largest provider of open-source Business Process Management, Low-code and Digital Transformation software worldwide.
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Step Functions vs. Bonita and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.