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CA Process Automation vs IBM BPM comparison

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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

CA Process Automation
Ranking in Process Automation
35th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM BPM
Ranking in Process Automation
9th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (8th), Application Infrastructure (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of CA Process Automation is 1.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM BPM is 5.8%, up from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM BPM5.8%
CA Process Automation1.0%
Other93.2%
Process Automation
 

Featured Reviews

SJ
Automation Solutions Developer at HCL Technologies
Added value to the delivery of services and the customer experience
We design end-to-end automation solutions for repetitive tasks performed by IT support teams This tool is used in my organization for automating IT infrastructure related incidents or service requests.  Built-in operators available for most integrations. Easy to manage. Attended/unattended…
Ateeq Rehman - PeerSpot reviewer
Unit Head System Implementor at Allied Bank Limited
Automation platforms streamline processes and offer flexibility, but AI integration and version upgrades pose challenges
In the technology world, there is always room for improvement. Technologies evolve day by day, especially with the emergence of artificial intelligence and generative AI models. Although IBM BPM is a substantial product, adopting and integrating new technologies quickly is not easy due to the migration and upgrade paths involved. Every time new versions are released, we face business and production challenges that make rapid adoption challenging. The main concern bothering me today regarding IBM BPM is the integration of AI components.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Before implementing this product, our Problem and Change Management Processes were very poor, but nowadays, thanks to CA Process Automation (PAM), we no longer have this problem, as we now have all of the processes' rules placed inside of it."
"Technical support is unequivocally excellent; in fact, the best customer service and technical support I’ve experienced during my 12 years in IT."
"We took our server provisioning process from about 30 days to about 4 days on the first iteration of implementation."
"If you’re planning or looking for an application able to create process automation, stop looking."
"This tool is used in my organization for automating IT infrastructure related incidents or service requests."
"CA Process Automation manager is a very powerful production tool."
"It is easy to debug and troubleshoot."
"It has provided ROI by auto-resolving incidents or requests in the ITSM queue, improved MTTR and SLA adherence, and added value to the delivery of services and the customer experience."
"There is a good return on investment, because some of them were using paper-based processing, and introducing BPM has actually improved the time involved."
"It has reduced a lot of manual errors and processes."
"We can scale by increasing the infrastructure which is currently running."
"The reach with Integration Adapters and support for adding custom Java code are valuable features."
"The system integration layer is valuable because this enables an organization to create a single point where all the key organizational master data is held in different IT applications across different functions, that can be accessed and updated."
"Helps automate processes, also it easily manages and tracks the business processes."
"Its Analytics is the most valuable feature."
"It is the Ferrari of BPM tools."
 

Cons

"OCR capability should be added as a feature."
"It needs auto-triggering of workflows based on machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI)."
"Make some of the features more open source that way developers can have more flexibility."
"Somehow the product group within CA left the product dry from some regular expression functionality."
"The solution engine is in Java. Regardless of developments, the solution will always be limited to what Java offers."
"These configurations can be changed only through the installation wizard. There's no way to update such information in the administration interface, which is, in my opinion, very bad."
"CA offers minimal public information pertaining to the performance drain the usage of some objects and operators introduce to processing."
"It’s very complex, which is one of the disadvantages."
"If you want to use IBM BPM, you will have to invest a lot of money for licenses and you need to learn that there are limitations in developing applications. You cannot create anything you want."
"It might not be suitable for entry level clients because it comes with a huge number of modules for processing that at times might not be necessary for upcoming clients."
"The engine itself tends to accumulate a lot of data that needs to be cleaned up, and that's the kind of thing that keeps it from, in some scenarios, scaling as much as it needs to. And then, when you're building solutions, if you're not careful to keep the screens from being associated with too much data, if you're going to just do things the way that a lot of people would just assume that they can do, without having experience of having made those mistakes before, it will accumulate a lot of data, and that will cause it to perform very badly."
"We care about technology and support because support is very important and a BPM is not easy to implement."
"User Interface components could be further refined to enhance and extend customizations dictated by end clients."
"The interface is limited and should improve in the future."
"It can definitely be improved in terms of performance and stability."
"Although IBM BPM is a substantial product, adopting and integrating new technologies quickly is not easy due to the migration and upgrade paths involved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has provided ROI by auto resolving incidents or requests in the ITSM queue, improved MTTR and SLA adherence, and added value to the delivery of services and the customer experience."
"There are a lot of automation savings from any process which is repeatable."
"Due to its extensive features and capabilities, the product pricing is more aligned with medium—to large enterprises."
"Licensing is managed by the client, but we know it is yearly. Camunda is relatively cheaper. There is not much difference in pricing of IBM and PEGA. For large licensing, there are discounts as well."
"I wish it was less expensive. I don't know why their pricing model is so high for a piece of software that could benefit so many. It just seems to me that they could have a lower cost, maybe with fewer features or whatever, but it should be possible to do a lower cost workflow software that uses the same interface and underlying engine but does not cost so much that you have to be a Fortune 50 company to buy it. It is annoying to me. There are a lot of solutions that IBM has that are really powerful but nobody can afford them. They know their business, but I still feel that there are a lot of customers who would benefit from this sort of thing. I don't know what this elitism is all about. I am sure they have people doing the money numbers, but it seems like you can make a lot more money by selling it to way more people for a little bit less."
"When considering the features of the solution the price is expensive compared to competitors."
"We have a yearly licensing model. It is not expensive. There are no addition costs to the standard license."
"The pricing is quite high, I would rate it two out of five."
"​We have definitely seen ROI. When we first kicked it off, we said it had to pay for itself within three years, and it did."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise72
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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 needs improvement with IBM BPM?
There are negative aspects, such as IBM BPM being quite heavy and not lightweight, and the licensing cost is higher, which has caused some companies to shift away. IBM BPM is complicated to install...
 

Also Known As

CA IT Process Automation Manager
WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Unum, HCL Technologies, Logicalis
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 CA Process Automation vs. IBM BPM and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.