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Camunda vs IBM Cloud Pak for Automation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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

Camunda
Ranking in Process Automation
1st
Ranking in Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (1st), Business Process Management (BPM) (1st), AI Software Development (2nd), AI Customer Support (8th), AI IT Support (6th)
IBM Cloud Pak for Automation
Ranking in Process Automation
30th
Ranking in Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of Camunda is 16.3%, down from 27.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Cloud Pak for Automation is 1.0%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Camunda16.3%
IBM Cloud Pak for Automation1.0%
Other82.7%
Process Automation
 

Featured Reviews

CristianoGomes - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Supports long-running asynchronous processes effectively but has not evolved much in recent years
I think Camunda is focusing too much on the SaaS offering right now and not much on improving and developing the product itself. I did not see any innovations on that aspect, especially for the open-source version. I was making some tests recently and the tool seemed pretty much the same as it was three or four years ago. Since they made the move to cloud deployment in a more SaaS-oriented way, they do not invest too much in the community version. To be honest, it did not change much from the Activiti initial version. Activiti was pretty much what Camunda is today. They invested a lot on Zeebe and made it the engine for their SaaS cloud version. Camunda itself, the embedded engine, did not evolve too much. They could invest more on that.
SYEDMUJTABA - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President - Digital Automation Services at Techvista Systems
Effectively handles parallel instances effectively
I find it quite straightforward, perhaps around 8.5 out of 10 in terms of ease. When we upgraded from the old version of IBM BPM to the new one within IBM Cloud Pak for Automation, we didn't encounter any major issues. There were some minor ones, but they were easy to overcome.The migration process was part of our deployment strategy. We had a plan to migrate two processes per week from on-premises to the cloud. The migration involved taking the instances and migrating them to the new environment. There is an inbuilt feature in IBM Cloud Pak for Automation that facilitates the migration process, although I personally haven't conducted it myself; it's managed by my team. Overall, the setup process was relatively smooth.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate ECS a ten out of ten."
"The use of Java is a big plus for our intern developers, and Camunda scales well, as many of our departments are already using it in production with dedicated teams."
"The most valuable features are the management of internal processes, the ability to execute from design and the model for internal processes, the ability to make processes visible, and the ability to have information about the current state of each instance."
"The ease with which I can define workflows is most valuable. The latest updates and flexibility that it provides around a task activity are interesting for me."
"The most valuable feature is that, with a visual system, you can try to have a process client before beginning the programming for the application."
"Overall, the solution has been very solid."
"I think that the positives of Camunda Platform are that our customers can start with the free version. I think it is the most important."
"We are using the BPMN engine of Camunda; we are not using the user interface. We are using just the engine, the back end of this. For us, it is working quite well."
"I believe two significant features of IBM Cloud Pak for Automation are the focus on SLA management and the capability to handle parallel instances effectively. Parallel instances, for instance, are valuable when dealing with a large number of users, enabling tasks to be performed concurrently for efficient system operation. The SLA aspect is crucial for tracking and ensuring timely completion of tasks. Additionally, the cloud compatibility of IBM BAW allows for seamless migration from on-premises to the cloud. This version also includes a business rule management system for storing and managing business rules effectively."
"What this product allows us to do is to move from on-prem instances where we are running independent instances of FileNet, Datacap, and ODM. It allows us to leverage container-based resiliency and availability modeling so that we have some visibility across the CP4BA ecosystem. We're now migrating all of our data to be in the Cloud Object Storage, and we can now use some of the features of Azure in terms of how we store and retrieve content for our members and our providers."
 

Cons

"Like all BPM tools, they're very bad with proprietary UIs. In general, anyone who uses BPM tools should not expect to use their proprietary UI."
"There should be a multi-tenant solution for the platform where it supports multiple organizations on one platform instead of having to spin up multiple clusters for each organization. There should be an easy way to integrate different departments into one platform without having to operate multiple platforms. The operations should be easier with the enterprise solution. It should not create more overhead for the operations people."
"The setup process is a drawback as it has many dependencies, which affects our ability to migrate to Windows eleven due to security concerns."
"Community support is basically what I'm looking for. Other than that, it is okay for now."
"We have faced problems with the performance."
"Lacking in forms visualization."
"I think it would be important to internationalize the Cockpit and the Admin as well as with the Tasklist."
"The initial setup can be complex for business users."
"One of the challenges we're having is finding vendors who have experience in developing on the cloud. We can find developers on the old platform, but it is leading-edge technology. So, we are having some challenges, and IBM is assisting us to find vendor partners. To be able to leverage all the capabilities of the new platform, we have to upgrade our existing ecosystem of FileNet applications. Upgrading to the new platform while trying to modernize is always challenging because it is like you have a moving target."
"I believe there is room for improvement in the user interface, particularly in the Process Portal that customers use to view and manage their tasks. The UI of the Process Portal needs enhancement. Additionally, in the next release, I would like to see improved compatibility with Angular, allowing for direct integration with front-end systems. It would be beneficial to have built-in GUI features based on Angular within the system, rather than developing separate applications externally. This, in turn, would provide a more seamless and enhanced front-end experience."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When compared with the proprietary products, the pricing costs are much less, even though it is an enterprise edition."
"I think Camunda BPM can improve their licensing costs. It isn't easy to find clients with Camunda BPM licenses mainly because it's quite expensive."
"It is good for a startup. When we started, its price was fair, but the way we are using it to orchestrate microservices makes it expensive. When you are growing as a company, you would have more microservices, and you would have more users. There is an exponential effect when you are growing in terms of the number of conditions, processes, and users because they bill you per process. So, the price was increasing very quickly for us, and it was very difficult."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"There were some features that were only available in the paid version."
"The product's price depends on the number of processes that need to be automated or where the orchestration part needs to be used. The product is affordable for medium and large enterprises."
"There is a bit of scope for improvement in how the licensing and pricing are done. They are based on the number of processing instances you execute on the cluster... but on the self-hosted mode, the pricing model should be customized."
"We're using the free version. We used the Enterprise version for some time. If I compare free versus what we paid at that time, the Enterprise version costs a lot. For the additional functionality that we got with the Enterprise version, it was too costly."
"IBM Cloud Pak for Automation is relatively expensive, especially considering it is designed for long-living processes, not for normal automation needs. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the pricing at around 9. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees, but IBM has multiple pricing models that make it expensive in its own way. Different plans are available, but overall, the experience suggests it is a costly solution."
"Its cost is almost the same or comparable to what we pay with FileNet, but I'm not sure what we pay a year. A good part of CP4BA is the CPU-based licensing model. When we're dealing with 50,000 dentists, for example, if we were to use Salesforce, we would be hit with the licensing of 50,000 dentists, whereas when we build out in CP4BA, it is just based on our CPU usage, not on individual licenses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
12%
Insurance Company
6%
Government
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise29
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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Which do you prefer - Appian or Camunda Platform?
Appian is fast when building simple to medium solutions. This solution offers simple drag-and-drop functionality with easy plug-and-play options. The initial setup was seamless and very easy to imp...
Which would you choose - Camunda Platform or Apache Airflow?
Camunda Platform allows for visual demonstration and presentation of business process flows. The flexible Java-based option was a big win for us and allows for the integration of microservices very...
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Also Known As

Camunda BPM
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

24 Hour Fitness, Accruent, AT&T Inc., Atlassian, CSS Insurance, Deutsche Telekom, Generali, Provinzial NordWest Insurance Services, Swisscom AG, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, VHV Group, Zalando
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Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda vs. IBM Cloud Pak for Automation and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.