Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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 (3rd), AI Customer Support (51st), AI IT Support (5th)
IBM Cloud Pak for Automation
Ranking in Process Automation
38th
Ranking in Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies
34th
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 February 2026, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of Camunda is 15.8%, down from 27.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Cloud Pak for Automation is 1.1%, 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 (%)
Camunda15.8%
IBM Cloud Pak for Automation1.1%
Other83.1%
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

"It is a scalable product. I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten."
"The solution is good for data models."
"It is simple to use. The user experience is very good."
"I've found the active community most valuable but it also provides you with a lot of other features."
"The architecture is good because it's a headless workflow. I can create my own frontend, and it's fully API-based."
"Camunda's support for BPMN 2.0 is a great advantage because it allows us to have a common language to discuss technology and business in the same perspective."
"Having knowledge of the BPM and monitoring process has proven to be very beneficial, as I am currently engaged in documenting processes for Clientele."
"The BPMN diagram is valuable. For our use case of transferring money from one account to another, the connections have to be done in the traditional financial ways. There are a lot of unexpected errors and a lot of instability with this kind of system, and we are using Camunda in order to have clear flows. With BPMN, I can show a flow to my business partner, and the business team can easily understand what's going on. The technical team can understand what the implementation is, and we can model different errors and the process for recovering from these errors."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"Collaborations and process documentation in Camunda Platform are areas with shortcomings that need improvement."
"If there were some industry templates it would have helped significantly, because it is similar to a process map for a domain. That is what we are currently creating, a domain-relevant process map."
"Camunda Platform's customer support could be improved because their response is quite slow."
"I think that Camunda can try to do better when it comes to solving the complexities of all the products in its software stack."
"I would like to see the forms engine available in the open-source version of this solution."
"Lacking in forms visualization."
"We're trying to put the people from the business to do it. We are using APIs, and we have open APIs to define our APIs and the request-response that each call requires and sends. So, to base the mapping on that, there was nothing to help. I know that with some tools, such as Oracle tools, you can see the input and expected output. With drag and drop, you can take one property from the left and drag it to the right, and it does all the mapping itself, but that's not the case with Camunda. So, for me, this is something that can be improved."
"There is an issue where, in some situations, I need to scale up by observing both CPU and memory usage of containers, yet under the current options available at Amazon, this is not possible."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license is quite expensive, which is why we went with the community version."
"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."
"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."
"Camunda's pricing is good."
"Compared to other software, Camunda Platform is quite cost-effective."
"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."
"We have an annual subscription to this solution."
"I tried to get some information about buying the license for the solution, but I found it kind of hard to understand the business model."
"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."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Process Automation solutions are best for your needs.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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

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...
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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Camunda BPM
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda vs. IBM Cloud Pak for Automation and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.