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F5 BIG-IQ vs IBM BPM comparison

 

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

F5 BIG-IQ
Ranking in Process Automation
25th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM BPM
Ranking in Process Automation
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (6th), Application Infrastructure (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IQ is 0.2%, down from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM BPM is 6.3%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Ravindra-Mali - PeerSpot reviewer
Key features like SSL uploading strengthen file handling
From the study material point of view, there are multiple certifications available. The challenge is there is hardly any study material available that can be referred to or used as a study material. Of course, from the knowledge perspective, multiple courses and details are available. However, from a hands-on experience perspective, more resources should be available on the Internet, like labs and lab preparations.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is quite good in a large environment where I have multiple devices; it is easy to manage the devices."
"The backup, monitoring and logging are the best features."
"We use this solution on a daily basis, and it is very stable."
"Features like AFM, the gateway, and Global DNS are the coolest features that save work for us."
"F5 BIG-IQ reduces the propensity for error."
"The most valuable features are load balancing and WAF."
"The customer service is great."
"The product is excellent."
"The solution is more customizable than IBM FileNet."
"For me, the most important feature is the easy-to-use business process dashboard. It's simple to orchestrate business processes, and the interface is clean and intuitive. Once your workflow is designed on paper, it's easy for the business process manager to implement and follow it. Another IBM product that was good in the past is the IBM Case Manager. I haven't used it for three or four years, so I'm unsure if it's still available, but it was quite effective."
"One of the reasons for adopting this solution ten years ago was its ease of use. It had a lot of off-the-shelf functionality, and it did not need to be developed specifically for the project that we were implementing. That was the main reason for adopting it in the beginning."
"Agility is the key. It gives our customers a faster way to be able to implement processes, get ownership of task, visibility into a process. The ability to modify that process, optimize that process over time, is probably the biggest benefit that they get from the software."
"It's a solid product. It covers most of the pain points for clients."
"There is information during the process that the analyst will look at, their procedures. We created a part of the application such that the business can change those procedures as needed, on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. As the reps go through the process, they don't necessarily know it's changing, they just know they have to refer to some documentation, and the business can keep that up to date."
"This solution has streamlined our operation and improved the TAT of sales, operations, and underwriters."
"We like that it does not require a lot of hours to train our people."
 

Cons

"The solution should improve pricing. It's expensive in comparison to other American solutions."
"They could use YAML or JSON if they wanted to make it a little bit easier for us."
"There are a lot of scripts available on the internet for people who know how to use them, but with a graphical interface, it would be easier for new users."
"Integration with VAS is something that they need to work on."
"F5 BIG-IQ is a complex solution, and it cannot manage everything related to BIG-IPs."
"I had trouble with high availability deployment in my environment."
"F5 BIG-IQ should improve by being a complete certificate management solution because currently, it is only for Venafi. Other automation platforms, should be added."
"Sometimes the solution does not work."
"From the testing perspective and minor enhancements perspective, customization is something that is a little tedious as compared to new tools. In addition, various open-source tools that are available are not working with IBM BPM."
"Process versioning was tricky, not straightforward."
"There is room for improvement in the stability."
"IBM BPM integrated with Spark UI and the UI is now much better, but they still need to improve the UI because competitors have predefined templates and other additional features. In these competitor's solutions, you are able to use the templates, map your data, and the form is ready to use. With this solution, you need to write a lot of code to have the same quality as the competitor's templates. It would be a benefit to make this platform more towards low-code or no-code."
"The stability varies because it involves a lot of other components like databases, so sometimes if something goes wrong there, it can't recover from the fatal errors."
"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."
"Our developers are complaining that it's too complex to maintain."
"Process Server is no more available than new products out there, but in general IBM has a high cost and complex setup."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would like the product to be cheaper."
"There is only one licensing fee for F5 BIG-IQ and everything is included in the price."
"Users have to pay an annual subscription fee for the solution's iSeries."
"F5 BIG-IQ is a cheap solution."
"Price wise, IBM BPM is cheaper than other similar solutions and has excellent pricing."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven out of ten."
"The pricing is quite high, I would rate it two out of five."
"I give the pricing an eight out of ten."
"I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten."
"The price of the solution is fair for an enterprise solution that has both cloud and on-premise deployments and when comparing to competitors. Recently IBM has introduced Cloud Pak which allows for more flexible licensing options for automation and other features."
"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."
"The cloud and license of the subscription model for IBM BPM can be complex. There are a lot of alternatives to choose from."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
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 F5 BIG-IQ?
F5 BIG-IQ is a central management system for the BIG-IP.
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IQ?
The product is really good with no significant downsides. However, better and simpler integration with ACI could improve the product.
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

No data available
 

Also Known As

No data available
WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 F5 BIG-IQ vs. IBM BPM and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.