IBM Blueworks Live vs Lucidchart comparison

The compared IBM and Lucid Software solutions aren't in the same category. IBM is ranked #12 in BPD , with an average rating of 7.5, and holds a 2.9% mindshare in the category. Lucid Software is ranked #2 in MMS , with an average rating of 7.9, and holds a 19.7% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Lucid Software users who would recommend it.

IBM Blueworks Live

Read 22 IBM Blueworks Live reviews

2,665 Views
2,399 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Lucidchart

Read 65 Lucidchart reviews

5,491 Views
933 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

IBM Blueworks Live

Lucidchart

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Blueworks Live and Lucidchart based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda, Bizagi, Microsoft and others in Business Process Design.

To learn more, read our detailed Business Process Design Report (Updated: May 2026).

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Business Process Design

May 2026

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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

IBM Blueworks Live

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Design (12th)

Lucidchart

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

8.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Mind Mapping Software (2nd), Visual Collaboration Platforms (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

IBM Blueworks Live and Lucidchart aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. IBM Blueworks Live is designed for Business Process Design and holds a mindshare of 2.9%, down 3.6% compared to last year.
Lucidchart, on the other hand, focuses on Mind Mapping Software, holds 19.7% mindshare, down 23.8% since last year.

Business Process Design Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
IBM Blueworks Live	2.9%
Bizagi	8.4%
Camunda	8.0%
Other	80.7%

Business Process Design

Mind Mapping Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Lucidchart	19.7%
Visio	20.4%
Xmind	13.9%
Other	46.00000000000001%

Mind Mapping Software

Featured Reviews

Nupur Wadhwa

Consultant 2 at Protiviti

Enables efficient process mapping but requires improvement in maintaining server stability

The pricing of the solution can be quite expensive when compared to competitors, though IBM Blueworks Live stands out from a technical standpoint. IBM Blueworks Live provides clear ROI as it saves both time and money. I have successfully imported Visio flowcharts into both IBM Blueworks Live and ARIS. Both tools handled the imports successfully, though some manual intervention was required because Visio is quite a basic tool. Importing flowcharts into advanced tools such as ARIS and IBM Blueworks Live requires some manual effort. The primary advantage is the ease of use. I have not encountered any features in other tools that I couldn't find in ARIS. This is a major factor because I don't have to switch between tools to find specific features. Using ARIS for the past three years has built confidence and trust in the tool.

Read full review

AlexMartin1

Senior Software Engineer at Nestlé

Visual collaboration has improved remote workflows and supports faster shared decisions

The best features Lucidchart offers are that it diagrams processes very well. It allows for project management to help with client timelines. It is also easy to use and create diagrams, especially mermaid diagrams. Collaborating is easy. Out of all those features, collaboration stands out to me the most because it is easy to share with team members to do joint design work. Lucidchart has positively impacted my organization by improving productivity and collaboration. In terms of specifics, collaboration helps us come to conclusions. I notice better throughput as it is easy to use. Improved productivity allows us to express ourselves more quickly.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In terms of the collaboration features, from the point of discovery, it was useful to go to load up the policies and the rule sets that the client had. And in terms of exploring options and being able to model a variety of different processes, that was incredibly useful as well."

"We are you using the product as a process mapping tool and as part of a larger process improvement project; we use it with IBM BPM and IBM ODM, and we get an automated workflow solution for our customers, an improved workflow automation."

"It enables decisions based upon processes that we do model, and ultimately move forward with."

"This solution is good at utilizing standards rules for connectivity."

"The product is business-friendly, it's intuitive, and it connects really well with business teams."

"The scalability is good."

"Blueworks has provided us with a steady set of templates to utilize for mapping, and has given us a consistent standardization across the organization to do all our process mapping on one platform."

"I don't think that there is another product out there quite like it."

More IBM Blueworks Live pros

"With the clean format and the straightforward boxes and arrows and everything like that, it makes it so you don't have to dig and you don't have to spend personal time flipping through pages, because everything is right there and super easy to read and super understandable."

"Lucidchart is a lovely tool for creating visual representations of any process or organization."

"It is a very effective tool for documenting processes and using it has improved our efficiency significantly."

"The real-time collaboration among users, so that everyone is accessing and working on the same version of a document, has made it more efficient for multiple users within our organization to review the same mock-up or wireframes simultaneously, and comment on them to enhance or improve them."

"Lucidchart helped us to realize efficiencies in the projects we use it for. I can show people pictures, and I can change things in a meeting and then email it by the end of the meeting. Because most places we go, especially now with everybody in-home office, I'm going to have great internet access, and that just makes it easier to be able to change things quickly while we're in a meeting and go, "Oh, you changed this. Oh, okay.", and then send it to them as a proof and send it as a PDF or send them a link. That works great. That saves time and accelerates a sale."

"The ability to have more than one person editing at the same time is the most valuable feature. You can have one diagram and have multiple users on it at the same time. We haven't been able to do that on other software. So that's the main reason we moved to Lucidchart."

"I love the fact that you can just integrate a drawing into Google Slides. I build a lot of visuals in Lucidchart, and then, rather than sharing them directly from Lucidchart, I just build Google Slides decks for senior management, and I link the Lucidchart on the cloud version to a slide image. That makes it easy. This way, I can build in one tool and show in another."

"I've been using Lucidchart for quite simple things, but it's definitely much easier making process maps using Lucidchart than it is using Google Docs for basically everything. It's much simpler in terms of how easy it is to use Lucidchart. The way that you can get the arrows on the flow charts, based on the process mapping, you can drag the arrows from one box to another and it automatically shows you where you can put it. It makes decisions for you in terms of if you have a decision diamond, then the line is automatically a yes or no. This just makes it so much easier."

More Lucidchart pros

Cons

"Sometimes, the tool is automatic, which can complicate it, but once you're accustomed to manipulating it, you can use it very effectively."

"I would prefer an on-premises solution for IBM Blueworks Live, and this could be a recommendation."

"Spaces are not well organized; space controls are lacking."

"The APIs are great, except the normal business user doesn't know how to create APIs. So it's hard because IBM comes to us as the business users and tell us to create reporting with APIs, except we don't know that, so we have to turn around and flip it to our IT people."

"Some of the import functionality was a bit restrictive, in terms of loading data in from other data sources. Something as simple as Excel, loading data tables from Excel, wasn't great. And vice-versa. Some of the export and import functionality with something like Visio - which, I know it's a slightly different tool - but being able to work seamlessly with those other tool sets would've been quite useful. I know it was something that was in the pipeline to be looked at. So that would be useful."

"I would like to see integration with ERP systems. This would help us to simulate the process and see where the problems are. Though IBM Blueworks Live is a good tool for documenting, it is not good for simulating."

"The user interface is quite easy at first but process analysts soon run into roadblocks of limited functionality, which is disappointing."

"The font size is really, really small and it's really not useful to print out process models because you cannot read what's written in different boxes."

More IBM Blueworks Live cons

"When you want to add text to a connector arrow, I have not figured out how to position the text vertically."

"Lucidchart subset their older components or something like that had happened. I don't entirely know the totality of it, but we were forced to upgrade to a different integration with Lucid than what we had. I've had a lot of frustrations with that because I've lost a lot of diagrams. I can't get them back and I'm getting pop-ups that are showing me that our data will be loading and I can't run four or five years of my engineering diagrams"

"When you want to add text to a connector arrow, I have not figured out how to position the text vertically. It always wants the text to stay horizontal."

"I would like an on-premises version of the software that I can just download and use. I think that it's easier that way."

"The UML diagram that it gave me initially was a huge flow with a bunch of UML tables, and I wasn't going to need that many."

"I am not quite sure what different functionalities it provides as well as the difficulties other people are facing."

"I would like to have access to more colorful and more vibrant icons."

"My advice to others looking into using Lucidchart is to explore all the options available and not fixate on drawing flowcharts using Lucidchart."

More Lucidchart cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They have a free subscription model that gives a lot of power to the users."

"Making it less expensive would be good."

"Price wise, IBM Blueworks Live is in the middle range, and I would give it a five out of ten."

"We are seeing ROI from this solution. The solution has saved us time."

"The solution is very, very cost-effective."

"Based on the licenses purchased, from a footprint perspective, you can have as many people as you want. You have multiple different categories of licenses to keep the cost low."

"The solution is not very expensive."

"There are editor licenses that are around 50 euros per month, and contributor licenses that are around 30 euros per month."

"The licensing is pretty cost-effective but I haven't considered it on an enterprise level."

"We signed up for the month-to-month and it charged us all at once for the whole year. I believe we signed up for the $7.99 one. I think that was the price."

"I have only used the trial version and have not yet paid for it, or explored the pricing options."

"The price of this product is a little bit high. It is probably 20% higher than what I expected to pay for such a solution."

"I had a quick glimpse of it. It was about 100 Canadian Dollars a year for just me. I don't know if there are any additional costs."

"Pricing-wise, it is pretty fair. I don't really know what group pricing looks like, but right now, I pay $10 a month for my Lucid subscription. One thing I would say is that I do worry about my bosses being okay with paying $10 a month for every single employee because we would have around 20 people. It makes me a little nervous about whether they are going to pay $200 a month for people to be able to use this software. At the same time, from where I'm sitting, it's totally worth it. We save a thousand dollars from using this software. It's still a no-brainer."

"I pay $95 a year for it. It seems like a reasonable price."

"Lucidchart's pricing model is not excessive, as compared to similar products. It is pretty much in line with everyone else."

More Lucidchart pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	18

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	30
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	28

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Blueworks Live?

I do not have exposure to IBM Blueworks Live pricing since this is managed by other personnel who handle the financial aspects of licenses.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Blueworks Live?

I do not use Security Identity Governance and Intelligence, as it is not implemented here. I would prefer an on-premises solution for IBM Blueworks Live, and this could be a recommendation. Regardi...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Blueworks Live?

IBM Blueworks Live and security management are my primary products within the IBM suite. I particularly work on automation-related items, so most of my automation work lies with IBM, and I oversee ...

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LucidChart vs LucidSpark for brainstorming sessions over Zoom

Hi @Krista Thompson - Yes, LucidSpark is a much more nimble and, in some ways, user-friendly tool than LucidChart. LucidSpark is designed to do a better job managing multiple users participating ...

See all answers

Do you recommend Lucidchart?

I definitely recommend Lucidchart. I feel it is one of the top visual collaboration platforms that’s available on the market. Out of all the solutions I have tried, it is by far the best for diagra...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lucidchart?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that we do not have to use the setup because we are using public cloud. We just created an account on Lucidchart and started using it.

See all answers

Comparisons

Visio vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 12% of the time

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 12% of the time

ARIS BPA vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 10% of the time

ARIS Cloud vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 8% of the time

Camunda vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM Blueworks Live Competitors

Visio vs Lucidchart

Compared 14% of the time

Figma vs Lucidchart

Compared 12% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs Lucidchart

Compared 9% of the time

Bizagi vs Lucidchart

Compared 7% of the time

Mindjet MindManager vs Lucidchart

Compared 3% of the time

More Lucidchart Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Blueworks Live

May 2026

Download IBM Blueworks Live product report

Buyer's Guide

Lucidchart

May 2026

Download Lucidchart product report

Also Known As

IBM Lombardi Blueprint

No data available

Overview

IBM Blueworks Live offers a cloud-based tool with real-time collaboration and BPMN 2.0 support, designed for efficient process mapping and management. It integrates well with IBM services and allows seamless Visio flowchart imports, emphasizing ease of use and intuitive process documentation.

IBM Blueworks Live is designed to facilitate business process discovery and optimization. It supports collaborative workshops for process mapping, providing a central repository for all business process information. This tool is ideal for companies aiming to innovate and transform their processes through detailed modeling and analysis. With automation support and cloud accessibility, it streamlines process governance and role management. Potential areas for improvement include cost efficiency, reliability, better integration, user management, and customization features.

What are the key features of IBM Blueworks Live?

Ease of Use: Intuitive interface for streamlined navigation and mapping.
Real-time Collaboration: Enables teams to work together efficiently.
BPMN 2.0 Support: Advanced process modeling standards for industry compatibility.
Cloud Accessibility: Access and manage processes from anywhere.
Visio Integration: Seamlessly import existing flowcharts for continuous use.

What benefits should users expect when using IBM Blueworks Live?

Process Efficiency: Quick and accurate process documentation and management.
Improved Collaboration: Enhanced team communication and workflow management.
Automation Support: Streamlined governance with built-in roles and workflows.
Scalable Integration: Compatibility within IBM's business process management suite.

In specific industries, companies leverage IBM Blueworks Live for comprehensive business transformations, integrating it with IBM BPM for deploying intricate process models. It serves both internal process architecture and external customer engagement needs, facilitating process discovery sessions and collaborative innovation.

IBM

Lucidchart offers a dynamic platform for visual collaboration, enabling teams to enhance workflows and boost productivity through real-time updates and diverse templates.

Lucidchart provides an intuitive interface designed for seamless integration with tools like Google Workspace and Salesforce. This enhances team collaboration by reducing misunderstandings and accelerating workflows. Its cross-platform compatibility ensures both Mac and PC users achieve visual clarity in process management. While users value its efficiency, there is a desire for improvements in handling complex diagrams, more accessible pricing for advanced features, and enhanced offline capabilities. Customization, such as color schemes and dark mode, along with robust tutorials, remain areas for potential enhancement.

What features define Lucidchart?

Real-time Collaboration: Allows teams to work simultaneously on diagrams.
Drag-and-Drop Interface: Simplifies the creation process with intuitive controls.
Diverse Templates: Offers a variety of pre-built templates for extensive usage scenarios.
Seamless Integration: Connects effortlessly with Google Workspace and Salesforce.

What benefits can be expected from Lucidchart?

Enhanced Productivity: Facilitates efficient collaboration and workflow acceleration.
Time Savings: Streamlines process mapping, saving teams significant time.
Visual Clarity: Aids in clear project management and teamwork communication.

In sectors like technology and business, Lucidchart is extensively used for visualizing workflows, system architectures, and process maps. It serves as a powerful tool for collaboration, brainstorming, and documenting procedures. Teams find it effective for demonstrating technical and business structures, improving coordination, and supporting tasks like planning, migration, and development.

Lucid Software

Sample Customers

Cloudsoft Corp. Ltd., Bayer, S¾SS, Essex County Council

Google, Salesforce, Adobe, Whirlpool, Uber, Wal Mart, Pearson, Twitch, Riot Games, Western Union, Trimble, Starbucks

Buyer's Guide

Business Process Design

May 2026

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