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 3.2% mindshare in the category. Lucid Software is ranked #2 in MMS , with an average rating of 8.7, and holds a 24.8% 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 21 IBM Blueworks Live reviews

2,198 Views
1,912 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Lucidchart

Read 56 Lucidchart reviews

5,234 Views
733 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 Microsoft, Camunda, Bizagi and others in Business Process Design.

To learn more, read our detailed Business Process Design Report (Updated: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Business Process Design

August 2025

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Helped 868,759 peers since 2012

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

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.8

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 3.2%, down 3.3% compared to last year.
Lucidchart, on the other hand, focuses on Mind Mapping Software, holds 24.8% mindshare, up 21.6% since last year.

Business Process Design Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Blueworks Live	3.2%
Visio	12.5%
Camunda	11.3%
Other	73.0%

Business Process Design

Mind Mapping Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Lucidchart	24.8%
Visio	29.6%
draw.io	16.0%
Other	29.599999999999994%

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

Michael Verruto

Managing Director, Project Design+Development at a government with 10,001+ employees

Visual approach facilitates clarity and process efficiency in complex real estate tasks

I haven't done much with Lucidchart's integration with other popular apps such as Teams, though one of my colleagues mentioned it can be added. This has sparked my interest to look into integration with Excel and Word, though we haven't implemented these features yet in our less than a year of operation. I access Lucidchart from multiple devices, including iPhone, iPad, and PC desktop. Our PCs are all laptops, so we can work remotely. I've collaborated with people from home on my iPad while they were on their laptop, though this isn't our routine behavior. I would recommend Lucidchart to others, but I'd also recommend exploring other options. It depends on what your fit and feel is for what you're trying to accomplish. For heavy users or technical users, Lucidchart might be very appealing. It has more capabilities than I'm currently using. The Highway Bridge Maintenance group, who are familiar with Agile processes, speak positively about it. For average users, they might find similar functionality in Miro or other less expensive alternatives. Overall Rating: 9 out of 10

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

"The stability is pretty good. It is highly available, which is key. You don't lose your work and can autosave."

"It has the ability to document in different formats. It is not tied to a specific model. You can look at it from different angles and see the intuitive nature of it. It always generates a valid diagram. You cannot create something that is not BPMN compliant."

"The solution is stable. All the refreshes run very well."

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

"It's very easy, very quick to create a process map. It has templates. The look and feel is very nice. What we want to achieve out of the process map, we can achieve it using Blueworks."

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

"The licenses are transferrable between different users."

"The solution is easy to operate. Also, there is an automatic mode to make the business flow. You don't have to put any lines or arrows in a decision point in IBM Blueworks Live; it's very automatic."

More IBM Blueworks Live pros

"There is no alternative to Lucidchart if you want to describe a five-step process with bullet points. I believe every person who ever worked with PowerPoint on any type of documentation and then thought about which tool would actually help to describe what they're trying to do but without the words, would come up with Lucidchart."

"Lucidchart is very visual in nature, and it is something that we do use extensively for stakeholder mapping, for example. If you want to build graphs for things like who the decision-makers are in a particular organization, Lucidchart can be used for that."

"It gives information about the roles and responsibilities of any architecture system and the exact system flow, business flow, or process flow. It also gives information about how the development team should take it forward. It shows the gap analysis in the flow charts and makes it easy to define the actor and his roles and responsibilities in the organization."

"The best part of Lucidchart is its comfortableness when sharing it with my teammates. Lucidchart provides me a folder for my ERD. I can make a dozen lists of my chart, then share them with my teammates easily through the diagrams of Lucidchart. This is their main comfortableness, which is the reason why I choose Lucidchart rather than some other chart program."

"The ability for Lucidchart to create database schemas or modify existing data structures is strong. That's what I initially introduced it for in our organization. The script that Lucidchart provides works with other systems like Oracle, SQL Server, and Postgres that I can copy-paste, and get a quick dump of metadata and import into has saved me a ton of steps that I didn't have to manually create these tables. I had a lot of things where I still had to put in the linkages between tables, but I didn't have to type in every field name, every data type, and everything else that came in. That saved me tons of time."

"The interface is easy for a layperson to use and adapt to."

"It's very easy to use. I didn't go through any tutorials or any documentation. It was very easy for me to start. It is intuitive. Right after logging in, I was able to quickly just drag and drop and do the things I wanted to do, without any prior knowledge of the solution."

"One of the features that I really like is the collaboration aspect of it. During the pandemic, it's very important that we're able to collaborate virtually."

More Lucidchart pros

Cons

"There should be an option to import from and export to Microsoft Visio. Being able to move files back and forth between Blueworks Live and Visio would be good."

"We haven't yet been able to dabble in case management with Blueworks Live, as it is not yet offered with the product."

"The solution is a very basic discovery product so it doesn't have that much modeling capability. This can be improved."

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

"I can't insert any images. For example, within the process map, if I want to put it in the box or rectangle, or circle. If I have to use one image or icon, that's not possible."

"The initial setup is neither straightforward nor complex however you do need to know what you are doing."

"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."

"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. This makes it necessary for people to have access to the tool. We view licenses to see how the printing or output is. It's not very good."

More IBM Blueworks Live cons

"I wish there were a lot more automations. For instance, if I'm using a project management software to list out all my WBS [work breakdown structure] I wish Lucidchart had the functionality where it would take all the numbering and generate a tree diagram. Something like that would help so much, but right now it's still a manual task..."

"Perhaps it already exists, but if there were software to install the solution on a Mac, that would be helpful. I see that it's not in the App Store, so that's something that could be improved."

"A couple of times when I tried to move a line, connecting two shapes on an organizational chart, occasionally the line doesn't move as intuitively as I think it should. I have to fiddle around with it a few times to get it to do what I want it to do."

"As far as I know, LucidChart can’t be automated with Visual Basic .Net like Visio."

"It can have more colors or graphics. Currently, it is a little boring. It can have a little bit more fun factor."

"If it could be a little more visual, in terms of being able to make it stand out a little bit more, then that would be helpful."

"They should continue to bring in more shapes. For example, I saw something cool the other day that was a timeline and in between each step, there was a circle. I thought that that was very clean and that's something that I could see myself using. Lucidchart could come up with more visualizations. I'm not a designer so I would like to have more visuals. That would make my job easier because it would make my job much more professional looking but without having to be a designer myself."

"If you're trying to expand a comments box that is sitting on top of the chart, it automatically defaults to assuming you're trying to connect it to the next step in the process, when all you're trying to do is make the box bigger. It automatically goes to the arrow, but I just want to resize the box. That gets a little cumbersome because it does it every single time. It's not just a bug."

More Lucidchart cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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 very, very cost-effective."

"Making it less expensive would be good."

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

"The solution is not very expensive."

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

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

"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."

"One of the reasons we were able to get approval within two hours from our management was that it was cheap enough. We have a 3% or 10% collaboration package, which comes out to be 70 bucks a year. It was very cheap, and we had no issues actually getting the full version. It was very affordable for a business."

"Its pricing is very affordable and reasonable for the features that it provides. I am using its basic plan, and for my usage, it is perfectly reasonable. It suits perfectly."

"The pricing and licensing are fine, though I wish they didn't require you to buy the licenses in batches of five."

"Pricing comes in at about $100 for a year's subscription, which is very reasonable if this is a tool that you will use more than once."

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

"I'm happy with the pricing of Lucidchart but I can't say I'm completely happy with it. It could be cheaper for what it offers, about $5 cheaper, or Lucid could charge $5 more and add more features, like automation. Right now, it's $15 per user per month... On the other hand, they have made their billing super-easy for users, such as for people who have to do expense reports. It is probably the easiest platform I'm using when it comes to billing for software as a service."

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

More Lucidchart pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	17

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	23
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	21

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Blueworks Live?

The solution is easy to operate. Also, there is an automatic mode to make the business flow. You don't have to put any lines or arrows in a decision point in IBM Blueworks Live; it's very automatic.

See all answers

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

The solution costs around 600-700 dollars/year, which is quite affordable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Blueworks Live?

Some features could still be enhanced in IBM Blueworks Live. The solution is easily scalable, but it can be expensive to scale and there may be some limitations. The solution is stable, but there a...

See all answers

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 needs improvement with Lucidchart?

The system is a bit clumsy when it comes to stylizing to match corporate imaging styles. In real estate, we need everything to have the same look and feel as our materials. Beyond dropping a logo i...

See all answers

Comparisons

Visio vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 29% of the time

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 23% of the time

ARIS Cloud vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 11% of the time

ARIS BPA vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 7% of the time

Camunda vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 5% of the time

More IBM Blueworks Live Competitors

Figma vs Lucidchart

Compared 16% of the time

Visio vs Lucidchart

Compared 13% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs Lucidchart

Compared 10% of the time

Visual Paradigm vs Lucidchart

Compared 7% of the time

ARIS BPA vs Lucidchart

Compared 3% of the time

More Lucidchart Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Blueworks Live

September 2025

Download IBM Blueworks Live product report

Buyer's Guide

Lucidchart

September 2025

Download Lucidchart product report

Also Known As

IBM Lombardi Blueprint

No data available

Overview

IBM Blueworks Live is a cloud-based business process modeling tool that helps you discover, map and document your processes. It is easy to use, allowing you to learn and perform business process modeling in minutes.

With Blueworks Live you can:

Simplify business process modeling
Quickly build business processes in a straightforward, cloud-based interface designed for both IT and business users.

Improve process efficiency and accuracy
A central process repository eliminates version control and consistency issues by providing users real-time access to process workflows.

Enhance cross-team collaboration
A shared team workspace engages all business process owners, encouraging cross-team participation and continuous process improvement.

IBM

Our online diagram application makes it easy to sketch and share professional flowchart diagrams. From brainstorming to project management, we support all of your communication needs. That’s why millions of users choose Lucidchart.

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

August 2025

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