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 7.3, and holds a 3.2% mindshare in the category. Lucid Software is ranked #2 in MMS , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 22.3% 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

2,247 Views
1,977 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Lucidchart

Read 62 Lucidchart reviews

4,963 Views
794 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, Microsoft, Bizagi and others in Business Process Design.

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

Buyer's Guide

Business Process Design

January 2026

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Helped 881,707 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

8.0

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 3.2%, down 3.6% compared to last year.
Lucidchart, on the other hand, focuses on Mind Mapping Software, holds 22.3% mindshare, down 22.6% since last year.

Business Process Design Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Blueworks Live	3.2%
Visio	10.4%
Bizagi	9.7%
Other	76.7%

Business Process Design

Mind Mapping Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Lucidchart	22.3%
Visio	24.8%
draw.io	13.6%
Other	39.3%

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.

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Faizuddin Shaik

Principal Application Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Visual planning has improved migration mapping but now needs broader cloud icon support

In my opinion, the best features Lucidchart offers include the toolkits they provide, such as the icons for AWS. These features allow us to use proper service icons rather than simple plain boxes for everything, helping us effectively map out the actual services instead of getting confused. The AWS icons and toolkits make my diagramming process easier and more effective because it is easy to explain and show to my customers which service is being used for a particular component. For instance, when using Amazon S3 for object storage or Amazon RDS for SQL, I can clearly indicate those services. If I need to show containers, I can pick those specific icons to demonstrate that, making it easier than reading it within a box. Lucidchart also offers other specific UML diagrams that I could use, including class diagrams, before I get into the code-level details.

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

"Collaboration is most valuable. You can collaborate online with many people. People can comment, and you can comment back. It is just like a social network, and that, for me, is very good."

"It has a built-in capability to capture process owners and managers against processes along with other process governance roles."

"Valuable features include real-time modeling and design work, the ability to perform workshops with clients in real-time with the tool, and getting instant output."

"For me the most valuable feature is that it's one depository for our bank. So it's not like everybody has their critical processes on SharePoint or on their desktops. Everything is centrally located. It's very intuitive, easy to use. The support that I get from IBM is always great."

"IBM Blueworks Live helps improve operational efficiency, especially where requirements are uncertain and clarity is needed, as it helps determine and provide visibility to clients and enables an easy shift to the design phase."

"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."

"Business users understand it really well, which means we can then help them automate their business processes."

"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."

More IBM Blueworks Live pros

"I really like the drag and drop feature because it makes the work easier. It is very easy to use. All the pieces are very good. All the icons and all the fields are available in the left panel. So, I just click, drag, and then edit a piece. When I showed it to my managing director, he was very inspired, and he also got a premium account for himself."

"The sticky notes are among the most valuable features. Also, the fact that it has templates so that I don't have to do things myself, starting from scratch, is very helpful. In addition, it's really easy to use. You can add stuff by clicking, without having to go to the options. You just click on something and the options you can use appear."

"The most valuable features are the different templates that they have already created, as well as all the different shapes you can use in the process charts because each shape stands for a different element or thing that's being done. It's easy to distinguish between different steps using the already set-out shapes."

"We are using Lucidchart a lot for documenting things, such as processes, systems, new teams, etc. Its ability to document processes is great. Some of the major pluses are the sheer number of templates and the flexibility in the types of things that you can document. This is a benefit because we are able to structure it in whatever format we want. So, we can take a template that maybe was designed for something different and not have to create it from scratch. We just modify it for our purposes."

"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."

"It is important to me that the solution accommodates both Mac and PC users because the developers in our company use Mac, then the business people use Windows. The technical people create the technical architecture using Lucidchart. So, it is important that it is compatible with both the systems."

"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."

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

More Lucidchart pros

Cons

"The objects that the solution creates are not unique."

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

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

"It is BPMN-compliant but the tool needs to be more involved to get into a completely 2.0 oriented tool. It has a few things but it's not the complete BPMN model."

"The solution is stable, but there are some glitches and latency issues."

"I wish Blueworks Live had simulations built in, but it doesn't. It also lacks a feature of reporting; ad hoc, drag and drop reporting. A lot of senior people are always asking for reports, and there's no reporting feature within IBM Blueworks."

"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."

More IBM Blueworks Live cons

"The layering is something that can be improved because sometimes, it is confusing for me when I'm trying to get to the layer that I want to edit."

"One area for improvement is the fact that I had to create two sheets. I had to create a process flow diagram, and I had to create a timeline. I wasn't able to do that in one sheet. If they could add that kind of feature, where you could input a timeline and different types of templates into one worksheet, that would be really useful. I had to include two and then cut and paste, and that was an extra step for me."

"The communication with sales has been pretty poor. They have been spotty in terms of response. So far, that has been our problem with it. We were in contact with one of their representatives, but he just kind of disappeared one day and we couldn't find him anymore. He has not been responsive to email."

"The flowcharting feature would be improved if it had some kind of prediction capability that helped to create the diagrams, such as the ability to automatically join components with my database."

"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."

"It would be helpful if there were different options available for organizing the folders, such as having a high-level display with pictures."

"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."

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

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."

"Making it less expensive would be good."

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

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

"The solution is not very expensive."

"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."

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

"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."

"The pricing is very reasonable, and they have a free trial available that you can play with."

"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."

"I was using the paid version, but at $12 USD per month, I canceled the plan because it was a little bit too expensive for me."

"The pricing and licensing are fine. It has a lot of features that I prefer over some of the other programs, which is good. Being that it is web-based, I feel that it is acceptable that it's on a monthly pay basis. However, I think I pay on an annual basis, which is fine with me."

"At €167 per user per year, the pricing is slightly higher than Visio, but it's worth it."

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

More Lucidchart pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

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	26
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	25

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.

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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...

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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?

In terms of pricing, setup cost, and licensing, I feel that Lucidchart has provided us with good plans, as we have purchased it through AWS Marketplace. We got team plans that run around nine to te...

See all answers

Comparisons

Visio vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 19% of the time

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 17% of the time

ARIS Cloud vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 10% of the time

ARIS BPA vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 9% of the time

Camunda vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 7% of the time

More IBM Blueworks Live Competitors

Figma vs Lucidchart

Compared 16% of the time

Visio vs Lucidchart

Compared 14% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs Lucidchart

Compared 11% of the time

Bizagi vs Lucidchart

Compared 7% of the time

No Magic MagicDraw vs Lucidchart

Compared 3% of the time

More Lucidchart Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Blueworks Live

January 2026

Download IBM Blueworks Live product report

Buyer's Guide

Lucidchart

January 2026

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

January 2026

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