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IBM BPM vs IBM WebSphere Application Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 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

IBM BPM
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (7th), Process Automation (6th)
IBM WebSphere Application S...
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
3rd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Application Server (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM BPM is 3.4%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM WebSphere Application Server is 11.2%, up from 10.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Kamran - PeerSpot reviewer
Has efficient processes and intuitive workflow with many valuable features
You will have access to make any needed changes. Additionally, the review will be published on PeerSpot.com in written or audio format, available to other people. You can stay anonymous if you wish. Notifications and the use of the review are subject to PeerSpot's terms of use, which you can find at PeerSpot.com/TOS. I would give the solution an overall rating of ten out of ten points.
BharathirajaSukumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient load balancing and the clustering, achieved by using the deployment manager, is valuable
I believe that the system is already good. However, for improvement or enhancement, it is user-friendly, but it could offer better choices on the front end for different aspects or options. Sometimes, I have to search extensively for features, as there are no upfront tabs. There is a lack of visible, easy, user-friendly, and straightforward options for the number of features.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"IBM BPM's most valuable features are its speed in implementing and providing any changes."
"The designer feature, compared to other solutions is easy to use."
"Process Modelling, simulation and optimization, integration, UI components."
"The solution is stable."
"IBM BPM's best features include document sharing, management document creation, widget and barcode creation, and integration."
"Provides the power to understand and automate processes."
"We like that it does not require a lot of hours to train our people."
"Technical support is good. They are very responsive. It is usually me who takes more time to get back to them than they take to get back to me, which is good."
"I find IBM support to be very nice."
"IBM WebSphere Application Server is one of the best servers due to its stability and paid license."
"The scalability of the product is quite good."
"IBM WAS is the backbone for our enterprise content management suite which delivers the primary processes for our customers. Without a good application server, it would be hard to provide a secure layer of midddleware upon which the other applications run. IBM WAS improves the stability of the entire solution and provides a high quality platform for running web-based solutions."
"IBM WebSphere Application Server is the best in terms of scalability and performance, as well as the support for managing distributed transactions."
"One of the most valuable features might be the stability of the IBM WebSphere Application Server."
"The solution has good performance."
"The integration between IBM tools and applications is very well executed, and the support from IBM is quite good, providing a solid support structure."
 

Cons

"The debugging needs improvement. There is some confusion surrounding the debugging."
"The engine itself tends to accumulate a lot of data that needs to be cleaned up, and that's the kind of thing that keeps it from, in some scenarios, scaling as much as it needs to. And then, when you're building solutions, if you're not careful to keep the screens from being associated with too much data, if you're going to just do things the way that a lot of people would just assume that they can do, without having experience of having made those mistakes before, it will accumulate a lot of data, and that will cause it to perform very badly."
"Process versioning was tricky, not straightforward."
"The major issue is the pricing, which is very high. IBM BPM also lacks smaller solutions, so I must purchase multiple solutions to start with workflows and applications."
"We would like better performance and more ​visibility on each step of the tool.​"
"The cost of the solution has room for improvement."
"The initial setup can be tricky because IBM BPM is not based on a popular stack, and it's difficult to hire a developer for this product."
"I would say the scalability is very good but it's not perfect. It is much more scalable than it has been in the past but... it does require some work to keep it stable. So that is an area that should be improved."
"When compared with WebLogic, Weblogic is lighter and consumes less memory."
"WebSphere Application Server doesn't have an automated deployment option, forcing us to use third-party tools like Jenkins UCD and Palo Automated Deployment."
"IBM WebSphere Application Server hasn't changed much. It's still a heavyweight for any company compared to what you get. Unless your code base is deeply linked with it, I don't think it's a great idea to go with this solution. The current trend is toward modularity and containerization, and given the product's requirements, containerization will be difficult. There is a memory requirement as well."
"Based on the field and based on the build that was provided, we've noticed a lot of constraints in terms of the performance now."
"Installing or configuring a WAS server instance as a Windows Service causes a lot of problems, especially when the server needs credentials to stop."
"Initial setup is very simple. Just use the IBM Installation Manager and add the packages. The install wizard takes care of the rest. The only thing that can be difficult is to find the right packages on the IBM website, because of all the changes that IBM does on its website(s)."
"The footprint could be reduced so that we can use a smaller virtual machine to run the application. We could also use more scripts. I would like this solution to be more script oriented, rather than GUI oriented."
"The installation has room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the tool's pricing a seven out of ten."
"It may be cheaper for organizations to pay for the Viewer licenses that are immediately up and running in the cloud, rather than paying for someone to administer publishing to an intranet."
"IBM BPM cannot be considered a cheaply priced product. IBM BPM is a really expensive product compared to other companies. One needs to opt for the perpetual licensing model offered by IBM."
"The product is expensive considering the hardware and software costs."
"We have a yearly licensing model. It is not expensive. There are no addition costs to the standard license."
"The pricing is quite high, I would rate it two out of five."
"It's expensive. All software is always extremely high. The manufacturing cost that we have compared to the selling cost, it's not like you're building a house or building a car. But putting that aside, considering that it's expensive, it's a lot of money. If you compare it with some of the other alternatives in the market, it's a similar price. For instance, if you compare it with Pegasystems, it's a similar price."
"The solution might be expensive, but I can't give you a precise number. In the market here, I've seen two main products for BPM: IBM BPM and Camunda. Camunda is very popular and open-source, so there's no direct comparison."
"Room for improvement would only be in the licensing. As with all IBM products the licensing can be complex and expensive. Bargain well and try to get as much discount as possible. Discounts of 85% are possible. Without the discount, I think the product is overrated."
"The price of this product is higher than that of competitors."
"My company is on a perpetual or permanent license agreement with IBM WebSphere Application Server. There's also a pay-per-use option, but customers rarely choose that option. Most of the customers are on the perpetual license deal that's all-inclusive. As the license cost is quite expensive, I'm rating it two out of five."
"The price of IBM WebSphere Application Server could be less expensive and there is an annual license required for this solution."
"It costs more than some of the others, but, you get what you pay for."
"WebSphere Application Server is expensive, so it may not be a good option for small companies."
"I don't remember the price, but there are no additional costs."
"It's expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
33%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What do you like most about IBM WebSphere Application Server?
Network Deployment is the most useful feature for scalability. It has many features within the standard WebSphere Application Server edition.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM WebSphere Application Server?
In Korea, when you buy IBM iOS, the WebSphere base version is included with iOS. That means no additional cost.
What needs improvement with IBM WebSphere Application Server?
I find the server okay, however, using the Maker instance, the Moving instance, and the Change instance is a little bit complicated without WebSphere knowledge.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
WebSphere Application Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
TalkTalk, Property management group, E.SUN Bank, Ohio National Financial Services, Aviarc, Cincom Systems, FJA-US, D+H, Staples, Michigan Municipal League
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM BPM vs. IBM WebSphere Application Server and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.