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IBM BPM vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker 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
113
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (5th), Process Automation (5th)
IBM WebSphere Message Broker
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
17th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM BPM is 3.3%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM WebSphere Message Broker is 2.3%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM BPM3.3%
IBM WebSphere Message Broker2.3%
Other94.4%
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

Ateeq Rehman - PeerSpot reviewer
Unit Head System Implementor at Allied Bank Limited
Automation platforms streamline processes and offer flexibility, but AI integration and version upgrades pose challenges
In the technology world, there is always room for improvement. Technologies evolve day by day, especially with the emergence of artificial intelligence and generative AI models. Although IBM BPM is a substantial product, adopting and integrating new technologies quickly is not easy due to the migration and upgrade paths involved. Every time new versions are released, we face business and production challenges that make rapid adoption challenging. The main concern bothering me today regarding IBM BPM is the integration of AI components.
BrajendraKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Architect at HCL Technologies
Offers large-sized business information processing with a time-saving setup and impressive stability
I primarily use two previews of the product for Dev and two for QA as part of the production process. Whatever tools our company is using, the cost of a license in IBM WebSphere Message Broker is about 80% of all these software or tools. The message routing capabilities satisfy workflow efficiency. The product supports message formats of XML, JSON, and SSID, which are around 24 KB to 50 KB in size. The solution supports communication protocols like STTP and TCP. Features like DataGraph need to be introduced in IBM WebSphere Message Broker. Some of the clients of our organization are using an outdated version of IBM WebSphere Message Broker for which the vendor doesn't provide direct support anymore. For the aforementioned version, our company professionals can solve the queries on their own without seeking support from IBM. During the installation of a prior version of IBM WebSphere Message Broker, sometimes I have to configure the failovers through the cluster, where issues arise, and I often seek help from the support team. The solution is being used by some medicine companies in our organization that receive sales orders from the EDR or JDE. I would not recommend the product to others as its becoming obsolete and they can rather choose a middleware solution from Amazon or Azure. But I would overall rate the product a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like the APIs and the BPM coach is a good tool. But if I had to pick one, it would be the API."
"It is a very powerful solution."
"Enabled us to convert most of the paper-based work into an automated workflow process, and some of them were converted into straight-through processing, with no human interaction involved whatsoever."
"Technical support is pleasant to work with and always available."
"It continues to keep up with the changing needs of the business. That is the strong value proposition of BPM. It's not a one-time automation."
"The designer feature, compared to other solutions is easy to use."
"It has improved my organization quite a bit. It brought awareness to what the business processes are, even to the business side, who did not necessarily know what they are."
"I liked its robustness the most. It was a very robust platform in my experience. It seemed like a very stable and powerful tool for handling lots of concurrent users and hammering at the system."
"It has many interfaces and you can connect to any backend source that has another format, and convert it to the desired format."
"IBM WebSphere Message Broker is one of the best middleware solutions"
"Message Broker is valuable because most of the applications are using MQ. Even in my current engagement, the few applications which I audit to onboard the bank are using MQ."
"It's reliable for our day-to-day operations, ensuring fast and secure data integration across different systems."
"Straightforward development and deployment."
"The documentation, performance, stability and scalability of the tool are valuable."
"The most valuable feature of IBM WebSphere Message Broker is the ability to facilitate communication with legacy systems, offering a multitude of great capabilities. For example, if there is a mainframe system in place with a web service serving as the front end. In that case, the solution enables efficient protocol transformations to convert all request payloads into a format that the legacy systems can accept, rendering the integration and transformation processes seamless and highly effective."
"Performance-wise, this solution is really good."
 

Cons

"They could provide case studies to investigate and understand the functionality of business processes before development."
"The pricing is a little bit high. It's gone up in cost."
"IBM BPM can improve the dashboards and reports. It only has two dashboards, and reporting is very difficult to build."
"We would like better performance and more ​visibility on each step of the tool.​"
"It is not user-friendly."
"I would like IBM to consider including AI-enabled process mining, robotic process automation, and very good OCR capabilities from the computer vision side."
"I would like to see a lot more case studies."
"All our clients are changing to microservice and cloud service. However, BPM does not have a solution for microservice and cloud service."
"The user interface is designed mainly for experts, much in the way a BPM or another integration tool is."
"It is currently a weighty product."
"The product's features are not being upgraded or enhanced by the vendor"
"Stability and pricing are areas with shortcomings that need improvement."
"Today I probably wouldn't go for Message Broker because of the cost structure, support, and the whole ecosystem around IBM."
"The installation configuration is quite difficult."
"The images and size of the containers are too big and I think that they should be more lightweight."
"Technical support is good but they could have a better response time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cloud and license of the subscription model for IBM BPM can be complex. There are a lot of alternatives to choose from."
"We chose to purchase IBM BPM because it was bundled with the actual RPA program/solution that we decided to purchase. We decided to use Automation Anywhere tool (RPA), and it is was bundled with IBM BPM."
"It is pricey."
"Our customers do see ROI. They'll identify some particularly painful or uncoordinated processes to start with, then build out from there, picking off low hanging fruit."
"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."
"It gives us a good return on investment."
"Price wise, IBM BPM is cheaper than other similar solutions and has excellent pricing."
"IBM could improve the price. It is far too expensive."
"IBM software can be costly, but having a contract has helped manage and potentially lower costs over time."
"I feel with IBM, when you want certain functions or features, you have to continuously purchase add-ons. There are always additional fees."
"IBM products are generally more stable and have more features, but also come at a greater cost."
"The licensing cost of IBM WebSphere Message Broker needs to be reduced"
"The solution is expensive."
"This product is more expensive than competing products."
"The solution is expensive."
"The price is very high and it's the main reason that we are searching for alternatives."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
11%
Insurance Company
9%
Transportation Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise72
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Large Enterprise10
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM WebSphere Message Broker?
IBM software can be costly, but having a contract has helped manage and potentially lower costs over time.
What needs improvement with IBM WebSphere Message Broker?
There could be greater flexibility and agility in service creation for the product. As our business requirements evolve, we require more dynamic capabilities to adapt and scale our services accordi...
What is your primary use case for IBM WebSphere Message Broker?
We use the product for exposing services at the application level, integrating with various architectures like WebSphere, and handling static service creation.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
WebSphere Message Broker
 

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
WestJet, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Sharp Corporation, Michelin Tire
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM BPM vs. IBM WebSphere Message Broker and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.