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IBM BPM vs Oracle SOA Suite 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
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (8th), Process Automation (6th)
Oracle SOA Suite
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
SOA Governance (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM BPM is 3.2%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle SOA Suite is 3.9%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

Prince Mathew - PeerSpot reviewer
More customizable than IBM FileNet and useful for automation
One suggestion for IBM BPM is to provide better integration between their products, such as DataCap, which we use for scanning. Although the new CP4BA offers offline capabilities, not everyone is on CP4BA, so enhanced integration for those on older versions would be beneficial. Another major suggestion is to offer a migration path when a product reaches its end of life. For example, there was no migration path when we moved, so we had to redo everything we had developed over ten years completely.
MANOHAR SADDALA - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables seamless integration with multiple systems
I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten. It's not much more dynamic, not as dynamic as you may think, like seeing it in the cloud. In order to use it, you need to have the download servers and then scale up your systems. Oracle SOA Suites serves as a middle layer between applications. For example, let's say you have SAP, and we have Salesforce or Oracle ERP system. Users connect to those systems and perform certain activities or transactions on the applications. Now, if any data needs to be synchronized or any integration needs to happen between these applications, we use the Oracle SOA Suite. It acts as the bridge between the applications, not between the users. It's like having endpoints between the applications. Currently, we have 20 endpoints; 20 systems are connected to it, which is great. Oracle SOA Suite is being used daily. We are using it to its maximum potential.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its most valuable features are usability and integration with other IBM products."
"I like the APIs and the BPM coach is a good tool. But if I had to pick one, it would be the API."
"One of the most notable things is how you can develop use cases with the customers, internal customers, but directly within. The software process model that BPM supports is really exciting in that aspect."
"It is a very powerful solution."
"The solution is more customizable than IBM FileNet."
"IBM BPM is stable."
"It helps improve your process through continual measurement."
"It is efficient in reducing costs."
"The new product has come out with SOA Cloud Service and Integration Analytics as well, which gives more options for clients to pick their point of requirements."
"Conceptually, how it integrates a lot of essential enterprise process components. That's the most valuable."
"The Oracle SOA Suite has many useful features, and different organizations may place different emphases on the importance of each feature. Certain features are particularly important to the organization, such as the ability to access databases and transform messages, as well as the use of proxy services to secure web services with usernames and passwords. These features can be critical for enabling effective integration and data exchange between systems and applications."
"Middleware jobs developing for EC, ERP, and shipping systems become easier."
"The most valuable feature of the facility, as the partner link, is to try to use third-party services and logic in your own vehicle to orchestrate the information."
"In case there is something that doesn't work out of the box, you have the flexibility to customize it."
"This is one of the critical products for my company and we use it extensively. We currently use each and every feature of Oracle SOA."
"Enables our Product Manager to post products to different outside EC platforms with only one interface and one process."
 

Cons

"The product is extremely complex to use and administrate."
"One downside is that changing intermediate steps after you've finalized your flow can be challenging. Also, the integration with identity management could be easier. It would be helpful to have role-based access functions, allowing for specific custom models associated with certain streamlines in the IBM dashboard. Also, a simpler way to integrate some notation with other middleware platforms would be beneficial."
"Where it can be improved is Integration. I think that the direction that IBM is taking now, to have something that is much more integrated, that can be seen as one single solution, is clearly the right way."
"One of the things that we are looking at is cognitive learning. IBM has another product called IBM RPA, I think, which is doing some of that stuff. We would like to see more of that with respect to cognitive learning and AI put back into the process engine to help."
"Importing and exporting between multiple environments is more difficult with other tools."
"The constant switch between Eclipse and its web versions can be annoying and confusing."
"The cost of the solution has room for improvement."
"​The initial setup was complex. It is not always easy to launch a new platform and it needed better coordination with IBM."
"Its function options can be improved."
"An important area that can be improved is the product's data monitoring. When we use the solution for interfacing or end-to-end data monitoring, we want to know exactly where the data is going and exactly where it is failing, or where there is an issue."
"I want to see easier integration connections with other cloud-based tools."
"The web services need to be more robust."
"The product is not user-friendly."
"Decrease the number of internal resources which the product uses."
"Another area of improvement is performance. Because with multiple solutions connecting to the SOA platform, the performance of the SOA platform can be affected in time. So, that could be one area that could be improved with the SOA."
"One area that could be better is the human task feature. It could be improved to provide more functionality and customization options because it has limited options available."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has a low cost to implement. You'll get your money back in the same year that you complete the project."
"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."
"The solution is highly-priced."
"The pricing is quite high, I would rate it two out of five."
"Its price is on the higher side, and it can be improved. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. There are no additional costs."
"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."
"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."
"It gives us a good return on investment."
"It is necessary to evaluate the requirement regarding the platform usage and what the main operation area of the platform will be."
"The pricing is not very high as compared to its competitors."
"This product is WebLogic based, hence it can be both resource hungry as well as expensive from a licensing point of view."
"Based on my knowledge, Oracle SOA Suite doesn't have user-based licensing. It has a system-based licensing model, so you pay for whole systems. Oracle SOA Suite is an expensive solution, so it's a four out of ten for me."
"Oracle SOA Suite is an expensive solution."
"Oracle pricing is expensive. Support is based on your license. AWS is much better than Oracle in this regard."
"The product is moderately priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Government
8%
Manufacturing 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 Oracle SOA Suite?
The solution's XSLT or XSL Transformation feature was very useful.
What needs improvement with Oracle SOA Suite?
The solution’s initial setup is complex and could be improved. A big challenge for Oracle SOA Suite is that you don't get too many technical resources.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
SOA Suite
 

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
7-Eleven, Arcor SAIC, Banca Transilvania, Eaton Corporation, Emdeon, Ferrovial, Griffith University, National Instruments, Pella Corporation, Vodafone Group Plc,
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM BPM vs. Oracle SOA Suite and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
852,098 professionals have used our research since 2012.