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IBM BPM vs ServiceNow Orchestration comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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 Process Automation
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (7th), Application Infrastructure (6th)
ServiceNow Orchestration
Ranking in Process Automation
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of IBM BPM is 6.3%, down from 10.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow Orchestration is 4.0%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation
 

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.
Dinesh Kumar Raghu - PeerSpot reviewer
Fastest upgrading technology in the market currently
In each upgrade, ServiceNow is enhancing its product across various areas. They continuously improve different aspects one by one, ensuring that their service evolves with the changing needs. However, frequent upgrades may negatively impact the performance of instances. Therefore, for now, I don't recommend any additional upgrades. The current version fulfills everyone's requirements, and ServiceNow automatically updates annually, keeping pace with industry standards. They've been performing well, so I see no need for further upgrades, especially considering their consistent updates.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The designer feature, compared to other solutions is easy to use."
"IBM BPM is equipped with all the functionalities which are needed for building BPM enterprise-level applications."
"IBM's deployment box is one huge black box. We can create all the services with our own code or without a codebase, however, we have a huge amount of space with practically no limitation."
"IBM BPM is easy to deploy."
"It makes the company business processes work more efficiently."
"This is one of the best tools to support the business and the way we work, and the numerous processes we need to implement."
"I rate the technical support a ten out of ten...The product's installation was easy."
"Setting it up is fairly easy. If somebody has knowledge of the system, he or she will be able to do it fairly quickly."
"It's probably the best product out there."
"The data visualization is good."
"It has competitive AI capabilities."
"Great with IT processes and business processes."
"Provisioning of new systems is among the most impactful features for automating complex workflows with ServiceNow Orchestration."
"Employee onboarding, de-boarding, and other service-provision features make the process easier and it saves us a lot of time."
"It is a very stable product, highly affordable."
"The product has a flexible interface for development."
 

Cons

"Performance on large scale requirements could also be improved."
"I hope IBM uses something from IBM Content Navigator to make the interface easier to navigate."
"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."
"The stability varies because it involves a lot of other components like databases, so sometimes if something goes wrong there, it can't recover from the fatal errors."
"IBM BPM is stable, but sometimes there are issues with the server."
"Finding errors and bugs on the system is not easy. We can't seem to use the events or logs to find them, so it makes it difficult to debug the system. They really need to work on their debugging features to make is much, much easier. It would improve the solution considerably and should be something they add in a future release."
"We are a government organization, and we are the largest government power sector in India. We generate around 30% of power in India. Therefore, our processes are quite complex. Although IBM BPM is a low-code or no-code software, if you want to have extremely complex workflows, just the business process diagrams are not helpful in creating those workflows. While implementing complex workflows, only the process flow diagrams did not help us. We had to write a lot of Java scripts and Java queries to achieve what we wanted. Its integration capabilities with the SAP environment have to be improved. At present, we are only talking at the web services environment level. Its price also needs to be improved. It is currently expensive. Previously, Active Directory required a heterogeneous environment, but now they want a homogeneous environment. We had onboarded employees through Microsoft Active Directory, and now I have to implement Microsoft AD only from the cloud for my vendors."
"Integration with web services, especially in the standard version of the product."
"From my space, the only thing that I can say is the spinning up with Google Cloud Services."
"There can be gaps in integration."
"Frequent upgrades may negatively impact the performance of instances. Therefore, for now, I don't recommend any additional upgrades."
"It is a highly complex platform to work on."
"I would like a user experience module to be added."
"Efficiency of some features could be improved."
"The deployment requires awareness among the project staff."
"The flow rate for releases and updates is very, very slow and does not meet customers' objectives for scalability."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Due to its extensive features and capabilities, the product pricing is more aligned with medium—to large enterprises."
"​We have definitely seen ROI. When we first kicked it off, we said it had to pay for itself within three years, and it did."
"The pricing is very high."
"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 price of the solution is fair for an enterprise solution that has both cloud and on-premise deployments and when comparing to competitors. Recently IBM has introduced Cloud Pak which allows for more flexible licensing options for automation and other features."
"I give the pricing an eight out of ten."
"The product is expensive considering the hardware and software costs."
"The cloud and license of the subscription model for IBM BPM can be complex. There are a lot of alternatives to choose from."
"ServiceNow doesn't give a clear cost indication. They have different contracts with different organizations and it's all about negotiation, so you don't know how they are doing at the cost level."
"It is quite expensive because we've had some customers come back and say it's quite pricey because in order for them to go ahead with Orchestration, they must have already been paying for Discovery, service mapping, and a few other things."
"The cost of the solution is based on the number of plugins, conductors and integrations used and is charged annually. The licensing cause has been increasing gradually which makes it difficult to access. Initially offer free features but over the time the charges rise which make it an expensive solution with limited features. Along with that, the integration issues persist and require additional middle where and internet connectivity for effective usage."
"Pricing is custom to every customer."
"In terms of price, this solution is at the higher end of what you'll find."
"This is an expensive product, but it is the best in the market considering the features and lack of competitors."
"The solution is costly and orchestrations are very expensive."
"It is not very 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
21%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
 

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 ServiceNow Orchestration?
The interface of the solution is very user friendly and it is easily accessible via a simple URL. This makes it easier to complete the UI based tasks but using other features require expertise in l...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow Orchestration?
The cost of ServiceNow Orchestration is considered medium; it is expensive but powerful. I would rate the pricing experience as a six out of ten.
What needs improvement with ServiceNow Orchestration?
The third-party integrations are challenging when the tools are not from ServiceNow ( /products/servicenow-reviews ) partners. This presents issues when integrating solutions from other vendors.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
No data available
 

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
experian, BEACHBODY, HealthPartners, Banosoft
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM BPM vs. ServiceNow Orchestration and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.