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IBM BPM vs WorkflowGen comparison

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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 Business Process Management (BPM)
3rd
Ranking in Process Automation
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (8th)
WorkflowGen
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
39th
Ranking in Process Automation
41st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (27th), Rapid Application Development Software (32nd), Low-Code Development Platforms (35th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of IBM BPM is 4.1%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WorkflowGen is 1.1%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM BPM4.1%
WorkflowGen1.1%
Other94.8%
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

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.
CO
SAP Solution Lead at Johnson & Johnson
Good for automatically triggering workflows, but needs to be more customizable
We use this product for many different reasons related to our business We use it a lot for creating workflows to transfer materials between plants, which is a signature part of what we do. The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically trigger the workflow. This solution needs to be…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The integration capabilities of IBM BPM are excellent."
"We made the transformation to agile. Altogether with BPM, it is the total package."
"I rate the technical support a ten out of ten...The product's installation was easy."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to customize your rules and put them inside the tool."
"Previously, our company's business automation process was slow. IBM BPM's schedule and response functionalities are excellent...There are countless use cases in which IBM BPM proves to be a valuable tool for my clients."
"There is a component of this BPM pool - I can't recall the name. What it does is, it allows you to create various scenarios and then run them quickly, before actually putting them onto a tool. So I think that part of the tool is really fantastic, because that enables you to create scenarios, create simulations, before actually going out and putting it into the tool itself"
"With the Process Center, I can go to one place and view what all the environments are doing."
"Its dashboard is easy to use and very good. It allows us to customize."
"We use it a lot for creating workflows to transfer materials between plants, which is a signature part of what we do."
"Took few hours to build workflows with ready-to-use templates, so we had improved productivity."
"It’s easier, more controlled and automatized checks of the budget through this system."
 

Cons

"Some of the features are not enough for my business. We need to build custom user management for the many end users affected by BPM."
"We would like to see this product cloud-native, as the market now is moving to both hybrid cloud and multi-cloud deployments."
"I would like to see more inclusion of RPA technologies. If we have more manual processes, we can use robotic process automation and integrate that in with the solution."
"It is not user-friendly and requires a knowledgeable and skilled user to work with it."
"Yes, on the Process Center (development environment), especially when you have too many developers working on it. Then, it becomes unstable."
"It's a bit technical, related to the instance of migrations. It's a tough thing to handle, in every new release, in every upgrade, that we have to do things in the applications or in the product. I think IBM is working on it but I know there are a lot of requests coming in from different organizations on this."
"IBM BPM can improve the dashboards and reports. It only has two dashboards, and reporting is very difficult to build."
"Though I am quite satisfied with the product, and especially the introduction of responsive UI, I still believe that the overall development environment must be desktop based rather web based."
"This solution needs to be more customizable."
"Yes, for email notification but it could also be with company network."
"The reports for users. The reports with more details; we have to generate them by the database."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a ten."
"I wish it was less expensive. I don't know why their pricing model is so high for a piece of software that could benefit so many. It just seems to me that they could have a lower cost, maybe with fewer features or whatever, but it should be possible to do a lower cost workflow software that uses the same interface and underlying engine but does not cost so much that you have to be a Fortune 50 company to buy it. It is annoying to me. There are a lot of solutions that IBM has that are really powerful but nobody can afford them. They know their business, but I still feel that there are a lot of customers who would benefit from this sort of thing. I don't know what this elitism is all about. I am sure they have people doing the money numbers, but it seems like you can make a lot more money by selling it to way more people for a little bit less."
"Starting out with Express can also help reduce the cost for adopting the product."
"​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 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."
"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."
"Its price is on the higher side, and it can be improved. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. There are no additional costs."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
20%
Construction Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise72
No data available
 

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 needs improvement with IBM BPM?
There are negative aspects, such as IBM BPM being quite heavy and not lightweight, and the licensing cost is higher, which has caused some companies to shift away. IBM BPM is complicated to install...
Ask a question
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Comparisons

 

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
Comcast, Deloitte, Mitsui & Co Ltd, Sanofi Pasteur, Textron, XL Group. WorkflowGen accelerates business process adaptability in 70 countries for 500+ organizations and 1,000,000 users.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM BPM vs. WorkflowGen and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.