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IBM BPM vs WSO2 Carbon [EOL] comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (8th), Application Infrastructure (10th), Process Automation (9th)
WSO2 Carbon [EOL]
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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.
it_user420135 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Architect & Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
It allows you to deal with any mediation situation based on messages using concepts like proxy services and APIs.
The Data Services Server is a beautiful product which allows you to "expose" your data as REST and/or SOAP services secured or not using any of the databases you might to keep your business data. Using with the Identity server it gives you the possibility to manage all the identity subjects in your Organization, it connects out of the box to any corporate user store you have through LDAP or JDBC, it allows you to manage different mechanisms to implement authentication / authorization using Web SSO, SAML2, OAUTH2, federated authentication, among others. Also, it allows you to control all this through its administrative interface which could be exposed out of the box as SOAP services and also you can use it to implement role based access controls using XACML policies and business claims.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution is very stable."
"One thing that I love about them is that they make it easier to integrate with other systems, especially with the use of smaller files."
"The process creation."
"We are implementing the tool to triple our monthly transaction volume."
"Start with the IBM Blueworks Live to get your house in order first."
"If time matters, if your company has a lot of processes that could be automated, BPM is the right solution, definitely."
"I would recommend this solution; it is a very good solution, and they are working on improving it in all areas."
"It is easy to take a requirement, put it in the code, and deploy it."
"The Enterprise Service Bus is really fast and flexible, it allows you to deal with any mediation situation based on messages using concepts like proxy services, APIs, and it has lots of connectors that facilitates its interaction with other products."
 

Cons

"They don't have a mechanism to achieve processes, data sources, and data."
"Development of user interfaces Load time (performance) of the user interfaces"
"IBM BPM integrated with Spark UI and the UI is now much better, but they still need to improve the UI because competitors have predefined templates and other additional features. In these competitor's solutions, you are able to use the templates, map your data, and the form is ready to use. With this solution, you need to write a lot of code to have the same quality as the competitor's templates. It would be a benefit to make this platform more towards low-code or no-code."
"Except for the Lucene the index - we had a couple of issues in the Process Portal where the Lucene index went out of sync, and we had to work at least 15 - 20 hours to have it back in sync with the database."
"The initial setup was complex."
"The debugging needs improvement. There is some confusion surrounding the debugging."
"The initial setup process is complex for basic users."
"The people working on the front desk are having some problem with managing the documentation. For instance, they get a picture, and if the picture comes rotated 90 degrees, together with a picture that is not rotated, they have some problems dealing with that, technically. There are some minor aspects that on the usability side that are still lacking. That has to do with FileNet, too, I'm talking about the suite together."
"In a general sense, the documentation of these products should be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Due to its extensive features and capabilities, the product pricing is more aligned with medium—to large enterprises."
"IBM could improve the price. It is far too expensive."
"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."
"Price wise, IBM BPM is cheaper than other similar solutions and has excellent pricing."
"I think it's a reasonably priced tool, but it's important to consider which customers should buy this solution. It's designed for enterprise customers, not small ones."
"We have a yearly licensing model. It is not expensive. There are no addition costs to the standard license."
"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."
"The pricing is quite high, I would rate it two out of five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
No data available
 

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...
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Also Known As

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

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
Bdigital, M-creations, Yenlo, Codenvy, Ohio Automobile Club
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