Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2023
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM BPM
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
5th
Ranking in Process Automation
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (7th)
Pega BPM
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
3rd
Ranking in Process Automation
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Rapid Application Development Software (8th), Low-Code Development Platforms (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2024, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of IBM BPM is 7.5%, up from 7.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pega BPM is 6.4%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM)
Unique Categories:
Application Infrastructure
3.5%
Process Automation
11.0%
Rapid Application Development Software
4.9%
 

Featured Reviews

SureshThota1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 20, 2023
Good automation, stable, and scalable
The initial setup is complex, but once we have a mature framework in place, it has been working well. When deployed properly and as expected, customers are happy to use the solution. However, there is still a lot of configuration and installation taking time. IBM BPM provides a cloud-fast model, where it is possible to integrate automation of the process and where manual interaction is only necessary if automation is not available. We have implemented an ultimate installation that includes both capabilities, but some features were not enabled in the process access station. For example, I could not open KFC documents, they all uploaded, and saved the data, but could not do a profile page without manual interaction. IBM is still working on a permanent solution for this. The deployment time depends on the requirements, which can be critical, low, or medium-high. If the requirements are critical, it will take six to eight months. For medium requirements, it will take five months, and for low requirements, it will take only one month. Eight people were part of the deployment team.
AC
May 7, 2021
Full integration, flexible, and knowledge technical support
The solution can be used to quickly manage and monitor processes in your organization.  I have found the solution to be flexible and they provide good support.  In general, we use web services to integrate this solution with our other tools. It is the main approach we use with this solution and it…

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."
"The most valuable feature for the organization is the Document Store."
"I think the best way it can be it improved, is to make it easier to install. It's a very complicated piece of software, and there are a lot of things you have to do to get it set up. It's not just running an installer. You install WebSphere. You install the BPM product, and there's a large host of other steps you have to do: run queries against the database, you have to manually configure a bunch of properties files for your environment. I think if they could streamline all that, so it wasn't a considerable effort to install, that would be very useful. Because from an engineering point of view, you want to spend as little time as possible actually installing a product."
"It has an elaborated way to explore the IBM BPM processes."
"This product does the job in terms of executing the workflow."
"We use it for automating certain processes which previously took a lot of time for agents to set up different products for customers. They would have to enter a lot of different systems. This has now mostly been automated."
"They have some quick-win programs that are designed to come in, they'll bring a developer in and they'll work with your developer to get you started. That's what we did and that worked really great. We got an understanding of the product, we got an understanding of how to deploy the product. And when we were done with that engagement, we were off and running."
"It is easy to take a requirement, put it in the code, and deploy it."
"The most valuable feature of Pega BPM is step-by-step voice guidance that converts your problem statement into different diagrams and then implements the process."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its quick setup. Nowhere else you can create a good-looking application this quick. It's a fairly robust system."
"Case Management, as well as Workflow Automation, are Pega's most powerful capabilities."
"There is a feature to accelerate the development so that business analysts can directly create their user stories and assign the task to the developers."
"This solution is useful for business process management if you have any banking solutions or need to manage a process."
"It's a good tool for workflow automation."
"Can do a lot of things with minimum time and cost."
"The technical support of Pega BPM is very good."
 

Cons

"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."
"The product is extremely complex to use and administrate."
"If the processing gets better, it would be more efficient."
"We still have a couple of issues that we are working on right now with stability. Mostly on the configuration side of the tool, and it has been about a month that we have been working to stabilize the platform.​"
"I'm hearing things might be improving, to really deliver on BPM as opposed to simply workflow. That really should be emphasized a lot more than it has been, because a lot of customers will simply implement the process and leave it there, because the product maybe doesn't emphasize BPM as much as it should, as much as maybe they talk about it in the sales process. The whole idea of BPM, is to iteratively improve the process, and in order to do that you have to have the analytics tool with it. A lot of times that doesn't go as far as it should simply because there's a lot more work to be done for that to happen, and just some sort of technical limitations that don't make that as easy as it should be."
"There needs to be better documentation for IBM BPM in a central place. There is not any standard documentation for each component available and has been a barrier for developers."
"The integration could be improved."
"We would appreciate more user-friendly definitions of processes with a more user-friendly interface for documenting processes."
"The solution would benefit from more integration capabilities."
"Currently, there isn't any feature I want to be added in the next release of Pega BPM because Pega always adds new features that my team welcomes and looks forward to learning. One area for improvement in the solution is the long learning curve, but after that, you'll find Pega BPM easy to use."
"There have been some performance scalability issues. Suppose you want to add more users. You go from, say, 800 users to 1,500 users, and sometimes that creates issues for which there is no clear explanation. To fix it you have to escalate it with customer service and sometimes the response is not up to the mark in resolving those issues."
"Pega BPM's documentation should be improved, especially for freshers or new trainees."
"It needs more integration with other platforms."
"The previous versions had good training documents but the updated versions need to improve the documentation."
"I think there is room for improvement in the low code/ no code environment that they're promoting now. That needs to be aligned a little bit more. I still feel that it is not that friendly for a person who has no experience with Pega to just go in and try to create something."
"Pega Cloud early adoption and use for cross enterprise capability was new to many. The early adoption meant version 2.0 of their cloud service may require refactoring and redesign of some services."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is highly-priced."
"The pricing is quite high, I would rate it two out of five."
"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."
"It is pricey."
"Price wise, IBM BPM is cheaper than other similar solutions and has excellent pricing."
"Its price is on the higher side, and it can be improved. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. There are no additional costs."
"I already compared some solutions related to business process management, and I saw that the cost of IBM BPM is more expensive compared with that of Camunda, for example."
"It's a user-based license where, as you scale the numbers of users, the price increases."
"Pega is expensive."
"I am not aware of the cost. But, considering the licenses, user licenses, and infrastructure, I'd guess around a million USD."
"They need to come up with licensing options. Right now they do have a cloud-based option, but the cloud prices I've seen are much more expensive compared to competing products."
"The price is a bit expensive."
"The licensing model from Pega BPM is too complex and is more expensive than other solutions, such as SAP. The overall price of the solution depends on the use case."
"The solution could be less expensive according to my customers. However, I think the price of the solution is fair."
"The costing model for Pega BPM is different. One is a license that you can pay yearly. Another licensing model for Pega BPM is based on the number of cases you create in production in a year. Costing based on use cases is also available for Pega BPM. I don't have information on its exact pricing or costs, though."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
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?
The product is expensive considering the hardware and software costs.
Is Pega BPM easy to work with and can beginners utilize this software?
You do need some preparation to be able to use all functions of Pega BPM. However, all users of this platform are in luck as it comes with good documentation and you can learn pretty much everythin...
Have you encountered any issues while using Pega BPM and were you assisted by the company?
My company has been using this tool for years and the only issue we have had, if you can call it that, was while setting it up. When we were setting it up initially, we had some drawbacks and could...
When you consider the features and benefits of Pega BPM, would you say this product is fairly priced?
Pega BPM can be considered overpriced for some; it all depends on the size of your company and the requirements of your customers. Sure, there are products out there that do the things that Pega B...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
Pegasystems, SmartBPM
 

Learn More

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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
The State of Maine, ANZ, Coca-Cola, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), ME, New South Wales, OptumRx, Texas Department of Transportation, UnitedHealthcare Medicare & Retirement
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM BPM vs. Pega BPM and other solutions. Updated: June 2024.
787,779 professionals have used our research since 2012.