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Apache Airflow vs Appian vs IBM BPM comparison

 

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.8
Apache Airflow offers high ROI due to open-source features, Python integration, and efficient pipeline building, though measurement varies.
Sentiment score
7.3
Appian enhances ROI for companies by improving efficiency, reducing costs, and achieving break-even within the first year.
Sentiment score
7.1
IBM BPM offers quick ROI by enhancing process efficiency and transparency, outweighing high costs through accelerated operations and reduced errors.
They see return on investment in terms of cost savings, time savings, more efficient processes, and more efficient employees.
Appian is very efficient, allowing us to build a lot of applications within a financial year, making it cost-effective.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Users primarily rely on community resources and comprehensive documentation for Apache Airflow, with minimal direct technical assistance needed.
Sentiment score
7.5
Appian's customer service is excellent but faces capacity challenges; proactive support is valuable despite complex issue delays and high costs.
Sentiment score
6.7
IBM BPM support is responsive and helpful but could improve response speed; high-priority issues receive swift attention.
There is enough documentation available, and the community support is good.
Forums and community resources like Stack Overflow are helpful.
Their customer service is responsive, and the team is very prompt for support.
The technical support for Appian rates as 10 out of 10 because they have a great support team.
The technical support is generally good.
The customer service is outstanding.
We had a contract that provided on-site support, which was very satisfactory.
On a scale from 1 to 10, support deserves a rating of 7 to 8.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Apache Airflow is scalable and flexible, ideal for adaptable workflows but may pose challenges in cloud-native integration and large-scale tasks.
Sentiment score
7.4
Appian is scalable and flexible, but may encounter performance issues with complex processes and large data volumes.
Sentiment score
6.8
IBM BPM excels in scalable performance on WebSphere, offering customization and flexibility, with expertise crucial for optimal setup.
The solution is very scalable.
Apache Airflow scales well, especially when deployed in Kubernetes environments.
On a scale of one to 10, Appian rates as a nine for scalability.
Initially, without much coding, I can easily handle five thousand records.
Appian is scalable, but it depends on how you build your applications.
The solution has scalability issues; on a scale, I would rate it at eight out of ten.
The architecture of the solution offers scalability; we can scale both vertically and horizontally.
I found IBM BPM to be scalable to a certain level but it struggled with large volumes of concurrent transactions.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
Apache Airflow's stability is praised, though some face bugs, configuration issues, and performance challenges, especially in cloud environments.
Sentiment score
8.0
Appian is praised for stability and reliability, with high uptime, seamless updates, and occasional minor database issues.
Sentiment score
7.1
IBM BPM stability varies, with recent versions showing improvements; issues exist under heavy loads and weak network conditions.
I would rate the stability of the solution as ten out of ten.
Apache Airflow is stable and I have not experienced significant issues.
I would rate its stability at nine out of ten.
It depends on how it has been designed and how it has been configured.
The stability of Appian would rate as nine, as it's a stable environment.
 

Room For Improvement

Apache Airflow needs improvements in flexibility, UI, documentation, scalability, performance, integration, and version control for better workflow orchestration.
Appian needs improvements in flexibility, integration, scalability, team collaboration, mobile features, documentation, licensing, and handling complex processes.
IBM BPM needs UI enhancements, better integrations, improved performance, simplified installation, advanced reports, AI features, and security updates.
It is not suitable for real-time ETL tasks.
There is no dashboard for us to check all the Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs); a dashboard would help us analyze the work better.
If we desire to add custom messengers or a rest API, those options are unavailable.
It has room to improve for use cases where the users are public facing, where anonymous users could come to a site and run a business workflow or interact with some data.
If there is a very complex process that includes a lot of data transitioning and memory-centric processes, it consumes a lot of memory.
I would like to see more enhancement in the user interface to allow more freedom in designing the sites and pages.
IBM BPM also lacks smaller solutions, so I must purchase multiple solutions to start with workflows and applications.
Technologies evolve day by day, especially with the emergence of artificial intelligence and generative AI models.
 

Setup Cost

Apache Airflow is free, but enterprises may incur costs using cloud services or managed services for additional features.
Appian offers flexible pricing with cloud and on-premise options, but costs can rise with usage and require negotiation.
IBM BPM is a costly solution suited for large enterprises, with licensing options often pricier than competitors like Camunda.
I prefer using the open-source version rather than the enterprise version, which helps manage costs.
It is a sub-feature and not an individual purchase.
Apache Airflow is a community-based platform and is not a licensed product.
On the pricier side, both Appian and Pega are enterprise-level solutions, placing them on the slightly higher side.
The pricing of Appian is based on the number of users and generally ranges from 70 to 100 USD per user per month.
The price of Appian, on a competitive landscape, is a little bit on the higher side for companies, rating maybe a 6.5.
SAP is more expensive, but IBM BPM is very expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Apache Airflow offers customizable, scalable workflows with Python support, seamless integration, and strong community backing for efficiency and maintainability.
Appian provides low-code development, easy integration, scalability, and strong AI-enhanced features with a user-friendly interface and robust support.
IBM BPM offers robust SOA, easy process modulation, responsive UI, and seamless integration for effective business process management.
Apache Airflow is an open-source platform that allows easy integration with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.
Reliability is good, and when integrated with Kubernetes, it performs better compared to on-premises environments.
We can create notifications for successful or failed tasks, providing a practical way to monitor our workflows.
The zero-code integration feature is remarkable, allowing for ease of data transfer and workflow enhancement.
Appian is aiding in leveraging AI technologies in multiple ways: one way is for developers, as they make development efficient and quick by enabling developer co-pilots across various phases of the application, which helps design Appian quickly and provides suggestions along the way.
It is easy for me to define the process and create configurable workflows.
The integration capabilities of IBM BPM are excellent.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of Apache Airflow is 5.7%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Appian is 5.3%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM BPM is 6.0%, down from 7.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Apache Airflow5.7%
IBM BPM6.0%
Appian5.3%
Other83.0%
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

Featured Reviews

Madhan Potluri - PeerSpot reviewer
We efficiently manage and monitor production pipelines through job resumption and error log integration
We utilize Apache Airflow for managing machine learning production pipelines. The deployment of our machine learning models takes place through Apache Airflow. We configure pipelines, decide on the frequency of recalibration, deployment, and dataset training Apache Airflow allows us to resume…
Kunal Sharda - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience enables seamless automation and elevates process efficiency while embracing innovative technologies
The features of Appian that have proven to be the most beneficial are its capability to create processes and integrate with external systems while ensuring data consistency across all the systems. The latest features of Appian are quite useful around the UI/UX design and the artificial intelligence integrations. Appian is aiding in leveraging AI technologies in multiple ways: one way is for developers, as they make development efficient and quick by enabling developer co-pilots across various phases of the application, which helps design Appian quickly and provides suggestions along the way. Another way is through AI Skills, which can be integrated anywhere in the process model to leverage artificial intelligence for tasks such as extracting data from documents, summarizing information from documents or long paragraphs, and building custom prompts with Appian. Appian also utilizes AI for business users, providing a feature called process each view, enabling business users to create their own dashboards, reports, and gain insights from their data and processes using artificial intelligence. It's multi-fold and always growing.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Insurance Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise24
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise41
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise71
 

Questions from the Community

Which would you choose - Camunda Platform or Apache Airflow?
Camunda Platform allows for visual demonstration and presentation of business process flows. The flexible Java-based ...
What do you like most about Apache Airflow?
Apache Airflow is easy to use and can monitor task execution easily. For instance, when performing setup tasks, you c...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Airflow?
We don't experience issues with pricing as Apache Airflow is part of a larger platform. It is a sub-feature and not a...
Which do you prefer - Appian or Camunda Platform?
Appian is fast when building simple to medium solutions. This solution offers simple drag-and-drop functionality with...
Is Appian a suitable solution for beginners who have no additional preparation?
Appian is actually pretty big on educating its users, including with courses that reward you with certifications. The...
Is it easy to set up Appian or did you have to resort to professional help?
We had some issues when we were setting up Appian. It was quite surprising, since this is a low-code tool which, in i...
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 inter...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM BPM?
Once it is installed, maintaining it is not a big issue.
 

Also Known As

Airflow
Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Agari, WePay, Astronomer
Hansard Global plc, Punch Taverns, Pirelli, Crawford & Company, EDP Renewables, Queensland Government Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning (, Bank of Tennessee
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda, Automation Anywhere, Apache and others in Business Process Management (BPM). Updated: August 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.