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Appian RPA 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Appian RPA
Ranking in Process Automation
24th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (15th)
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)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of Appian RPA is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM BPM is 6.3%, down from 10.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Kunal Sharda - PeerSpot reviewer
Partnering with comprehensive automation for increased efficiency
The best feature of Appian RPA is that it is highly integrated into the Appian platform itself. It is very easy to configure that in the end-to-end Appian automation solution. The second notable feature is that Appian RPA gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of how you want to design the robotic tasks. It has a very detailed orchestration console which provides details about the entire runtime and the logs of Appian RPA where you can find in detail what the robot did on the virtual machine. Appian provides dashboards where users or admins can log in and see how the robots are performing various robotic tasks. It is very detailed and gives substantial insight into how Appian RPA is functioning or is operational. It also lets you drill down into specific details at each task level.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Appian RPA is super easy to use, offering low code, no code capabilities."
"The best feature of Appian RPA is that it is highly integrated into the Appian platform itself and is very easy to configure in the end-to-end Appian automation solution."
"It is a stale solution."
"The solution offers great notifications."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to customize your rules and put them inside the tool."
"We have automated processes with IBM BPM and DocuSign. Its valuable features include low-code, timer, etc. It makes it simple to implement the products. We generate reports using the solution."
"The Process Designer is good. We like how we can drag and drop and link the processes up, that works out great for us."
"The performance is fine."
"The most valuable features come in the bundle, the design process, creating services, creating BPDs, creating coaches, and UI/UX."
"We can scale by increasing the infrastructure which is currently running."
 

Cons

"There are many competitive products in the market right now, for example, UiPath and Automation Anywhere. These competitive products are now coming up with features which Appian RPA currently does not have."
"There are not any areas that need improvement off the top of my head."
"I hope IBM uses something from IBM Content Navigator to make the interface easier to navigate."
"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."
"Better integration with other products in the automation suite."
"The analysis reports could be much better."
"User Interface components could be further refined to enhance and extend customizations dictated by end clients."
"Importing and exporting between multiple environments is more difficult with other tools."
"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 solution has scalability issues; on a scale, I would rate it at eight out of ten."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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 is good but could be a little lower."
"The pricing is very high."
"Starting out with Express can also help reduce the cost for adopting the product."
"It has a low cost to implement. You'll get your money back in the same year that you complete the project."
"IBM BPM is expensive, so most large companies opt for IBM based on their licensing options."
"Licensing is managed by the client, but we know it is yearly. Camunda is relatively cheaper. There is not much difference in pricing of IBM and PEGA. For large licensing, there are discounts as well."
"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%
Insurance Company
15%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Appian RPA?
I didn't handle payments or costs. We recommended infrastructure stacks to our clients, who implemented them, and we provided ongoing consulting services.
What needs improvement with Appian RPA?
There are many competitive products in the market right now, for example, UiPath and Automation Anywhere. These competitive products are now coming up with features which Appian RPA currently does ...
What is your primary use case for Appian RPA?
Clients use the Appian RPA solution whenever they have manual tasks and want to automate them using robots. It is usually used for highly repetitive tasks which are manual in nature and where there...
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Jidoka RPA
WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

empark, talan, liverpool, ayesa, aeromexico, teknei
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 Appian RPA vs. IBM BPM and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.