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ARIS BPA vs Automate vs IBM Business Automation Workflow 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
6.8
ARIS BPA varies in ROI timelines, enhancing process understanding and control but with hard-to-quantify financial impacts.
Sentiment score
8.1
Automate boosts efficiency and reduces costs with easy deployment, allowing quick returns without extra IT staff.
Sentiment score
7.6
IBM Business Automation Workflow enhances efficiency, reduces costs, and accelerates digital transformation for improved ROI and user experience.
Fortra's Automate has effectively replaced the workload of an entire employee, saving us significant time and money.
It has reduced our expenditures in terms of purchasing more products and employing more technicians.
I've seen a good return on investment with Automate, as it streamlines processes and improves my productivity.
Initially performed manually, workflows now provide a better user experience and increased efficiency.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
ARIS BPA's support is praised for technical assistance and flexibility but could improve in responsiveness and communication.
Sentiment score
7.4
Automate's customer service is praised for prompt, effective support, despite occasional language barriers and a challenging knowledge base.
Sentiment score
5.9
IBM Business Automation Workflow's support has mixed reviews, but many find value once acquainted with their processes.
The consultants are fine, however, reliance on single experts for modules can be risky.
They don't always understand the processes I'm trying to implement.
I would rate the technical support as a nine out of ten because it is quite fast and courteous.
They are very responsive and have been able to resolve any issues I have encountered.
If the solution is readily available to IBM support team, they provide it instantly.
IBM provides long-term support and maintains a traditionally good customer-vendor relationship.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
ARIS BPA is scalable for small to large enterprises, offering flexibility, modular features, and easy licensing for process management expansion.
Sentiment score
7.2
Automate is scalable, enabling easy expansion with flexibility and load balancing, though some concerns about complexity and cost exist.
Sentiment score
7.8
IBM Business Automation Workflow is highly scalable, supporting extensive transactions, concurrent users, and both cloud and on-premises deployments.
For user scalability, it is a matter of licenses, while functional scalability is supported and easy to implement.
ARIS BPA has high scalability and wide scalability for any enterprise or organization.
It is easy to increase one bot or one studio without needing to buy another orchestrator, which can be quite expensive.
Automate is stable for my needs and is highly scalable, allowing the same workflow to serve numerous tasks effectively.
We are implementing load balancing and horizontal scalability.
We can manage the license usage and scale our environment while optimizing license use.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
ARIS BPA is generally stable, with minor issues primarily in large environments, but responsive support enhances stability perception.
Sentiment score
6.9
Automate v.11 is mostly stable and reliable, but resource-intensive, with occasional errors and crashes depending on task type.
Sentiment score
7.6
IBM Business Automation Workflow is stable, with minor bugs, improving over time; users rate stability highly due to IBM's robust infrastructure.
The stability of ARIS BPM is quite strong, rated eight out of ten.
It has very robust features, and it is not prone to instability.
The stability of Fortra's Automate is excellent.
The stability is good and consistent, with no fluctuations in functioning.
Outside of these maintenance periods, the environment is quite stable.
 

Room For Improvement

ARIS BPA needs better integration, user interface, scripting, documentation, training, pricing, and simplicity for wider accessibility.
Intelligent automation faces issues with usability, integration, and support, needing improvements in user interface, customization, and community engagement.
IBM Business Automation Workflow needs improved integration, usability, cloud features, and support to enhance user experience and modernize the platform.
Software AG should focus on developing AI models for ARIS BPA on-premises, particularly in user interfaces, as well as creating predefined business processes for common areas such as HR and finance.
Software AG could improve this by making the database more open.
ARIS BPA needs to be more accurate when generating documents.
This is a significant concern, especially with critical workloads where visibility into errors is essential.
I would prefer not having to log in to update a ticket; being able to respond via email would be beneficial.
Integration with Amazon S3 is somewhat lacking.
Many developments are focused on AI, LLM models, and data science.
IBM Business Automation Workflow could be more intuitive, with more advanced low-code features and services definition.
Code management lacks merging capabilities.
 

Setup Cost

ARIS BPA pricing is high but valued by large enterprises; smaller firms may find costs prohibitive due to complex licensing.
Automate offers flexible and cost-effective pricing, allowing multiple processes per bot, making it competitive against UiPath and Blue Prism.
IBM Business Automation Workflow is costly but offers high-quality features, flexible licensing, and worthwhile enterprise-level capabilities.
Competitors are often more expensive than Automate.
It offered what we wanted at a good, competitive price.
It does a lot but also costs a lot.
It is not a cheap license but in line with expectations for such software.
The price of IBM Business Automation Workflow is on the higher side compared to the features it offers.
 

Valuable Features

ARIS BPA offers powerful modeling, customization, and collaboration tools, integrating SAP and databases, ensuring strategic alignment and governance.
Automate offers user-friendly automation with seamless integration, intuitive features, and cost-effective scalability, enhancing productivity and efficiency.
IBM Business Automation Workflow offers agile, user-friendly workflow solutions with RPA integration, enhancing collaboration, customization, and AI-driven processes.
ARIS BPA is a tool to build models and frameworks for organizations or reengineer business processes from both functional and business perspectives.
The maintenance capabilities of ARIS BPM and the strong underlying database are particularly valuable.
The most important aspect of business analysis is simplification.
Automate's non-reliance on additional orchestrators makes it quite cost-effective.
In my opinion, the best feature Automate offers is the scheduling.
I find the ease of use from a programming perspective very valuable.
The system is fully customizable, very resilient, and fault-tolerant.
It assisted in making users concentrate on the process flow rather than just features.
It offers robust workflow features and, despite being a low-code tool, provides extensive customization options.
 

Mindshare comparison

Business Process Design Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ARIS BPA7.0%
Visio12.5%
Camunda11.3%
Other69.2%
Business Process Design
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Automate2.0%
UiPath Platform17.9%
Microsoft Power Automate17.7%
Other62.400000000000006%
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Business Process Management (BPM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Business Automation Workflow1.9%
Camunda16.0%
SAP Signavio Process Manager6.5%
Other75.6%
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

Featured Reviews

Tamer Eldamanhouri - PeerSpot reviewer
Empowers teams with robust business process modeling capabilities
They should examine competitor solutions to identify differentiators. One issue related to ARIS BPA is its integration with AI; it has AI features for cloud solutions, yet many in the government sector in Kuwait do not view the cloud as viable. Software AG should focus on developing AI models for ARIS BPA on-premises, particularly in user interfaces, as well as creating predefined business processes for common areas such as HR and finance. This aspect is crucial for adapting to the market's needs and streamlining custom solutions. While they have been helpful regarding pricing, I cannot compare ARIS BPA to other business process modeling tools because I understand some competitors have significantly lower costs than ARIS BPA. To maintain market share, good discounts should be provided to customers.
Ibukun Shweta - PeerSpot reviewer
Automation optimizes scheduling, but improvements needed in error reporting and script execution
In my particular use case, for session management, it would be better if I could get a more granular view into connectivity issues to servers. Sometimes, although your flows or tasks are running as scheduled, connecting to the servers can hit a snag without alerts or error logs to check. Some servers might need patching or could be affected by network issues or latency. The workflow sometimes gets stuck without clarity on the errors. An explicit error report would be helpful, especially when the connection fails unexpectedly. It's complex to analyze problems that might arise from firewall issues or other anomalies that could hinder the flow from executing as expected. The depth of these connection challenges would benefit from better debugging capabilities. As for improvements, if Automate wasn't designed primarily for script execution, that's understandable. However, for Linux, I would prefer to see less complexity in workflows to achieve a natural completion of scripts. There are features, such as 'wait for terminal output,' that should more intuitively detect completion based on the shell prompt. Improving those aspects would make Automate more efficient for my needs. Regarding error reporting, I think Automate should offer better error reporting when connecting to servers. Currently, there are many instances where I see empty logs, indicating that, while tasks are scheduled, commands are not executing successfully. This is a significant concern, especially with critical workloads where visibility into errors is essential.
Ateeq Rehman - PeerSpot reviewer
Customizable features empower seamless workflow automation
The system is fully customizable, very resilient, and fault-tolerant. We have first-line support from IBM, so there are no issues. We have integrations with different banks, ERP systems, and other human resource management systems by integrating through different systems. It provides many ways to integrate, and we are utilizing it effectively.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Performing Arts
6%
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise47
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ARIS BPA?
The most valuable features of ARIS BPA are its flexibility and reporting.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ARIS BPA?
Pricing for ARIS BPA is average, not cheap or expensive. It's cost-effective and worth the money we pay.
What needs improvement with ARIS BPA?
ARIS BPA needs to be more accurate when generating documents. While it covers many blueprints and functions that I ne...
What do you like most about HelpSystems AutoMate?
We use it for specific cases, mainly secure file transfers, which are vital for us. And it works for us.
What is your primary use case for HelpSystems AutoMate?
My main use case for Automate is to deliver enterprise-scale script execution jobs, which means we are using Automate...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?
Until now, I have not specified any other tech products except Microsoft Power Automate, N8N, and Make.com that I've ...
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 do you like most about IBM Business Automation Workflow?
It performs the basic tasks that are required for the BBM solution as part of the overall integration with ECM or ent...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Business Automation Workflow?
The price of IBM Business Automation Workflow is on the higher side compared to the features it offers.
 

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM
HelpSystems Automate, Automate
Business Automation Workflow
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tesco, Weifu, Airbus, Siemens, Proximus, Alicorp, Sekerbank, Bancor, Philips,Sky, Emirates NBD, Dubai Municipality, Suva, U.S. Army, Australia Post, Westfalen Weser Energie - ARIS serves customers across all industries and of every size worldwide. Companies trust ARIS as the market leader for process excellence with more than 30 years of experience in the market, 10 million users worldwide, from 1 user companies to the Fortune 500.
Aldergrove Financial Group, Preferred Health Professionals, Mindbeam Technologies, First Credit Union in British Columbia, Vestcom International, Prime Liberty Benefits, University of Tampa, CNLBancshares, World Precision Instruments, BJ's Restaurants, Globe Pequot Press, Accudata Technologies, Norton Healthcare, Pacific Toxicology Laboratories
Key Bank, Barclays, Control€xpert, MIR Insurance Brokers, Conqord Oil
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