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ARIS BPA vs BIC Platform 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of ARIS BPA is 4.2%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BIC Platform is 1.4%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM BPM is 6.1%, 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 (%)
IBM BPM6.1%
ARIS BPA4.2%
BIC Platform1.4%
Other88.3%
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.
reviewer2328264 - PeerSpot reviewer
Platform for documenting and modifying our processes
The tool was used for digital transformation. Our company operates in the automotive industry and needs a transition to digitalization. We utilize the BIC Platform for documenting and modifying our processes, as well as incorporating various elements such as KPIs. It serves as a fundamental tool for numerous aspects of our operations.
Ateeq Rehman - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There is a module designer, that one is very powerful and it creates very good reports."
"The most valuable features of ARIS BPA are the centralized repository and the automatic rendering of diagrams."
"The maintenance capabilities of ARIS BPM and the strong underlying database are particularly valuable."
"In addition to our applications, we have also stored, in ARIS, the footprint of where those applications have been implemented. That means we know in which country a given application has been implemented. With embedded geolocation, we have a very visual world map, where we can see the footprint of each application."
"​The BPMN notation and the share flow through users. It is nice to see all flows in a common, shared space for all the stakeholders to view the same thing and the same language.​"
"​​ARIS process modeling and analysis allows integration of end-to-end business processes with the organization's vision, strategies, and business objectives, through visual management."
"The simulation engine and SAP integration are technically very robust."
"Business Process Analysis: We can simulate, optimize, and analyse business processes based on various business requirements. It assures our rolling out the best processes."
"While this is a new product it has a mature feel from being built by a company with many years in the business."
"The product is easy to use."
"The central dictionary is a valuable feature."
"This is low-cost and very user friendly. A variety of models are available depending on the needs of the customer."
"Compliance with the BPMN 2.0 standard."
"IBM BPM's best features include document sharing, management document creation, widget and barcode creation, and integration."
"There are a lot of things that you get out-of-the-box: Timers and so on, which took a lot of effort and code before."
"There are two or three valuable features, like BPM."
"It is a stale solution."
"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 is transparent to business users because it is mostly picture based modelling."
"The reach with Integration Adapters and support for adding custom Java code are valuable features."
 

Cons

"ARIS BPA is not really a platform that offers you the opportunity to execute processes that you model."
"One thing that could be improved is regarding the handling of the content itself. Maybe ARIS could provide a set of best practices, or best processes, so that people do not have to start from scratch."
"One of the biggest challenges is to realistically enable the defined structures of the processes that you have in ARIS documented, and then actually implement them in the business."
"An area where it lacks and can be considered for improvement in the future is if we can somehow automate or learn how we can automate different processes."
"The solution is difficult and not very exciting to learn."
"The pricing of the solution can be improved and the initial setup should be made easy."
"It would be helpful if ARIS BPA could have a simple database to get the extract of various attributes."
"ARIS BPA’s usability could be improved."
"The product needs improvement regarding the confidentiality of the domain information for the key administrator."
"The solution could improve its connectivity to other systems."
"There's an issue with the current manual that they're working on."
"As the product is very new, some minor features are still missing, but everything is there to handle day-to-day process modeling."
"Also, we would like to see integration with artificial intelligence, machine learning-type of technical capabilities. Right now, there are a lot Watson libraries out there. Building those integrations more, out-of-the-box, from IBM would be a good direction."
"The engine itself tends to accumulate a lot of data that needs to be cleaned up, and that's the kind of thing that keeps it from, in some scenarios, scaling as much as it needs to. And then, when you're building solutions, if you're not careful to keep the screens from being associated with too much data, if you're going to just do things the way that a lot of people would just assume that they can do, without having experience of having made those mistakes before, it will accumulate a lot of data, and that will cause it to perform very badly."
"The initial setup was complex."
"We have had to use Mule as an alternative integration tool because it is more flexible than IBM BPM."
"I would like to see more inclusion of RPA technologies. If we have more manual processes, we can use robotic process automation and integrate that in with the solution."
"IBM BPM's price could be improved."
"It needs more customization. We like to customize the screens to show more things related to our company."
"We need process monitoring. It is somewhat complex to monitor all the processes which work."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ARIS BPA is too costly from a licensing perspective."
"ARIS enables you to start small and grow the use of the solution over time, although it's quite expensive. So if you want to start small, it's quite an investment for a small company."
"Usually, our company buys technical support from the Software AG site. We bought the technical support for the first year of usage for ARIS version 6 and 7. So, when we migrated to ARIS version 7, we bought support only for the first year. Then, we didn't use it the next year. Our experience was that we use it only one to three times during the first year. Therefore, there wasn't much value for us to buy this service because we have no problem with using ARIS after the first year."
"It depends on different parameters."
"In terms of pricing, it would be nice if it were more affordable."
"Pricing is a bit on the higher side."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"The product is inexpensive."
"Pricing will differ between enterprises based on needs such as customization, but the company uses a standardized algorithm for determining this."
"Scalability-wise, it is an expensive product."
"The product is expensive considering the hardware and software costs."
"I give the pricing an eight out of ten."
"The price of the solution is fair for an enterprise solution that has both cloud and on-premise deployments and when comparing to competitors. Recently IBM has introduced Cloud Pak which allows for more flexible licensing options for automation and other features."
"We chose to purchase IBM BPM because it was bundled with the actual RPA program/solution that we decided to purchase. We decided to use Automation Anywhere tool (RPA), and it is was bundled with IBM BPM."
"The solution might be expensive, but I can't give you a precise number. In the market here, I've seen two main products for BPM: IBM BPM and Camunda. Camunda is very popular and open-source, so there's no direct comparison."
"The solution is expensive since it is an enterprise application."
"I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten."
"When considering the features of the solution the price is expensive compared to competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise47
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise71
 

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 BIC Platform ?
The central dictionary is a valuable feature.
What needs improvement with BIC Platform ?
The solution could improve its connectivity to other systems. For instance, I need new connections to KPIs. KPIs are ...
What is your primary use case for BIC Platform ?
We use the solution for drawing the processes.
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM
BIC Cloud BPM, BIC Platform
WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
 

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.
Daimler AG Siemens AG RWE Bundesministerium des Innern Uniklinikum Köln Vattenfall Ziemann Dermapharm AG Postbank LBBW EDEKA
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.
868,229 professionals have used our research since 2012.