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ARIS BPA vs Bonita vs Pega Platform 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 August 2025, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of ARIS BPA is 4.7%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Bonita is 3.3%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pega Platform is 5.6%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
Paparao Nadipineni - PeerSpot reviewer
A simple and lightweight college course automation system with third-party integrations
The initial setup is straightforward and can be completed with the environment within an hour. First, take the latest from the git repository and check the git code to the monitor studio and a bar file, a deployable Bonita archive file. Then, take that process to the Bonita server, running at runtime on another server. Finally, deploy and enable it by selecting the proper organization.
reviewer4848291 - PeerSpot reviewer
Pega is a low-code platform that enables organizations to build, automate, and optimize business processes and customer experiences through AI-powered decisioning and workflow automation.
Here are the key areas where Pega Platform could be improved: 1. User Interface (UI) & User Experience (UX) Customization Limitations: The UI layer is tightly coupled with the platform, limiting flexibility for custom front-end development. Constellation Architecture: While it improves consistency, it restricts advanced UI customizations compared to older section-based designs. Learning Curve: Non-technical users find the UI unintuitive despite the low-code promise. 2. Integration & Extensibility Limited Out-of-the-Box Integrations: Users report challenges integrating with non-relational databases and legacy systems. Robotics Integration: Pega RPA (formerly OpenSpan) is not seamlessly integrated with BPM, creating silos in automation. 3. AI & Decisioning AI Capabilities Need Maturity: Users expect more advanced, native AI features without relying on external tools. CDH & Decision Hub: While powerful, these components require deep expertise to configure effectively. 4. Cost & Licensing High Licensing Costs: Pega is often seen as expensive, especially for small and mid-sized enterprises. Lack of Flexible Pricing Models: Calls for subscription-based or usage-based pricing to improve accessibility. 5. Performance & Scalability Scalability Concerns: Some users report performance degradation with large user bases or complex workflows. Upgrade Complexity: Platform upgrades can be time-consuming and disruptive if not planned well. 6. Documentation & Community Support Insufficient Learning Resources: Especially for advanced features, documentation is limited and community support is not as strong as competitors. Talent Availability: Finding skilled Pega professionals remains a challenge in many regions. 7. Low-Code/No-Code Experience Not Fully No-Code: Despite branding, some tasks still require technical intervention, and the drag-and-drop interface can be restrictive 2. Conflict Management: Simultaneous development by multiple users can lead to rule conflicts.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Business Process Analysis: We can simulate, optimize, and analyse business processes based on various business requirements. It assures our rolling out the best processes."
"It brings transparency and 360-degree views of end-to-end processes."
"The most valuable feature is the process documentation. For us, ARIS is a lifestyle more than a tool. It helps us learn how to think and how to plan for our system."
"The maintenance capabilities of ARIS BPM and the strong underlying database are particularly valuable."
"We chose ARIS because of its good reputation and familiarity with Software AG Tools."
"you want to do modeling with the old notation form, ours was EPC, you can use the same object in the BPMN because the database is built in a way that you can use both things. So you only have to define it once, and if the notation form is BPMN and those kind of activities, you can use the same EPCs, so there is a connection between them."
"One of the many advantages of ARIS is that it is supported by a very strong BPM community, which is critical for us. Although it has been in business for many years, it is still at an early stage of evolution. There are so many instances where your specific use case or requirement for using ARIS hasn't necessarily been matured across the sector. So, you need access to a very active community to help you explore possible solutions and ways in which ARIS can be used to achieve those use cases."
"The ease of use is the most valuable. I have tried a number of BPMN packages, and I find the user interface of ARIS BPM easier and more intuitive than others. If your team is knowledgeable on BPMN, it is really pretty easy to figure out on your own because it adheres to the standards extremely well. I have tried Bizagi, BizFlow, and a variety of such solutions, and I just liked ARIS BPM better."
"Development of forms and flows."
"Bonita is simple and lightweight and is flexible to integrate with third-party systems. The UI is now flexible, whereas it was previously rigid. Any technology can be used as a frontend, including ReactJS, Angular, and others."
"It is a great product that is powerful in developing applications."
"The solution is easy to use."
"Flexible and drag-and-drop type of UI is very valuable. The integrations are also very good. You can build workflows very quickly, which is my favorite activity. By using the GUI, you can build the entire mechanism, notifications, and all this kind of stuff."
"The most valuable features of Bonita are the connectors, detailed documentation, and web applications. The documentation was useful because it is how I learned how to use it."
"I find process management and user interface designing the most valuable features."
"We use the tool to validate and give access to the users. It is for access management."
"getNext removes some of the managements overheads as well as inbuilt reporting."
"Whenever a customer needs to do something, the way Pega designs the whole thing into an easy number of steps makes the flow from the actual intent to the actual final results pretty fast."
"The solution is able to support the size and scale required."
"The interface is quite simple and easy to use, even for beginners."
"The solution provides us with a very good dashboard."
"Case Management, as well as Workflow Automation, are Pega's most powerful capabilities."
"Pega BPM offers a lot of out-of-the-box functionalities."
"The most valuable features of Pega BPM are low code, no code, functionality, and easy development."
 

Cons

"They should make improvements as per customer requirements."
"Displaying role allocation matrix models in ARIS Connect needs improvement."
"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."
"Since this is a design tool, seamless interface to make the process flows executable."
"Areas for improvement include sales, prospecting, shopping, customer service, after-sales (claims and advice for the client), and all processes pertaining to customer loyalty."
"The tool needs to improve its support since they take long to respond."
"The interface is a little archaic."
"I find it difficult to access the database as I want with direct querying."
"It would be nice to have a wizard to help walk through the development process and create a backbone."
"Bonita must add a rule engine. We are a 360-degree partner of Bonita. We can integrate with any kind of rule engine. We have a dashboard related to engine performance, but getting a configurable dashboard for the Buildium or transactional data will add value."
"There is a need for more components in the library and additional customization options for these components."
"The community edition has limited module functionality. If they could release some of the functionality that's available in the enterprise edition that would be helpful to those learning to use the solution."
"I have run into a lot of problems because there is not enough documentation."
"There could be an improvement in IoT connectivity."
"The main issue with Bonita is that the workspace crashes sometimes."
"I would like to improve the product's load balancing."
"There is room for improvement in the user interface area."
"The initial setup takes time."
"We need more light retail BPM tools within the Pega system. However, Pega is mostly for big companies."
"The biggest thing I have seen is when going from one version to another and upgrading to the latest version, it takes a pretty long time for an organization to go through an upgrade process. I think that's an area where they can make it a little smoother."
"An area for improvement in Pega BPM is security. It's secure, but it still has a lot of vulnerabilities. Pega BPM is robust, but it still needs some improvement performance-wise."
"Customers expect more out-of-box solutions to be readily available"
"PegaRULES should provide a more drag-and-drop interface to make it a low-code, no-code product."
"If it could also be integrated with robotics, it could help with a lot of things, even if we don't have APIs, we could still talk to other applications. If it could invoke a bot, for example."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."
"The product is inexpensive."
"From my point of view, no, it is not cheap, but it is not too expensive because you get this big organization behind it, technical support, and all those things. It's not so expensive to use. It's a Rolls Royce in this field, I know that. Even for small organizations, they can get so much effect from using this tool, in a very fast way, so the money will be back in the customer's pocket very fast."
"It is an expensive solution."
"​It is on the higher side."
"It depends on different parameters."
"ARIS has different licensing mechanisms for different modules, but they are perpetual licenses. So you pay once."
"Their license model is really difficult to understand, and licenses are quite expensive."
"I am using the free version of Bonita."
"The product's pricing is acceptable. Pricing is yearly."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"You pay an annual fee and can have an unlimited number of processes and users."
"Licensing cost for the Enterprise edition comes out to be around 40,000 a year. There is also a Community edition, which is free. Some customers can go for the Community edition, but some of them require the Enterprise edition. Big companies go for the Enterprise edition, which comes with a lot of additional features such as a mobile app."
"I believe this is a very good financial choice."
"The price is fair for what we are using the solution for."
"The product is not cheaper, not costlier; it is reasonable. Bonita’s license is very flexible, with options to meet the needs of different customers and clients. Previously, it was less flexible, but now, many different licensing options are available."
"Pega is expensive."
"Users have to pay a yearly license cost for Pega BPM, which is expensive."
"In terms of the pricing for Pega BPM, other solutions may be cheaper, but it doesn't matter if Pega BPM has a higher price tag because what's important is that it's the best solution, and that is what people look for. If I would rate the pricing for the solution, I'd give it three out of five. You have to pay extra for additional features in Pega BPM."
"The solution could be less expensive according to my customers. However, I think the price of the solution is fair."
"The pricing is pretty good, compared to other similar products."
"PegaRULES is a good product, but its pricing is a bit on the premium side, especially for professionals."
"The price is a bit expensive."
"Licensing is expensive. You need to wisely select between per user and per case."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
How does Bonita compare with Camunda Platform?
One of the things we like best about Bonita is that you can create without coding - it is a low-code platform. With B...
What do you like most about Bonita?
The user interface is easy to use.
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 ...
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 sett...
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 y...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM
Bonita BPM
Pega BPM, Pegasystems, SmartBPM, PegaRULES
 

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.
With more than 1000 customers in 75 countries, and its ecosystem of more than 120,000 members, Bonitasoft is the largest provider of open-source Business Process Management, Low-code and Digital Transformation software worldwide.
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 Camunda, Automation Anywhere, Apache and others in Business Process Management (BPM). Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.