ARIS BPA vs IBM Blueworks Live comparison

Software AG and IBM are both solutions in the Business Process Design category. Software AG is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.3, while IBM is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.6. Software AG holds a 7.6% mindshare in BPD, compared to IBM’s 3.5% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Software AG users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of IBM users who would recommend it.

ARIS BPA

Read 66 ARIS BPA reviews

4,394 Views
2,417 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

IBM Blueworks Live

Read 20 IBM Blueworks Live reviews

2,205 Views
1,243 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

ARIS BPA

IBM Blueworks Live

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

ARIS BPA and IBM Blueworks Live compete in the business process management and modeling category. ARIS BPA appears to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive feature set, including robust reporting and integration capabilities.

Features: ARIS BPA offers a robust module design, strong reporting capabilities, and comprehensive process modeling. It excels in object reusability, database structure, and flexibility, which are suitable for process modeling, analysis, and architecture. IBM Blueworks Live provides cloud-based process modeling with easy collaboration features, BPMN 2.0 support, and integration with Microsoft Office, valued for its simplicity and cost-effectiveness.

Room for Improvement: ARIS BPA could enhance its pricing structure and simplify installation. Users seek improvements in report formatting, team activity tracking, and stability, along with a more intuitive scripting language and unified interface. IBM Blueworks Live lacks process execution and simulation features, with users suggesting enhancements in reporting, integrations, and customization options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: ARIS BPA offers versatile deployment options across on-premises and cloud environments. Customer support is generally good, though responsiveness varies. IBM Blueworks Live is praised for its simple cloud-based deployment, with user support receiving positive feedback but with room for improvement in communication.

Pricing and ROI: ARIS BPA is considered expensive with complex licensing, yet its robust features are valued by large enterprises for ROI. IBM Blueworks Live is noted for its cost-effectiveness and subscription model, appealing to businesses seeking affordable solutions with quick adoption.

To learn more, read our detailed ARIS BPA vs. IBM Blueworks Live Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

ARIS BPA vs. IBM Blueworks Live

June 2025

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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

ARIS BPA

Ranking in Business Process Design

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Management (BPM) (8th)

IBM Blueworks Live

Ranking in Business Process Design

10th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of ARIS BPA is 7.6%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Blueworks Live is 3.5%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Process Design

Featured Reviews

Cirvesh-Daga

Director at T-Systems International GmbH

Capable of handling a wide range of business processes but presents users complexity with two interfaces (Java application and web interface)

ARIS needs to make a better user interface. The user interface sucks. The problem with ARIS is that they have two interfaces for the same product. You can use either a Java application or a web interface. The web interface doesn't give you access to the same features as the Java application. You have to switch between the two interfaces to get some things done. The web interface is more intuitive, but it lacks the functionality of the Java interface. So I'd give it a six for that reason. The Java interface has more functionality, but it tends to run out of memory and has its own set of problems. So, I'd also give it a six out of ten because of the technology choice. It was really frustrating having two UIs for the same product, with some functionality in one and not in the other. They've got to do something about that.

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AjarMathur

Global Innovation Director at Ernst & Young

An easily scalable and affordable solution that enables users to document and digitize processes with ease

IBM Blueworks is BPMN 2.0 compliant, but it does not adapt to the overarching BPMN 2.0 concepts. There is only one kind of BPMN 2.0 diagram. It is a process diagram. It doesn't have the concept of separate tools, which other products offer. If I had to do a hardcore BPMN 2.0 modeling, the product would have its own reservations. There were features we could not explore from a BPMN 2.0 perspective. Most of the time, people who are shifting from Microsoft Office tools to a digitized way of working still want the reporting capabilities to be strong. Some tools, like ARIS or Signavio, offer customized solutions from the reporting perspective. If I have documented my whole finance process and want to fetch out a complete SOP report in a very customized manner, IBM Blueworks cannot provide it. We have to rely on some other services. So that's one area in which we always struggled, how to really customize the reporting aspects. I understand that we need to keep the tool a little more asset-light. It's very difficult to keep adding many options, but at least a few BPMN 2.0 options were needed. We have been suggesting to IBM that we should have some way of customizing the reporting. At least we should get a custom way of reporting it into different formats like Excel or putting up a logo for one of the clients so that their SAP can be printed that way.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We also have relationships specified with our IT systems and our organizational chart. That makes it possible to analyze things from the systems point of view and regarding the organizational part of the company. It all comes together in one tool and that is what gives us the most value at the moment."

"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."

"The solution has come up with a web portal that makes it easy to model and show to clients."

"If you ever tried to draw a picture in a browser app or with a cloud service, it is normally a painful death. ARIS works perfectly on diagrams in the browser, so I was excited. I like it because there have been so many bad experiences in the past with drawing or doing something in a browser. Normally, it's always painful because it's coded badly. With ARIS, it is really well-implemented. It's simple."

"MFT is quite attractive. A large amount of data is passed in almost no time and it is quite easy to use."

"ARIS is probably the most mature product in terms of modeling an enterprise architecture so that it has context."

"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 most valuable features are business process modeling and reporting."

More ARIS BPA pros

"I like the two-tiered approach, that is, discover and then drill down to the main steps. You can right click and attach risk, policies, and much more. It is a user-friendly solution."

"The solution is stable. All the refreshes run very well."

"It has a built-in capability to capture process owners and managers against processes along with other process governance roles."

"The licenses are transferrable between different users."

"Collaboration is most valuable. You can collaborate online with many people. People can comment, and you can comment back. It is just like a social network, and that, for me, is very good."

"The ease of documenting and digitizing the processes was valuable to us."

"It is a stable solution since there has not been any downtime. Everything loads fast."

"The solution is easy to operate. Also, there is an automatic mode to make the business flow. You don't have to put any lines or arrows in a decision point in IBM Blueworks Live; it's very automatic."

More IBM Blueworks Live pros

Cons

"ARIS BPA’s usability could be improved."

"I had a hard time with ARIS's access and licensing policy. It requires you to pay for each step you want to take forward with the solution."

"I believe the solutions BPM tools are not very good and need improvements."

"I use it strictly for developing the business process model. I don't use it for the actual automation. I do that with Vtenext. I have standardized on Vtenext, and I don't use ARIS BPM anymore. The Vtenext UI is just as good, and it is much more tightly coupled to the underlying object model. I can get more done in one session with Vtenext rather than first going to ARIS BPM, then importing, and having to edit it for tight coupling."

"The tool needs to improve its support since they take long to respond."

"Newer versions (9.x) are technically more difficult to maintain."

"The reporting capabilities and the ability to create custom reports need to be simplified and made easy so that people even with a good functional understanding of the tool can leverage it to create their own custom report."

"End-to-end visibility and real-time are areas that will need greater attention."

More ARIS BPA cons

"Some of the import functionality was a bit restrictive, in terms of loading data in from other data sources. Something as simple as Excel, loading data tables from Excel, wasn't great. And vice-versa. Some of the export and import functionality with something like Visio - which, I know it's a slightly different tool - but being able to work seamlessly with those other tool sets would've been quite useful. I know it was something that was in the pipeline to be looked at. So that would be useful."

"Spaces are not well organized; space controls are lacking."

"It is BPMN-compliant but the tool needs to be more involved to get into a completely 2.0 oriented tool. It has a few things but it's not the complete BPMN model."

"The objects that the solution creates are not unique."

"I can't insert any images. For example, within the process map, if I want to put it in the box or rectangle, or circle. If I have to use one image or icon, that's not possible."

"Sometimes, the tool is automatic, which can complicate it, but once you're accustomed to manipulating it, you can use it very effectively."

"In the solution Signavio, they have a customer journey mapping feature that should be added to IBM Blueworks Live. It's valuable to map or document the customer journey to identify the pains and opportunities in this process."

"We'd also like to see it be Six Sigma or Lean compatible, a lot of people have asked about that."

More IBM Blueworks Live cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ARIS has different licensing mechanisms for different modules, but they are perpetual licenses. So you pay once."

"Negotiate. Price is high so make sure you’re getting the best deal."

"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."

"ARIS Express is free."

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

"If you can afford it, it's the best so far."

"The product is expensive."

"Their license model is really difficult to understand, and licenses are quite expensive."

More ARIS BPA pricing and cost advice

"They have a free subscription model that gives a lot of power to the users."

"The solution is not very expensive."

"Based on the licenses purchased, from a footprint perspective, you can have as many people as you want. You have multiple different categories of licenses to keep the cost low."

"Making it less expensive would be good."

"There are editor licenses that are around 50 euros per month, and contributor licenses that are around 30 euros per month."

"We are seeing ROI from this solution. The solution has saved us time."

"Price wise, IBM Blueworks Live is in the middle range, and I would give it a five out of ten."

"The solution is very, very cost-effective."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ARIS BPA?

I find it difficult to access the database as I want with direct querying. I must write scripts, which requires specific knowledge. Software AG could improve this by making the database more open. ...

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Blueworks Live?

The solution is easy to operate. Also, there is an automatic mode to make the business flow. You don't have to put any lines or arrows in a decision point in IBM Blueworks Live; it's very automatic.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Blueworks Live?

The solution costs around 600-700 dollars/year, which is quite affordable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Blueworks Live?

Sometimes, the tool is automatic, which can complicate it, but once you're accustomed to manipulating it, you can use it very effectively.

See all answers

Comparisons

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs ARIS BPA

Compared 24% of the time

ADONIS vs ARIS BPA

Compared 10% of the time

Camunda vs ARIS BPA

Compared 7% of the time

Bizagi vs ARIS BPA

Compared 6% of the time

BIC Platform vs ARIS BPA

Compared 2% of the time

More ARIS BPA Competitors

Visio vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 30% of the time

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 21% of the time

Lucidchart vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 14% of the time

ARIS Cloud vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 11% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM Blueworks Live Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ARIS BPA

June 2025

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Buyer's Guide

IBM Blueworks Live

June 2025

Download IBM Blueworks Live product report

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM

IBM Lombardi Blueprint

Overview

ARIS is the market-leading solution for professional business process management and modeling. Whether you want to document the "as-is" state of your operations for quality or certification reasons or design the "to-be" in terms of continuous improvement in your transformation program, ARIS is the best choice for establishing a single source of truth regarding all process excellence topics in your organization. It is for any organization looking to digitally transform their business, increase operational excellence and customer experience and ensure compliance in execution. ARIS helps you to make the most out of your processes with Process Mining, Risk & Compliance Management, RPA and much more.

What makes the difference?

The most comprehensive platform for process excellence in the market
Easy to use
Covers business & IT architecture from all angles
Full flexibility and >100 diagram types
Customer-driven development based on best practices
Strong partner ecosystem

ARIS is the market-leading solution for any organization and ideally suited to digitally transform the organization, increase operational excellence and customer experience and ensure compliance in execution.

Software AG

IBM Blueworks Live is a cloud-based business process modeling tool that helps you discover, map and document your processes. It is easy to use, allowing you to learn and perform business process modeling in minutes.

With Blueworks Live you can:

Simplify business process modeling
Quickly build business processes in a straightforward, cloud-based interface designed for both IT and business users.

Improve process efficiency and accuracy
A central process repository eliminates version control and consistency issues by providing users real-time access to process workflows.

Enhance cross-team collaboration
A shared team workspace engages all business process owners, encouraging cross-team participation and continuous process improvement.

IBM

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.

Cloudsoft Corp. Ltd., Bayer, S¾SS, Essex County Council

Buyer's Guide

ARIS BPA vs. IBM Blueworks Live

June 2025

Free Report: ARIS BPA vs. IBM Blueworks Live

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