ARIS BPA vs IBM Blueworks Live vs Lucidchart comparison

The compared Software AG and IBM solutions aren't in the same category. Software AG is ranked #7 in BPD , with an average rating of 7.7, and holds a 6.8% mindshare in the category. IBM is ranked #13 in BPD , with an average rating of 7.5, and holds a 3.0% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of Software AG users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of IBM users who would recommend it.

ARIS BPA

Read 69 ARIS BPA reviews

5,701 Views
3,706 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

IBM Blueworks Live

Read 22 IBM Blueworks Live reviews

2,277 Views
2,004 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Lucidchart

Read 63 Lucidchart reviews

4,939 Views
790 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

ARIS BPA

IBM Blueworks Live

Lucidchart

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between ARIS BPA, IBM Blueworks Live, and Lucidchart based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda, Microsoft, Bizagi and others in Business Process Design.

To learn more, read our detailed Business Process Design Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Business Process Design

March 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 885,444 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

Business Process Design Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
ARIS BPA	6.8%
Visio	9.9%
Bizagi	9.4%
Other	73.9%

Business Process Design

Business Process Design Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
IBM Blueworks Live	3.0%
Visio	9.9%
Bizagi	9.4%
Other	77.7%

Business Process Design

Mind Mapping Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Lucidchart	22.0%
Visio	23.4%
draw.io	13.6%
Other	41.0%

Mind Mapping Software

Featured Reviews

BeenishMustafa

Consultant at KAFD DMC

Has improved process modeling and analysis while supporting integration with organizational data

The process design in ARIS BPA does help with our operational efficiency. What we are doing is object library management for various kinds of objects that we are using in ARIS BPA during our process modeling. We are using that to do a lot of analysis on how many times a system is being used in how many processes, who are the major stakeholders, and if we enhance one system, how is it going to impact other processes and integrated processes. This is helping us a lot. Everything related to ARIS BPA is helping us with regards to enhanced processes, strengthened controls, identifying risks, assessing process capabilities, and identifying where the gaps are and what kinds of activities within the processes are automated and manual. We are doing a lot of things with regards to the processes as it is at our heart. Processes are one thing and then we have different kinds of things which are related to it, such as SLAs, guidelines, and policy. We are identifying areas of improvement in other documents as well.

Read full review

Nupur Wadhwa

Consultant 2 at Protiviti

Enables efficient process mapping but requires improvement in maintaining server stability

The pricing of the solution can be quite expensive when compared to competitors, though IBM Blueworks Live stands out from a technical standpoint. IBM Blueworks Live provides clear ROI as it saves both time and money. I have successfully imported Visio flowcharts into both IBM Blueworks Live and ARIS. Both tools handled the imports successfully, though some manual intervention was required because Visio is quite a basic tool. Importing flowcharts into advanced tools such as ARIS and IBM Blueworks Live requires some manual effort. The primary advantage is the ease of use. I have not encountered any features in other tools that I couldn't find in ARIS. This is a major factor because I don't have to switch between tools to find specific features. Using ARIS for the past three years has built confidence and trust in the tool.

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AlexMartin1

Senior Software Engineer at Nestlé

Visual collaboration has improved remote workflows and supports faster shared decisions

The best features Lucidchart offers are that it diagrams processes very well. It allows for project management to help with client timelines. It is also easy to use and create diagrams, especially mermaid diagrams. Collaborating is easy. Out of all those features, collaboration stands out to me the most because it is easy to share with team members to do joint design work. Lucidchart has positively impacted my organization by improving productivity and collaboration. In terms of specifics, collaboration helps us come to conclusions. I notice better throughput as it is easy to use. Improved productivity allows us to express ourselves more quickly.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"The most valuable features of ARIS BPA are the centralized repository and the automatic rendering of diagrams."

"Aris BPA has a lot of tools that are more professional than Bizagi."

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

"We are very satisfied with this solution's technical support."

"BPA, the modeling tool, is the main module used because of our need for documentation."

"It has the ability to scale up, as well as integrate with other systems within the organization to get real-time information from dashboards and reports."

"The capability to integrate all information of the business and to generate simulations of processes; it can analyze the model of operations quickly."

More ARIS BPA pros

"We are you using the product as a process mapping tool and as part of a larger process improvement project. We use it with IBM BPM and IBM ODM. We get an automated workflow solution for our customers, an improved workflow automation."

"IBM Blueworks Live helps improve operational efficiency, especially where requirements are uncertain and clarity is needed, as it helps determine and provide visibility to clients and enables an easy shift to the design phase."

"For me the most valuable feature is that it's one depository for our bank, so it's not like everybody has their critical processes on SharePoint or on their desktops, because everything is centrally located and it's very intuitive and easy to use, and the support that I get from IBM is always great."

"The business process discovery is excellent, the diagram or blueprinting functionality of the solution is very good, it is quite easy, and you can link the sub-processes and get a big overview of the whole process."

"Blueworks Live gives insight into where processes can be more productive, providing that "Ah ha!" moment from a visual perspective and making it easy to tweak, update, and refine processes, which drives continuous improvement and better decisions."

"I don't think that there is another product out there quite like it."

"The stability is pretty good. It is highly available, which is key. You don't lose your work and can autosave."

"It raised the process maturity of the organisation from a low level to a reasonable degree of awareness and introduced some process language and conventions to the organisation."

More IBM Blueworks Live pros

"The real-time collaboration among users, so that everyone is accessing and working on the same version of a document, has made it more efficient for multiple users within our organization to review the same mock-up or wireframes simultaneously, and comment on them to enhance or improve them."

"The collaboration, hands-down, is the top feature. It is valuable because our company doesn't believe in working in silos... While I may be the one leading the efforts, it's very important that my team gets buy-in on decisions being made when we're designing. It's critical, especially in this virtual environment, when we're not in an office to have a team meeting and able to whiteboard something. Lucidchart is an extremely useful tool for our team."

"The most valuable features are the different templates that they have already created, as well as all the different shapes you can use in the process charts because each shape stands for a different element or thing that's being done. It's easy to distinguish between different steps using the already set-out shapes."

"Its real-time collaboration saves time; now, we can complete our discussions within 15 minutes rather than an hour or an hour and a half, and the ability for people to look at the diagram created in Lucidchart rather than reading through written documents has saved one to two hours daily."

"Overall, we've been very happy with the product and it is being used across the organization, but there are always opportunities to improve."

"This process flow has really helped all the regions in understanding how onboarding works across all the regions."

"I love the simplicity and how clean all the different boxes, arrows, and charts can be. Especially with something complicated like our sales flow, it could be really easy to be all cluttered and everything like that, but my favorite feature is how clean it is, how straightforward it makes our flow look, and how easy it is to understand. Lucidchart accommodates both Mac and PC users which is important to us because at my company right now, our sales floor and then every other computer we have as a company is a Mac, but a lot of our employees actually have PCs and Android as well. So it's really beneficial because if we're ever on the go or we need to make a change, it's versatile and is open for both Mac and PC."

"Creating flowcharts and documentation is easy to do and the results are very nice."

More Lucidchart pros

Cons

"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 workflow approval process could be represented better in the overviews."

"Displaying role allocation matrix models in ARIS Connect needs improvement."

"Simulation is one area that is a bit complex."

"The pricing of the solution can be improved and the initial setup should be made easy."

"Sometimes, ARIS BPA breaks down, and its stability can be improved."

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

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

More ARIS BPA cons

"The solution is a very basic discovery product so it doesn't have that much modeling capability. This can be improved."

"I think the spaces could be improved, it's not well organized so it's really convoluted."

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

"Since you require a license per user to access the information it would be nice to have the ability to print the information out in large font for review."

"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 font size is really, really small and it's really not useful to print out process models because you cannot read what's written in different boxes. This makes it necessary for people to have access to the tool. We view licenses to see how the printing or output is. It's not very good."

"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."

"In the Blue Works Live software boxes and lines are automatically placed by the programme and can't be easily manipulated."

More IBM Blueworks Live cons

"The flowcharting feature would be improved if it had some kind of prediction capability that helped to create the diagrams, such as the ability to automatically join components with my database."

"The main improvement I would like to see is for them to improve the help section on the flow charts or on the formatting."

"One of the major drawbacks is that we have to extract the work in Lucidchart as an image when we want to create a presentation."

"If you're trying to expand a comments box that is sitting on top of the chart, it automatically defaults to assuming you're trying to connect it to the next step in the process, when all you're trying to do is make the box bigger. It automatically goes to the arrow, but I just want to resize the box. That gets a little cumbersome because it does it every single time. It's not just a bug."

"I just felt that I am wasting time with those questions and just wanted them to stop asking me these questions and get into charting."

"I am not quite sure what different functionalities it provides as well as the difficulties other people are facing."

"It would be nice to be able to import not just contacts from Salesforce but also leads."

"One of the things that I find frustrating is that all of our Tableau information is on a server, so when I send that out people can't open it and use it."

More Lucidchart cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You will never get a fixed price for this product because they will go in and ask you what kind of environment would you like to set up? How many people will you work with? How big is your organization? Today, they have a fixed price to say, "Okay, just to start the business area, buy two licenses for modeling and eight people that can look into the product." They have this kind of fixed price. It's 50,000 Danish Krone. If you divided that by about six, then you get the pricing in dollars. Still, when you are going out, negotiate and find the right price. You will never get a fixed price: "It costs this and, if you take ten of these, seven of these and eight of these, and then it costs this." No, you negotiate every time."

"ARIS Express is free."

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

"In terms of pricing, it would be nice if it were more affordable."

"The product is inexpensive."

"Prices are high. However, they are worth it if the organization utilizes the tool to its full potential."

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

"Pricing is a bit on the higher side."

More ARIS BPA pricing and cost advice

"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."

"The solution is not very expensive."

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

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

"Making it less expensive would be good."

"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."

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

"I was using the free version of Lucidchart, which was very helpful."

"I had a quick glimpse of it. It was about 100 Canadian Dollars a year for just me. I don't know if there are any additional costs."

"The price was low enough to make me think that it was fine, I'll go for it. I think it's $80 or so. It's not too expensive."

"The licensing is pretty cost-effective but I haven't considered it on an enterprise level."

"I have a subscription as an individual user for one year, and it is not expensive."

"There is a nominal charge for the paid version of the product. They have a free version available and from what I could see, there was not much difference between it and the pro version."

"Pricing comes in at about $100 for a year's subscription, which is very reasonable if this is a tool that you will use more than once."

"I pay $95 a year for it. It seems like a reasonable price."

More Lucidchart pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	32
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	47

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	18

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	27

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ARIS BPA?

It is a bit expensive regarding ARIS BPA. However, ARIS BPA does save a lot of effort because this is one tool which ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with ARIS BPA?

We are not using any what-if scenario features in ARIS BPA. Currently, we are not using the performance monitoring an...

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What is your primary use case for ARIS BPA?

ARIS BPA is being used for process modeling, and we are planning to upgrade and enhance it for process mining and oth...

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

I do not have exposure to IBM Blueworks Live pricing since this is managed by other personnel who handle the financia...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Blueworks Live?

I do not use Security Identity Governance and Intelligence, as it is not implemented here. I would prefer an on-premi...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Blueworks Live?

IBM Blueworks Live and security management are my primary products within the IBM suite. I particularly work on autom...

See all answers

LucidChart vs LucidSpark for brainstorming sessions over Zoom

Hi @Krista Thompson - Yes, LucidSpark is a much more nimble and, in some ways, user-friendly tool than LucidChart. ...

See all answers

Do you recommend Lucidchart?

I definitely recommend Lucidchart. I feel it is one of the top visual collaboration platforms that’s available on the...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lucidchart?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that we do not have to use the setup because we are using pu...

See all answers

Comparisons

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs ARIS BPA

Compared 12% of the time

Camunda vs ARIS BPA

Compared 7% of the time

Bizagi vs ARIS BPA

Compared 6% of the time

ADONIS vs ARIS BPA

Compared 5% of the time

iServer vs ARIS BPA

Compared 2% of the time

More ARIS BPA Competitors

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 15% of the time

Visio vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 14% of the time

ARIS Cloud vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 9% of the time

Camunda vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 6% of the time

Bizagi vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 5% of the time

More IBM Blueworks Live Competitors

Visio vs Lucidchart

Compared 15% of the time

Figma vs Lucidchart

Compared 14% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs Lucidchart

Compared 10% of the time

Bizagi vs Lucidchart

Compared 7% of the time

More Lucidchart Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ARIS BPA

March 2026

Download ARIS BPA product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Blueworks Live

March 2026

Download IBM Blueworks Live product report

Buyer's Guide

Lucidchart

March 2026

Download Lucidchart product report

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM

IBM Lombardi Blueprint

No data available

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

Our online diagram application makes it easy to sketch and share professional flowchart diagrams. From brainstorming to project management, we support all of your communication needs. That’s why millions of users choose Lucidchart.

Lucid Software

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

Google, Salesforce, Adobe, Whirlpool, Uber, Wal Mart, Pearson, Twitch, Riot Games, Western Union, Trimble, Starbucks

Buyer's Guide

Business Process Design

March 2026

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