ARIS BPA vs IBM Blueworks Live vs Visio comparison

Software AG and IBM are both solutions in the Business Process Design category. Software AG is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.2, while IBM is ranked #12 with an average rating of 7.3. Software AG holds a 7.5% mindshare in BPD, compared to IBM’s 3.4% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of Software AG users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of IBM users who would recommend it.

ARIS BPA

Read 68 ARIS BPA reviews

5,843 Views
4,032 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

IBM Blueworks Live

Read 20 IBM Blueworks Live reviews

2,324 Views
1,999 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Visio

Read 107 Visio reviews

7,581 Views
6,216 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

ARIS BPA

IBM Blueworks Live

Visio

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

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

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

To learn more, read our detailed Business Process Design Report (Updated: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Business Process Design

August 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 866,286 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

As of August 2025, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of ARIS BPA is 7.5%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Blueworks Live is 3.4%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Visio is 12.5%, down from 13.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Process Design Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Visio	12.5%
ARIS BPA	7.5%
IBM Blueworks Live	3.4%
Other	76.6%

Business Process Design

Featured Reviews

Tamer Eldamanhouri

Software Engineering & Manager at Arab Infromation Management Services

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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Tugrul TASCI

IT Professor at Sakarya University

We have seen return on investment in the form of time savings but should have more design tools

I am generally using Visio to create some diagrams Visio should implement more complex tools or graphics to facilitate processing and use flexible templates. It should allow users to easily drag and drop some previously created diagrams. The tools supplied or provided are very basic, and there…

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

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

"There is a really powerful reporting API that allows you to create almost any kind of report you want out of your process and document repository."

"The technical support is good."

"Collaboration and governance over enterprise artifacts."

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

"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."

"The solution provides integrations to ServiceNow and other systems, flexibility of connectivity, and reporting."

"ARIS Reporting – Helps download valuable content from the tool in multiple formats."

More ARIS BPA pros

"Business users understand it really well, which means we can then help them automate their business processes."

"It's very easy, very quick to create a process map. It has templates. The look and feel is very nice. What we want to achieve out of the process map, we can achieve it using Blueworks."

"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 is cloud-based and provides easy access to all your processes in one place."

"The business process discovery is excellent. The diagram or blueprinting functionality of the solution are very good. It's quite easy. You can link the sub-processes and get a big overview of the whole process then."

"The reporting that we can generate from IBM Blueworks Live has been interesting. We found the KPIs, risks, process modeling, format, and colors, to be very good. We use the EY template and it is interesting to generate reporting in this format."

"For me, what I find to be the most valuable is its simplicity and the association with Microsoft Office."

"You can use if from your mobile device or you can be on the desktop. It doesn't matter. You are always connected. It is cloud-based, so you don't have to install anything."

More IBM Blueworks Live pros

"Putting details into the process flow and being able to link other objects into the diagrams are very helpful features."

"Visio is a very easy tool in general, making it easy for anyone to understand."

"The solution is very user-friendly."

"The most valuable feature is how easy it is to use."

"It is a scalable solution."

"The most valuable feature of this product is its versatility."

"It's a very flexible solution."

"The solution makes it very easy to make exciting pictures and designs. Everything is very intuitive and simple to figure out."

More Visio pros

Cons

"One of the issues is, when you are defining databases, the way they use entities and relationship diagrams, the way we can define data, like data models, there is still a part they could improve."

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

"I would like the possibility to use real data. In other words, it can use this system to integrate with others that are operating directing with users like clients, employs, and others."

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

"I find it difficult to access the database as I want with direct querying."

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

"The integration between ARIS, webMethods, and project versions needs improvement."

"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."

More ARIS BPA cons

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

"We haven't yet been able to dabble in case management with Blueworks Live, as it is not yet offered with the product."

"I wish Blueworks Live had simulations built in, but it doesn't. It also lacks a feature of reporting; ad hoc, drag and drop reporting. A lot of senior people are always asking for reports, and there's no reporting feature within IBM Blueworks."

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

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

"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."

"The user interface is quite easy at first but process analysts soon run into roadblocks of limited functionality, which is disappointing."

More IBM Blueworks Live cons

"It's not the easiest software to use. It's not user-friendly out-of-the-box."

"I would like to see the project planning element improved, although it won't happen because Microsoft deliberately made it worse."

"It is a visualization tool, so database visualization is pretty static in it. They haven't moved the ERDs very well. They haven't adopted any real visualization like what you have in Hackolade for JSON or other data patterns. It has none of that. If you go onto broader patterns, you can actually label and integrate with a data set, if you want, for Visio, but it's very clunky and very difficult for me to assign that to another user. I can't assign it to a junior or a documenter. They really haven't cleaned up and made their tools simpler to use when linking to data, which is primarily what you're trying to do."

"Some of the improvements that have been made in Visio have not been beneficial, at least to me, personally. Too many things have been added to it, and it makes it kind of clunky sometimes. There is an overwhelming desire or competition to continue to improve it when the product is and has been pretty good, and some of what is done tends to clutter it. In some cases, the updates make it more difficult to use. It is already pretty feature-heavy and continuing to add stuff is not productive from my perspective."

"The design and the look and feel, need to be improved."

"They have to improve shapes. It has good shapes, but it certainly can have more shapes. There are no U shapes. It also requires more customizations. There are a lot of icons, but they can be modernized more. These icons have to be more customizable so that we are able to change the color and things like that. It should also have more integration so that we can use it with other tools on the web. We don't use Microsoft Teams. We use Discord, which is more for gamers. It would be helpful if Visio is integrated with Discord. I can then show my work to my team. We use Visio, and it is a must-have solution for us, but being a startup, we don't have the money to use the whole Microsoft system. Some day we will use Office. For companies like us, there should be connectors for other software. We should be able to use a connector with the software that we are using or with the new generation solutions. Connectors will make it very easy to transfer data."

"From my perspective, Visio could probably add more help guidelines for users, and I would prefer to see more intuitive user interfaces to help with dragging and dropping, using the right components, etc."

"The export and import functionality from Visio to other tools and the import and export functionality from other tools to Visio are areas with shortcomings."

More Visio cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is inexpensive."

"The pricing and licensing costs are available on their website. They will assign a relationship manager to assist if you show further interest in their products."

"It is well worth the investment in the enterprise."

"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."

"I would recommend the product to only enterprise companies because of the pricing."

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

"This is absolutely not the cheapest solution in the market, but for large companies, the price is fine."

"The solution has a fair price for the value it delivers."

More ARIS BPA pricing and cost advice

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

"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."

"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 not very expensive."

"Making it less expensive would be good."

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

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

"It has a lower price point than the competition."

"The yearly cost is approximately $400 CAD ($300 USD)."

"The solution could be less expensive."

"I think costs are on a per user basis."

"I don't have any issue with the pricing. It has a subscription-based model, and the subscription is done on a yearly basis. Of course, we need internal approvals in place."

"Our license for Visio is including with the Office 365 subscription."

"We have about 10 to 15 people with Visio licenses in my company, but I wasn't involved in the direct negotiation of the prices since this was taken care of by my administrative office."

"The solution is expensive. The solution does come bundled in other packages."

More Visio pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business Process Design solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

866,286 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	32
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	47

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	16

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	34
Midsize Enterprise	19
Large Enterprise	61

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?

ARIS BPA needs to be more accurate when generating documents. While it covers many blueprints and functions that I ne...

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 an...

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...

See all answers

How easy is it to migrate process flow charts (modeled using tools like Visio) into Bizagi?

I have been using Bizagi with a major project for a state government agency for about four years now. It is pretty st...

See all answers

What do you like most about Visio?

The diagrams Visio creates are quite impressive in the sense that we can cooperate with more colleagues in one task a...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Visio?

One of the main problems with Visio is its licensing options and associated issues, which lead to discussions about t...

See all answers

Comparisons

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs ARIS BPA

Compared 23% of the time

ADONIS vs ARIS BPA

Compared 9% of the time

Camunda vs ARIS BPA

Compared 8% 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

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 22% of the time

ARIS Cloud vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 13% of the time

Lucidchart vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 13% of the time

Camunda vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 7% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs IBM Blueworks Live

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM Blueworks Live Competitors

Bizagi vs Visio

Compared 21% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs Visio

Compared 10% of the time

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs Visio

Compared 10% of the time

Visual Paradigm vs Visio

Compared 8% of the time

erwin Data Modeler vs Visio

Compared 3% of the time

More Visio Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ARIS BPA

August 2025

Download ARIS BPA product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Blueworks Live

August 2025

Download IBM Blueworks Live product report

Buyer's Guide

Visio

August 2025

Download Visio product report

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM

IBM Lombardi Blueprint

Microsoft Visio

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

Visio is an innovative collaborative solution that enables users to quickly visualize data-connected business process flows with a host of integrated intuitive features that bring the power of Microsoft 365 to Visio. Visio allows users to easily create professional diagrams, graphs, and other visual data, easily anywhere, anytime, and with anyone. Users are able to confidently and easily transform data into creative powerful visuals. Visio provides dozens of easy-to-use templates along with thousands of customizable colorful shapes that bring a user's best ideas to life. Visio is available for all Microsoft 365 commercial users and is available on desktop and Web applications.

Visio Features

Visio can easily create visual data for today’s business needs. Some of its most useful visual data include:

Flowcharts: Users can easily bring business concepts to fruition with Visio’s robust flowchart features. Visio provides a huge library of shapes, stencils, and templates to transform numbers and data into impactful, easy-to-understand business stories.
Organizational charts: Visio makes it easy to design articulate org charts to better visualize team, reporting, and hierarchy structures. Users are then able to seamlessly share the charts with stakeholders, teams, and employees.
Network diagrams: Users are able to creatively display how a system design processes function and visually illustrate how devices and networks interact with each other using a variety of network shapes, templates, and connector tools.
Brainstorming: Visio makes brainstorming simple and actionable with a wide range of templates designed specifically for interpreting problems and mapping out solutions, including fishbone and Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) diagrams.
Floor plans: Users can design ergonomic workspaces, retail store layouts, new homes, and more with accurate, scalable templates and tools to help them better visualize function, flow, and overall aesthetic appeal.
Accessible: Visio is able to integrate with a wide variety of accessibility tools, such as Narrator, Accessibility Checker, and high-contrast support, to ensure Visio diagrams are available to your entire team.

Reviews from Real Users

“Visio has improved my workflow by making it easy to create charts, diagrams, and essential illustrations to use in my client reports and proposals. It has saved me a lot of time I would otherwise spend creating visuals for clients manually.” - Michael B., Principal Consultant at Lexington Consulting

“I use it for diagramming networks, racks, data centers, data flow applications, etc. It is a useful tool to map data flows, network objects, and computer science technology and to show to clients. It does what I need it to do. It's a tool I've used the longest, so I know it the best, and that's probably the claim to fame.” - Greg S., Director of Solution Architecture at Winslow Technology Group

“We use Visio for architecture modeling. We also use it to facilitate communication with other people. The feature I like most about Visio is that it acts as a facilitator of communication, as it displays information in a way that's easier to understand.” - Guy M., IT/Business Architect at a financial services firm

Microsoft

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

Thomas College, Hamburg Port Authority, Portigon AG, Conseil G_n_ral du d_partement des Hautes-Alpes, AAA Auto a. s., Commonwealth Financial Network, ICA, Abu Dhabi National Energy Company

Buyer's Guide

Business Process Design

August 2025

Download Free Report

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Camunda, SAP and others in Business Process Design. Updated: August 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

866,286 professionals have used our research since 2012.