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ARIS BPA vs iServer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (7th)
iServer
Ranking in Business Process Design
17th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 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 iServer is 1.7%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design
 

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.
Antonios Lazanakis - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexible, easy to use, and easy to import data
We use iServer to establish an enterprise architecture function in our organization iServer is a very flexible platform for defining your own enterprise architecture model. It is very easy to import data, and we also have good integration with Visual Drawing Tools and SharePoint. The solution is…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The capability to integrate all information of the business and to generate simulations of processes. It can analyze the model of operations quickly."
"This solution has helped us in terms of discovering business processes."
"The solution's basic features are easy to use, overall designed well, and it has good process mining analysis."
"The most valuable features are business process modeling and reporting."
"Objects can be reused across different BPMNs and processes, so we can design new processes quicker and easier.​"
"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."
"I am impressed with the tool's integration. It also facilitates collaboration in the organization."
"The most valuable feature is the flexibility of the solution to fully customize the methodology according to the company's needs, and to enforce that methodology with features like filters, semantic checks, and reports."
"The product has a valuable customized model."
"The solution has wide use within Microsoft products. The integration with Microsoft products, and, in particular, Microsoft Office, is great."
"I have to think less with this solution. It's simple."
"This flexibility is the most helpful part in the standard version."
"We like the governance."
"Tech support is very responsive. They solved issues within a prompt response time."
"There were lots of different requirements, and collaboration and review is one of the biggest things. There is also Office 360 integration, and there's flexibility to use it as a database as well."
"iServer is a solution that helps catalog enterprise architect solutions and catalog information."
 

Cons

"There are reports available in ARIS and you can modify them a bit if you want something more specific, but it's not that easy to adjust them and make modifications. It would be nice to have some kind of tool to do that, something that is more user-friendly for people who are not too technical, so that they could create reports the way they want them."
"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."
"Newer versions (9.x) are technically more difficult to maintain."
"It would be helpful if ARIS BPA could have a simple database to get the extract of various attributes."
"The user interface could be more intuitive and better designed."
"User interface (UI)."
"The pricing of the solution can be improved and the initial setup should be made easy."
"Migration to the next release is very tricky. You can't do it without support from ARIS or from a software kit. And it takes a lot of time and a lot of money to migrate. My impression is that a lot of companies do not migrate regularly because of that issue."
"It definitely needs help to improve the visual aspect of the solution."
"Enhancing integration options with ERP or ITSM-related solutions for triggering automated requests for process definitions, changes, and tracking them in the iServer."
"The one issue is that if you want to import predefined work, you need to put the licensing model in. So if you wanted to import work that was done before, you then need to buy a separate product for that."
"It runs relatively slowly."
"Cannot see which activities are control activities."
"The migration tool needs to be included in the main package, and not as a separate license."
"The modelling needs improvement, specifically forecasting capabilities and scenarios."
"I haven't used this solution long enough to know what areas could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Their license model is really difficult to understand, and licenses are quite expensive."
"The product is a bit pricey."
"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."
"This is absolutely not the cheapest solution in the market, but for large companies, the price is fine."
"The product is expensive."
"It depends on different parameters."
"The setup cost and pricing depend on the license (Modeler, Viewer, Administrator)."
"I would recommend the product to only enterprise companies because of the pricing."
"It's about 13K to set up and 9K for the license for three months. I think it's about 20K a year, but we haven't firmed up on pricing yet because the price depends on how long we commit to the solution."
"The price of iServer is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"They offer annual subscriptions for developing countries, which are not affordable for small or medium businesses."
"Aim for the exact number of people who shall define/review approve and view the processes, as it will impact the cost."
"The solution is cheaper than its competitors."
"The product has a moderate pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Educational Organization
12%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
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?
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. ...
What do you like most about iServer?
iServer has valuable features for workflow and document management.
What needs improvement with iServer?
iServer should invest in enhancing the capabilities of the embedded drawing tool, draw.io. draw.io is a drawing tool used to draw architectural diagrams, flow diagrams, etc. It is an alternative to...
What is your primary use case for iServer?
We use iServer to establish an enterprise architecture function in our organization.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM
No data available
 

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.
Barclays, Cathay Pacific, Deloitte, British Gas, MasterCard
Find out what your peers are saying about ARIS BPA vs. iServer and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
860,825 professionals have used our research since 2012.