ARIS BPA vs iServer comparison

Software AG and Orbus Software are both solutions in the Business Process Design category. Software AG is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.9, while Orbus Software is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.0. Software AG holds a 7.0% mindshare in BPD, compared to Orbus Software’s 1.9% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of Software AG users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Orbus Software users who would recommend it.

ARIS BPA

Read 68 ARIS BPA reviews

5,397 Views
3,724 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

iServer

Read 18 iServer reviews

2,178 Views
1,198 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

ARIS BPA

iServer

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

ARIS BPA and iServer are leading solutions in business process analysis. ARIS BPA gains an edge due to its extensive enterprise modeling features and integration capabilities, while iServer's strength lies in its ease of use complementing Microsoft Office integration.

Features: ARIS BPA provides comprehensive tools like EPC modeling and simulation, notable for an all-encompassing view of enterprise architecture. Its support for various integrations enhances process documentation and analysis. iServer offers seamless integration with Microsoft Office, intuitive use for document management, and workflow alignment with Office tools, making it user-friendly for organizations heavily invested in Microsoft products.

Room for Improvement: ARIS BPA could improve its complexity and lack of a real-time workflow engine, while its limited API support poses integration challenges. iServer could enhance its modeling capabilities and data visualization, as well as address performance issues. Both platforms can benefit from more intuitive user interfaces and streamlined integration features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: ARIS BPA supports flexible deployment options including Hybrid Cloud and on-premises, receiving mixed reviews on customer service but with strong community support. iServer, offering various deployment methods except hybrid, is noted for reasonable support but may require vendor assistance for complex problems, with potential delays.

Pricing and ROI: ARIS BPA, though perceived as expensive, offers high value for large enterprises due to its features and integration capabilities, with a complex licensing model. iServer is considered more cost-effective, with a generally lower price point, appealing to organizations seeking budget-friendly solutions. The return on investment is substantial for both, enhancing process understanding and operational efficiency.

To learn more, read our detailed ARIS BPA vs. iServer Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

ARIS BPA vs. iServer

September 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 872,778 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:

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)

iServer

Ranking in Business Process Design

16th

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Architecture Management (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of ARIS BPA is 7.0%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of iServer is 1.9%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Process Design Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
ARIS BPA	7.0%
iServer	1.9%
Other	91.1%

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

Antonios Lazanakis

Senior IT Solution Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

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…

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

"You can relate different aspects of an organization to each other, and you can clearly define the rates seen in the application."

"ARIS process modeling and analysis allows integration of end-to-end business processes with the organization's vision, strategies, and business objectives, through visual management."

"The solution's basic features are easy to use, overall designed well, and it has good process mining analysis."

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

"The most valuable feature in the latest versions is the connect portal, where you can do very simple modeling using the web-based portal."

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

"The shared repository allows for cross-functional cooperation instead of doing things in a silo. You can operate cross-functionally and really work end-to-end, instead of dividing everything up on a functional basis."

"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."

More ARIS BPA pros

"iServer is a very flexible platform for defining your own enterprise architecture model."

"iServer is a solution that helps catalog enterprise architect solutions and catalog information."

"The solution is easily modified to suit your needs."

"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."

"The solution has wide use within Microsoft products. The integration with Microsoft products, and, in particular, Microsoft Office, is great."

"The product has a valuable customized model."

"Good and effective reporting features, which help in decision making."

"Integrating the Microsoft documents to the product and visualization matrix where we can see the end-to-end relationship of the network is of great importance to our company."

More iServer pros

Cons

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

"There is not enough documentation provided for the tool's support or administration."

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

"ARIS BPA is not really a platform that offers you the opportunity to execute processes that you model."

"It would be helpful if ARIS BPA could have a simple database to get the extract of various attributes."

"The governance mechanism could be better, as could automation."

"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."

"It needs external API and the ability to navigate back, similar to "Back" in web browser."

More ARIS BPA cons

"It runs relatively slowly."

"iServer is a solid tool. Occasionally, we needed to contact the vendor to clarify details such as porting issues, missing components, and model specifics."

"The modelling needs improvement, specifically forecasting capabilities and scenarios."

"It definitely needs help to improve the visual aspect of the solution."

"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."

"There are other solutions out there that have a better user interface."

"iServer should invest in enhancing the capabilities of the embedded drawing tool, draw.io."

"The performance is slow, which is something that should be improved."

More iServer cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is on the higher side."

"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."

"Pricing is a bit on the higher side."

"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."

"The product is inexpensive."

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

"The product is a bit pricey."

"Usually, our company buys technical support from the Software AG site. We bought the technical support for the first year of usage for ARIS version 6 and 7. So, when we migrated to ARIS version 7, we bought support only for the first year. Then, we didn't use it the next year. Our experience was that we use it only one to three times during the first year. Therefore, there wasn't much value for us to buy this service because we have no problem with using ARIS after the first year."

More ARIS BPA pricing and cost advice

"They offer annual subscriptions for developing countries, which are not affordable for small or medium businesses."

"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 solution is cheaper than its competitors."

"The price of iServer is reasonable compared to other solutions."

"Aim for the exact number of people who shall define/review approve and view the processes, as it will impact the cost."

"The product has a moderate pricing."

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

872,778 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

21%

Government

12%

Manufacturing Company

Construction 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	7
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	10

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 need, the document generation feature could be enhanced for better accuracy.

See all answers

What do you like most about iServer?

iServer has valuable features for workflow and document management.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for iServer?

We use iServer to establish an enterprise architecture function in our organization.

See all answers

Comparisons

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs ARIS BPA

Compared 22% of the time

ADONIS vs ARIS BPA

Compared 9% of the time

Camunda vs ARIS BPA

Compared 7% of the time

Bizagi vs ARIS BPA

Compared 5% of the time

Visio vs ARIS BPA

Compared 5% of the time

More ARIS BPA Competitors

LeanIX vs iServer

Compared 21% of the time

OrbusInfinity vs iServer

Compared 16% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs iServer

Compared 10% of the time

BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs iServer

Compared 9% of the time

Avolution ABACUS vs iServer

Compared 4% of the time

More iServer Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ARIS BPA

October 2025

Download ARIS BPA product report

Buyer's Guide

Enterprise Architecture Management

October 2025

Download iServer product report

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM

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

iServer is a unified software platform and enterprise modeling environment that extends and enhances the familiar, market leading Microsoft Visio and Office products. Core capabilities provided by iServer include an enhanced Microsoft Visio diagramming interface, a powerful central repository for all enterprise architecture or business process models and documentation, and a range of tools for visualization, analysis and decision making.

Orbus 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.

Barclays, Cathay Pacific, Deloitte, British Gas, MasterCard

Buyer's Guide

ARIS BPA vs. iServer

September 2025

Free Report: ARIS BPA vs. iServer

Find out what your peers are saying about ARIS BPA vs. iServer and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

872,778 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our ARIS BPA vs. iServer report.

See our list of best Business Process Design vendors.

We monitor all Business Process Design reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.