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ARIS BPA vs PTC Windchill comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (6th), Business Process Management (BPM) (8th)
PTC Windchill
Average Rating
6.4
Reviews Sentiment
4.9
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (19th), Engineering Process (1st), PLM Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

ARIS BPA and PTC Windchill aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. ARIS BPA is designed for Business Process Design and holds a mindshare of 7.0%, down 8.9% compared to last year.
PTC Windchill, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Architecture Management, holds 0.9% mindshare, up 0.5% since last year.
Business Process Design Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ARIS BPA7.0%
Visio12.5%
Camunda11.3%
Other69.2%
Business Process Design
Enterprise Architecture Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
PTC Windchill0.9%
LeanIX13.1%
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect11.3%
Other74.7%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

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.
CW
Effective lifecycle management improves with strong version control and deep integration needs
There is room for improvement in implementing features fully. The user interface is inconsistent and outdated. It appears that different departments or locations have implemented features differently, leading to inconsistency. There is a significant need for improved integration, particularly using OSLC for connecting with other tools like SAP ERP or ALM tools. The version control, while consistent, lacks flexibility regarding changes in CAD data and requires manual intervention for BOM management analysis.

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."
"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."
"It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"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."
"​It is a well-featured, functional product."
"One of the many advantages of ARIS is that it is supported by a very strong BPM community, which is critical for us. Although it has been in business for many years, it is still at an early stage of evolution. There are so many instances where your specific use case or requirement for using ARIS hasn't necessarily been matured across the sector. So, you need access to a very active community to help you explore possible solutions and ways in which ARIS can be used to achieve those use cases."
"The solution's basic features are easy to use, overall designed well, and it has good process mining analysis."
"There is a module designer, that one is very powerful and it creates very good reports."
"The version control maintains consistent versions, which is beneficial."
"I like how the product integrates with other technical solutions."
"The strong point of Windchill is its close connection between the CAD structure and the bill of materials structure."
 

Cons

"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."
"Regarding stability, when there are any customized settings being done at customer end - post upgrade to newer versions - it makes the customer environment unstable for a short duration."
"​The usability. Others tools are easier to manage without same complexity that ARIS has.​"
"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."
"Improvement should be made as per customer requirements."
"Simulation is one area that is a bit complex."
"The user experience's usability (in general) should be improved as the tool is updated."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in implementing features fully."
"I would not recommend doing business with PTC regardless of the product."
"Some parts of the system are exclusive, so we can't work with them."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution has a fair price for the value it delivers."
"Pricing for ARIS BPA is average, not cheap or expensive. It's cost-effective and worth the money we pay."
"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."
"Their license model is really difficult to understand, and licenses are quite expensive."
"ARIS is quite expensive."
"​It is on the higher side."
"ARIS Express​ is free."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"I rate PTC Windchill's pricing a seven out of ten since it is pricey."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
29%
Healthcare Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise47
No data available
 

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?
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.
What needs improvement with PTC Windchill?
There is room for improvement in implementing features fully. The user interface is inconsistent and outdated. It appears that different departments or locations have implemented features different...
What is your primary use case for PTC Windchill?
I am using Windchill for managing CAD data and document data, specifically for product lifecycle management.
What advice do you have for others considering PTC Windchill?
I would not recommend doing business with PTC regardless of the product. Although Windchill has a commendable core functionality, it lacks refinement and complete feature implementation. On a scale...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM
Windchill, Atego Artisan Studio, Integrity Modeler, Intralink
 

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.
Bose, Valliant Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Camunda, Bizagi and others in Business Process Design. Updated: October 2025.
869,771 professionals have used our research since 2012.