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ARIS Cloud vs IBM Blueworks Live comparison

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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 Cloud
Ranking in Business Process Design
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (26th)
IBM Blueworks Live
Ranking in Business Process Design
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of ARIS Cloud is 3.0%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Blueworks Live is 2.7%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Design Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Blueworks Live2.7%
ARIS Cloud3.0%
Other94.3%
Business Process Design
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1294968 - PeerSpot reviewer
Transformational Leader at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Mapping capabilities lag behind while requiring significant customization but is scalable
I worked with ARIS Cloud under SAP. The solution was deployed by an agile team and utilized daily by process engineers and business process owners. It was involved in the financial services industry, with thousands of users within the company The platform's capabilities are highly dependent on…
Ateeq Rehman - PeerSpot reviewer
Unit Head System Implementor at Allied Bank Limited
Has supported automation efforts while limited use suggests need for wider implementation
We use an on-premises solution, and being a financial institution regulated by a governance body, most of our solutions are on-premises. Most scenarios involve use cases where human intervention is needed, and we take these use cases from human resources to automated processes. I do not use the process mapping feature in IBM Blueworks Live much since my involvement is to grasp the requirement. I generally use it on a high level. At the moment, IBM Blueworks Live is for preliminary documents only. I have not used the analytics feature in IBM Blueworks Live because I have not had the opportunity to explore it, as my usage is at a preliminary or basic level. I am satisfied with document and process automation overall, and it is a very good tool. I do not see many areas for improvement for IBM Blueworks Live because I do not see it in detail since it is a cloud-based solution. I am satisfied with integration in IBM Blueworks Live since it is primarily a different architecture, and the cloud approach is definitely far different from on-premises mechanisms, so there is generally no connectivity and no collaboration. The procurement for IBM Blueworks Live is not handled by me, so I did not buy it directly from IBM or through a marketplace. I believe IBM Blueworks Live might be on a hybrid cloud, but since I have not utilized it that way, I cannot comment. I rate the overall solution as a seven out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution's most valuable feature stems from its being very easy to use, making it a very user-friendly tool."
"It's very easy to collaborate with. It's very user-friendly"
"With ARIS Cloud, we identified our goals, business processes and we turned them into a digital strategy."
"Signavio is more intuitive, allowing users with no prior knowledge to navigate and understand its functionality more readily."
"Aris Connect opens collaboration opportunities between team members within the organization where they can actually submit change requests, navigate processes, and offer comments. It opens up the potential for BPM within the organization. I didn't see such an angle of a BPM portal with any other products. So I would say that's the best selling feature."
"In terms of UX design, somebody who has not had experience with ARIS will be able to use it very easily."
"In terms of using the cloud version, if you're somebody who, like myself, has got a lot of experience and understands measures and notations and things, basically it's unrestricted. You can do so many things. You can do your Archimaze, you can do BPMN. There's lots of stuff you can do in there and if you're a good field person and you cause yourself re-using things or whatever, then it's very nice, it's very easy to use."
"The most valuable feature is GUI; it is very intuitive and easy to use."
"IBM Blueworks Live provides clear ROI as it saves both time and money."
"The mega process maps are very easy to use."
"This solution is good at utilizing standards rules for connectivity."
"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."
"It has the ability to document in different formats. It is not tied to a specific model. You can look at it from different angles and see the intuitive nature of it. It always generates a valid diagram. You cannot create something that is not BPMN compliant."
"The licenses are transferrable between different users."
"For me, what I find to be the most valuable is its simplicity and the association with Microsoft Office."
"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."
 

Cons

"On an enterprise level, the ability to onboard somebody quickly is cumbersome because it just has too many things in it. It's got something like a hundred or more techniques and things in it."
"The stability was poor due to frequent outages."
"I would like to see more support for architectural diagrams."
"I was surprised when my license was deactivated and I could not access my data."
"There is room for improvement in the support."
"If you have multiple tiers of approvals into that update of the policy, or the process design itself, it takes ages to prepare those internal flows within the system."
"It would be very helpful if this solution were more open and could integrate with other solutions like ServiceNow."
"ARIS' flexibility and power add a certain complexity. And if ARIS could be more streamlined, I think customers would have a better handle on what to do with it in the end. So if you're not a tech geek, you might struggle to understand what you should do with it as a customer because it's that powerful."
"I think the spaces could be improved, it's not well organized so it's really convoluted."
"While it is scalable, I don't see it being equal with other enterprise solutions."
"We would like to see more robust API access; we want it to be able to interact not just through the front end and have the ability to integrate with other systems more easily."
"There should be an option to import from and export to Microsoft Visio. Being able to move files back and forth between Blueworks Live and Visio would be good."
"The objects that the solution creates are not unique."
"We would like the ability to add additional custom colors. We would like to color additional items to add notes to the blueprint."
"The APIs are great, except the normal business user doesn't know how to create APIs. So it's hard because IBM comes to us as the business users and tell us to create reporting with APIs, except we don't know that, so we have to turn around and flip it to our IT people."
"In the solution Signavio, they have a customer journey mapping feature that should be added to IBM Blueworks Live. It's valuable to map or document the customer journey to identify the pains and opportunities in this process."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cloud deployment is not more expensive. In the cloud, you pay for what you use, and there's no need for maintaining infrastructure or additional personnel, making it cost-effective. On-premises deployment, on the other hand, involves infrastructure costs and maintenance expenses."
"There is a student version of this solution that can be used for free."
"The licensing model of ARIS Cloud is leaner and more beneficial to the customer. The new license model is great. With the on-premise, you needed to subscribe to many more types of licenses. Now there are licensed bundles available on the cloud."
"They have a free subscription model that gives a lot of power to the users."
"There are editor licenses that are around 50 euros per month, and contributor licenses that are around 30 euros per month."
"The solution is very, very cost-effective."
"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."
"The solution is not very expensive."
"Price wise, IBM Blueworks Live is in the middle range, and I would give it a five out of ten."
"Making it less expensive would be good."
"We are seeing ROI from this solution. The solution has saved us time."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise19
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ARIS Cloud?
The price of ARIS Cloud is relatively high and not every firm can afford it, especially if the company is not mature enough to require such extensive process modeling and optimization.
What needs improvement with ARIS Cloud?
It would be beneficial for ARIS Cloud to add more customization options, such as having a landing page. Improving the importation script from Microsoft Visio ( /products/visio-reviews ) would also ...
What is your primary use case for ARIS Cloud?
I am currently working with both ARIS Cloud ( /products/aris-cloud-reviews ) and MEGA HOPEX ( /products/mega-hopex-reviews ), having switched from ARIS BPM ( /products/aris-bpa-reviews ) to MEGA HO...
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 financial aspects of licenses.
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-premises solution for IBM Blueworks Live, and this could be a recommendation. Regardi...
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 automation-related items, so most of my automation work lies with IBM, and I oversee ...
 

Also Known As

Process Live, ARIS Simulation, ARIS Aware, ARIS Connect
IBM Lombardi Blueprint
 

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 and 10 million users worldwide, from 1 user companies to the Fortune 500.
Cloudsoft Corp. Ltd., Bayer, S¾SS, Essex County Council
Find out what your peers are saying about ARIS Cloud vs. IBM Blueworks Live and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.