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ARIS Process Governance vs IBM BPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 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 Process Governance
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
26th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM BPM
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (7th), Process Automation (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of ARIS Process Governance is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM BPM is 4.1%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM BPM4.1%
ARIS Process Governance0.7%
Other95.2%
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

Featured Reviews

Dirk Struyf - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Advisor Staff at VLM
Easy to use, reliable, and simple to expand
We have used the same version for two years, however, now there's a new version, which solves a lot of problems. The solution we use that's from two years ago, has the ARIS Connect Server, the web application, and the ARIS client application. Some things you have to do in the clients, and you can't do them in the web environment. In the new version, though it's not installed by us, it's changed. You can do this. You can do almost everything in the web client. The difficulty that you have with switching between the two environments is solved in the new version. However, I haven't tested it yet. That said, that was one of the issues we had. It's a bit annoying that you have to use two environments in the older version.
Ateeq Rehman - PeerSpot reviewer
Unit Head System Implementor at Allied Bank Limited
Automation platforms streamline processes and offer flexibility, but AI integration and version upgrades pose challenges
In the technology world, there is always room for improvement. Technologies evolve day by day, especially with the emergence of artificial intelligence and generative AI models. Although IBM BPM is a substantial product, adopting and integrating new technologies quickly is not easy due to the migration and upgrade paths involved. Every time new versions are released, we face business and production challenges that make rapid adoption challenging. The main concern bothering me today regarding IBM BPM is the integration of AI components.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very stable, there are no bugs or glitches, it doesn't crash or freeze, it's reliable, and the performance is good."
"It's a very easy-to-use product."
"Using this solution we can design our own processor governance, assign some specific technical services, and also run tests of the process to make sure it operates as we need it to."
"They offer a variety of documentation, user manuals, and community forums for users to seek assistance and share experiences."
"This product is useful when you're modeling business processes; you can use all the features that your catalog has inside the modeling and export it to a BPM augmentation engine."
"They tell us that the product is very stable and very robust."
"IBM BPM is both scalable and stable."
"It is a scalable solution, and one small company that is a customer uses this solution, and they do tender development proposal evaluations for clients."
"This solution has streamlined our operation and improved the TAT of sales, operations, and underwriters."
"When you use it for the right use cases (e.g., a loan origination process for a bank, claims processing for an insurance company, or a healthcare provider accepting a claim and settling it), processes which typically range from hours to weeks, then when you apply BPM, you bring the processes down by an order of magnitude to minutes to hours, respectively."
"We can scale by increasing the infrastructure which is currently running."
"IBM's deployment box is one huge black box. We can create all the services with our own code or without a codebase, however, we have a huge amount of space with practically no limitation."
"IBM BPM's best features include document sharing, management document creation, widget and barcode creation, and integration."
 

Cons

"It's a bit annoying that you have to use two environments in the older version."
"I recognize the product has areas for potential improvement similar to every tool."
"The solution uses a coding language for process design that is specific only to this product. We would like to see this changed to something more universal."
"There is a lot of complexity around licensing and that should be improved."
"I would like to see a lot more case studies."
"The setup was quite complex because the solution was cutting-edge at that time and IBM invested considerably in the implementation, likely at a loss to themselves."
"I'm hearing things might be improving, to really deliver on BPM as opposed to simply workflow. That really should be emphasized a lot more than it has been, because a lot of customers will simply implement the process and leave it there, because the product maybe doesn't emphasize BPM as much as it should, as much as maybe they talk about it in the sales process. The whole idea of BPM, is to iteratively improve the process, and in order to do that you have to have the analytics tool with it. A lot of times that doesn't go as far as it should simply because there's a lot more work to be done for that to happen, and just some sort of technical limitations that don't make that as easy as it should be."
"The tool's workflow function is very strong."
"Development of user interfaces Load time (performance) of the user interfaces"
"IBM BPM can improve the dashboards and reports. It only has two dashboards, and reporting is very difficult to build."
"Consider an admin console during deployment. I would like to migrate single instances, not the whole bunch at once."
"The front end is not customised for a good user experience."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We chose to purchase IBM BPM because it was bundled with the actual RPA program/solution that we decided to purchase. We decided to use Automation Anywhere tool (RPA), and it is was bundled with IBM BPM."
"It's expensive. All software is always extremely high. The manufacturing cost that we have compared to the selling cost, it's not like you're building a house or building a car. But putting that aside, considering that it's expensive, it's a lot of money. If you compare it with some of the other alternatives in the market, it's a similar price. For instance, if you compare it with Pegasystems, it's a similar price."
"We have a yearly licensing model. It is not expensive. There are no addition costs to the standard license."
"It may be cheaper for organizations to pay for the Viewer licenses that are immediately up and running in the cloud, rather than paying for someone to administer publishing to an intranet."
"The solution might be expensive, but I can't give you a precise number. In the market here, I've seen two main products for BPM: IBM BPM and Camunda. Camunda is very popular and open-source, so there's no direct comparison."
"Our customers do see ROI. They'll identify some particularly painful or uncoordinated processes to start with, then build out from there, picking off low hanging fruit."
"IBM BPM cannot be considered a cheaply priced product. IBM BPM is a really expensive product compared to other companies. One needs to opt for the perpetual licensing model offered by IBM."
"It is pricey."
report
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902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
20%
Healthcare Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise72
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ARIS Process Governance?
I recognize the product has areas for potential improvement similar to every tool.
What advice do you have for others considering ARIS Process Governance?
I would recommend ARIS Process Governance to any company looking to implement enterprise architecture, BPM, or Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC), as I thoroughly understand its functionalities...
Which is better, IBM BPM or IBM Business Automation Workflow?
We researched both IBM solutions and in the end, we chose Business Automation Workflow. IBM BPM has a good user interface and the BPM coach is a helpful tool. The API is very useful in providing en...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM BPM?
Once it is installed, maintaining it is not a big issue.
What needs improvement with IBM BPM?
There are negative aspects, such as IBM BPM being quite heavy and not lightweight, and the licensing cost is higher, which has caused some companies to shift away. IBM BPM is complicated to install...
 

Also Known As

No data available
WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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.
Barclays, EmeriCon, Banca Popolare di Milano, CST Consulting, KeyBank, KPMG, Prolifics, Sandhata Technologies Ltd., State of Alaska, Humana S.A., Saperion, esciris, Banco Espirito Santo
Find out what your peers are saying about ARIS Process Governance vs. IBM BPM and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.