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Azul Zulu vs IBM BPM 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

Azul Zulu
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
AI Customer Experience Personalization (21st), AI Content Creation (58th)
IBM BPM
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (5th), Process Automation (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of Azul Zulu is 3.7%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM BPM is 3.3%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM BPM3.3%
Azul Zulu3.7%
Other93.0%
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Standardized our Java estate and have reduced licensing costs while maintaining strong support
Azul Zulu's ability to allow us to standardize our Java estate on a single and well-supported platform stands out as one of its best features. This standardization simplifies our compliance audits and ensures all our applications receive timely security updates.Azul Zulu positively impacts our organization by providing a platform that allows us to standardize Java on a well-supported platform. Without the high cost associated with other proprietary vendors, Azul Zulu provides an excellent platform for running our applications.
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

"We achieved specific outcomes from using Azul Zulu by reducing our Java licensing and support costs by approximately 70% when compared to our previous Oracle contract."
"Responsive Portal + Process Federation Server. This set of solutions offers a unified worklist to our customers."
"Some of the features that I like the most are team management and process performance. They are both very useful and very powerful with regard to the workflow."
"Automation is the most valuable feature of IBM BPM."
"IBM BPM is easy to deploy."
"Scalability is good. In the time that I have been there, we have added more JVMs to help with the increased workload, so it does scale."
"The most valuable features are the integration capabilities - BPM can connect with almost any legacy or advanced system."
"It's a solid product. It covers most of the pain points for clients."
"Good user interface and good add option."
 

Cons

"Improvements for Azul Zulu could include more automated tools for unused code visibility integrated directly into the standard portal to help further optimize our cloud footprints."
"Stability wavers. We have some opportunities for improvement in this space, especially as we approach our target volume of a million transactions a day. It is tough, because it is not necessarily the product. It is more around the platform and infrastructure to support it, so the connectivity to the database, web sessions, and reverse proxies in front of that."
"If the processing gets better, it would be more efficient."
"Could increase vulnerability and security patches to make it more robust."
"We have been experiencing bad performance and instability."
"Our developers are complaining that it's too complex to maintain."
"It is a rather thick stack because you have to have WebSphere skills, IBM BPM skills, and an understanding of how the product runs on WebSphere. A lot of this will start to get a lot easier as they put it in containers, which will allow the platform to manage itself in some regards."
"The integration could be improved."
"The tool's workflow function is very strong."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Due to its extensive features and capabilities, the product pricing is more aligned with medium—to large enterprises."
"IBM could improve the price. It is far too expensive."
"IBM BPM is expensive, so most large companies opt for IBM based on their licensing options."
"I already compared some solutions related to business process management, and I saw that the cost of IBM BPM is more expensive compared with that of Camunda, for example."
"​We have definitely seen ROI. When we first kicked it off, we said it had to pay for itself within three years, and it did."
"I think it's a reasonably priced tool, but it's important to consider which customers should buy this solution. It's designed for enterprise customers, not small ones."
"I give the pricing an eight out of ten."
"It gives us a good return on investment."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Retailer
18%
Computer Software Company
11%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Insurance 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 Azul Zulu?
Improvements for Azul Zulu could include more automated tools for unused code visibility integrated directly into the standard portal to help further optimize our cloud footprints. The other core J...
What is your primary use case for Azul Zulu?
Azul Zulu serves as our primary Java runtime, providing a stable, 100% open-source, and certified solution for our production microservices. We utilize it to ensure cross-platform compatibility acr...
What advice do you have for others considering Azul Zulu?
My advice for others looking into using Azul Zulu is to perform a pilot migration with one non-critical application first. You will likely find that it is truly a drop-in replacement, which will gi...
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Kyocera, OKI, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Voya Financial
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 Microsoft, IBM, F5 and others in Application Infrastructure. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.