BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs IBM Blueworks Live comparison

BiZZdesign and IBM are both solutions in the Business Process Design category. BiZZdesign is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.0, while IBM is ranked #12 with an average rating of 7.5. BiZZdesign holds a 2.6% mindshare in BPD, compared to IBM’s 3.2% mindshare. Additionally, 78% of BiZZdesign users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of IBM users who would recommend it.

BiZZdesign HoriZZon

Read 18 BiZZdesign HoriZZon reviews

2,818 Views
1,606 Comparison Views

78% willing to recommend

IBM Blueworks Live

Read 21 IBM Blueworks Live reviews

2,198 Views
1,912 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

BiZZdesign HoriZZon

IBM Blueworks Live

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

IBM Blueworks Live and BiZZdesign HoriZZon are key players in the business process management tools category. BiZZdesign HoriZZon has the upper hand due to its extensive modeling capabilities, despite IBM Blueworks Live's competitive pricing and strong support.

Features: BiZZdesign HoriZZon excels in real-time modeling, collaborative workshops, and architecture management, supporting standards like ArchiMate for enterprise architects. IBM Blueworks Live is valuable for its intuitive central repository, effective collaboration for process mapping, and features like BPMN compliance.

Room for Improvement: IBM Blueworks Live could improve process modeling, reporting features, and workflow management. BiZZdesign HoriZZon is costly and complex, requiring better integration of tools and more user-friendly interfaces. Both tools can enhance API and data exchange functionalities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both offer cloud deployment. IBM Blueworks Live is praised for its responsive customer support, while BiZZdesign's customer service satisfaction varies, encountering some technical support challenges.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Blueworks Live is viewed as cost-effective with affordable licensing. BiZZdesign HoriZZon is expensive but seen as justified by its advanced features, appealing to organizations needing comprehensive architecture solutions with promises of high ROI through enhanced productivity and operational cost reductions.

To learn more, read our detailed BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs. IBM Blueworks Live Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs. IBM Blueworks Live

September 2025

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Helped 869,566 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

BiZZdesign HoriZZon

Ranking in Business Process Design

10th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Architecture Management (6th)

IBM Blueworks Live

Ranking in Business Process Design

12th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Business Process Design category, the mindshare of BiZZdesign HoriZZon is 2.6%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Blueworks Live is 3.2%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Process Design Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
BiZZdesign HoriZZon	2.6%
IBM Blueworks Live	3.2%
Other	94.2%

Business Process Design

Featured Reviews

BijoyTalukder

Enterprise Architect at Tata Consultancy

Helps to get a clear overview of our enterprise architecture, especially when dealing with multiple departments

One area where BiZZdesign HoriZZon could use some improvement is in its REST APIs. While the platform offers REST APIs, they have limitations when it comes to retrieving and exporting data. Obtaining detailed information at the individual application or component level, including IDs, costs, and deployment-related data, can be challenging through these APIs. This limitation makes it difficult to smoothly export such granular data. I have raised this issue with the BiZZdesign team, and they expressed interest in addressing it, but I'm not aware of the current status of this improvement effort. Nonetheless, improving the usability and flexibility of the REST APIs for data extraction is an area that could enhance the platform's capabilities.

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Nupur Wadhwa

Consultant 2 at Protiviti

Enables efficient process mapping but requires improvement in maintaining server stability

The pricing of the solution can be quite expensive when compared to competitors, though IBM Blueworks Live stands out from a technical standpoint. IBM Blueworks Live provides clear ROI as it saves both time and money. I have successfully imported Visio flowcharts into both IBM Blueworks Live and ARIS. Both tools handled the imports successfully, though some manual intervention was required because Visio is quite a basic tool. Importing flowcharts into advanced tools such as ARIS and IBM Blueworks Live requires some manual effort. The primary advantage is the ease of use. I have not encountered any features in other tools that I couldn't find in ARIS. This is a major factor because I don't have to switch between tools to find specific features. Using ARIS for the past three years has built confidence and trust in the tool.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the main advantages of this solution is that they have representation in the Open Group Forum, which means that any changes in ArchiMate are immediately implemented in BiZZdesign."

"The feature I find most valuable is that the start times and loading times are short. It takes only a few seconds to load the repository and whenever I want to open diagrams, they are there almost immediately."

"The tool's most valuable feature is that its collaboration part is very good."

"The most valuable features are the application, portfolio, data, architectures, and modeling things."

"Among the valuable features is the ability to document standards. For example, we have mandatory operating standards that need to be followed by every application and every architecture. We use things like table charts and pie charts for documenting the costs incurred across the systems. All of these are good features."

"The powerful editing function in teamwork project-based, common or shared modeling, based on a powerful repository and knowledge sharing in a portal are the most valuable features. These are the most important features for me. I can add the integration of individual modeling notations like Archimate plus BPMN and DMN, and so on. We travel from one location to another and the tool allows us to keep track."

"It is very easy to use. I can just click on an application component and find out if we are using this particular component. This provides us flexibility."

"The most valuable features of BiZZdesign HoriZZon include the diagrammatic representation of BPMN models, which I find good for modeling, and things such as capability maps."

More BiZZdesign HoriZZon pros

"The solution is easy to operate. Also, there is an automatic mode to make the business flow. You don't have to put any lines or arrows in a decision point in IBM Blueworks Live; it's very automatic."

"IBM Blueworks Live is cloud-based and provides easy access to all your processes in one place."

"Business users understand it really well, which means we can then help them automate their business processes."

"The stability is pretty good. It is highly available, which is key. You don't lose your work and can autosave."

"The business process discovery is excellent. The diagram or blueprinting functionality of the solution are very good. It's quite easy. You can link the sub-processes and get a big overview of the whole process then."

"You can use if from your mobile device or you can be on the desktop. It doesn't matter. You are always connected. It is cloud-based, so you don't have to install anything."

"It is a stable solution since there has not been any downtime. Everything loads fast."

"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."

More IBM Blueworks Live pros

Cons

"The ability to generate charts and deal with a use case involving Kibana was quite difficult."

"It takes a long time to learn and understand, which is a learning curve you have to go through, but once you know how it works, it's very nice to work with."

"Scalability is a bit of a problem for BiZZdesign. There is always a possibility it will failover."

"This tool is something of a beast - it takes a long time to learn, and it isn't possible for casual users and most architects. Unless a person spends 500 or 1,000 hours on the tool or does very concentrated sessions using all its functionalities, it's very difficult to master."

"The automatic data collection and interface need improvement."

"Integration definitely needs improvement. There are some restrictions. We've seen that it doesn't integrate with everything we might expect."

"There could be simpler modelling."

"The repository of duplicate objects is bad."

More BiZZdesign HoriZZon cons

"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."

"Spaces are not well organized; space controls are lacking."

"The solution is a very basic discovery product so it doesn't have that much modeling capability. This can be improved."

"The solution is stable, but there are some glitches and latency issues."

"We would like the ability to add additional custom colors. We would like to color additional items to add notes to the blueprint."

"I would like to see integration with ERP systems. This would help us to simulate the process and see where the problems are. Though IBM Blueworks Live is a good tool for documenting, it is not good for simulating."

"Some of the import functionality was a bit restrictive, in terms of loading data in from other data sources. Something as simple as Excel, loading data tables from Excel, wasn't great. And vice-versa. Some of the export and import functionality with something like Visio - which, I know it's a slightly different tool - but being able to work seamlessly with those other tool sets would've been quite useful. I know it was something that was in the pipeline to be looked at. So that would be useful."

"The font size is really, really small and it's really not useful to print out process models because you cannot read what's written in different boxes. This makes it necessary for people to have access to the tool. We view licenses to see how the printing or output is. It's not very good."

More IBM Blueworks Live cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If one is very cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the product price as a seven out of ten."

"First and foremost within the scope of improvement for the solution would be the cost. It's very costly..."

"I haven't found any issues with the scalability and licensing parts that are access-related."

"The price is reasonable."

"The pricing model is slightly on the high side and could be more competitive for long-term partnerships."

"We were customers and bought licenses from them. We used their remote instance initially but upgraded to the on-device version due to lag. For pricing, we paid about 2200 pounds a year per seat for the client installation at an educational rate. I'm not sure about commercial rates. I managed to get a free copy at BBC since it was for evaluation purposes."

"In terms of this particular product usage, my clients currently only use per-user licenses."

"[The] Orbus... pricing model was based on every single functionality having a price. The pricing was comparable but if we wanted to scale, it would have ended up being a lot more expensive. BiZZdesign gave us one price with all of the functionality, and we could scale as much as we needed."

"The solution is not very expensive."

"There are editor licenses that are around 50 euros per month, and contributor licenses that are around 30 euros per month."

"They have a free subscription model that gives a lot of power to the users."

"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 very, very cost-effective."

"Making it less expensive would be good."

"We are seeing ROI from this solution. The solution has saved us time."

"Price wise, IBM Blueworks Live is in the middle range, and I would give it a five out of ten."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Energy/Utilities Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	10

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	17

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BiZZdesign HoriZZon?

This is one of the best tools, especially because of its collaborative nature. Anyone using it can access previous projects and related data. It's definitely a strong collaborative tool.

See all answers

What needs improvement with BiZZdesign HoriZZon?

There is room for improvement in BiZZdesign HoriZZon. It's quite robust and has good online forums where people discuss it, though maybe the interface can improve, but I don't want to criticize it ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for BiZZdesign HoriZZon?

The typical use case with BiZZdesign HoriZZon is basically for enterprise architecture and also for business process modeling.

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Blueworks Live?

The solution is easy to operate. Also, there is an automatic mode to make the business flow. You don't have to put any lines or arrows in a decision point in IBM Blueworks Live; it's very automatic.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Blueworks Live?

The solution costs around 600-700 dollars/year, which is quite affordable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Blueworks Live?

Some features could still be enhanced in IBM Blueworks Live. The solution is easily scalable, but it can be expensive to scale and there may be some limitations. The solution is stable, but there a...

See all answers

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Compared 13% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

BiZZdesign HoriZZon

October 2025

Download BiZZdesign HoriZZon product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Blueworks Live

September 2025

Download IBM Blueworks Live product report

Also Known As

HoriZZon

IBM Lombardi Blueprint

Overview

Make smarter decisions and optimize outcomes by unifying all your strategy, capabilities, operating models and change portfolios in a single platform.

With all the data about your business in one place you can see the big picture and make properly informed strategic decisions to drive growth. Bizzdesign Horizzon brings together strategy, IT architecture, operating models, data, capabilities, change portfolios and ideas into a single, intuitive collaborative business design platform. Real-time visibility of key metrics and trends allows you to take action more quickly. Accelerating the speed and accuracy of your operations now – and into the future.

Core Platform Capabilities:

Multi-discipline collaboration
Data Integration
Advanced analytics
Models and Roadmaps
Governance & Security
Business Insight Graph

BiZZdesign

IBM Blueworks Live is a cloud-based business process modeling tool that helps you discover, map and document your processes. It is easy to use, allowing you to learn and perform business process modeling in minutes.

With Blueworks Live you can:

Simplify business process modeling
Quickly build business processes in a straightforward, cloud-based interface designed for both IT and business users.

Improve process efficiency and accuracy
A central process repository eliminates version control and consistency issues by providing users real-time access to process workflows.

Enhance cross-team collaboration
A shared team workspace engages all business process owners, encouraging cross-team participation and continuous process improvement.

IBM

Sample Customers

T-Mobile, Shell, HSBC, Erasmus University, VIVAT Insurance

Cloudsoft Corp. Ltd., Bayer, S¾SS, Essex County Council

Buyer's Guide

BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs. IBM Blueworks Live

September 2025

Free Report: BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs. IBM Blueworks Live

Find out what your peers are saying about BiZZdesign HoriZZon vs. IBM Blueworks Live and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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