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Bonita vs IBM BPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 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

Bonita
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
20th
Ranking in Process Automation
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (12th)
IBM BPM
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
7th
Ranking in Process Automation
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of Bonita is 3.6%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM BPM is 7.2%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

Featured Reviews

Paparao Nadipineni - PeerSpot reviewer
A simple and lightweight college course automation system with third-party integrations
The initial setup is straightforward and can be completed with the environment within an hour. First, take the latest from the git repository and check the git code to the monitor studio and a bar file, a deployable Bonita archive file. Then, take that process to the Bonita server, running at runtime on another server. Finally, deploy and enable it by selecting the proper organization.
Prince Mathew - PeerSpot reviewer
More customizable than IBM FileNet and useful for automation
One suggestion for IBM BPM is to provide better integration between their products, such as DataCap, which we use for scanning. Although the new CP4BA offers offline capabilities, not everyone is on CP4BA, so enhanced integration for those on older versions would be beneficial. Another major suggestion is to offer a migration path when a product reaches its end of life. For example, there was no migration path when we moved, so we had to redo everything we had developed over ten years completely.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Bonita is simple and lightweight and is flexible to integrate with third-party systems. The UI is now flexible, whereas it was previously rigid. Any technology can be used as a frontend, including ReactJS, Angular, and others."
"I find process management and user interface designing the most valuable features."
"The solution is stable. Even the older versions are stable."
"Bonita is user-friendly."
"The solution is easy to use."
"Its user-friendliness, along with the availability of comprehensive and clear documentation on the website is the most valuable."
"I really enjoy using the workflow management."
"It is a great product that is powerful in developing applications."
"It has reduced a lot of manual errors and processes."
"Enabled us to convert most of the paper-based work into an automated workflow process, and some of them were converted into straight-through processing, with no human interaction involved whatsoever."
"IBM BPM and Automation Anywhere working together automate manual tasks with a reduction in FTEs, creating about a 30% reduction in FTEs by automating processes."
"One of the reasons for adopting this solution ten years ago was its ease of use. It had a lot of off-the-shelf functionality, and it did not need to be developed specifically for the project that we were implementing. That was the main reason for adopting it in the beginning."
"The most valuable features come in the bundle, the design process, creating services, creating BPDs, creating coaches, and UI/UX."
"With the tester coach wherein you can interact with the interface while you're designing the process."
"The reach with Integration Adapters and support for adding custom Java code are valuable features."
"They have some quick-win programs that are designed to come in, they'll bring a developer in and they'll work with your developer to get you started. That's what we did and that worked really great. We got an understanding of the product, we got an understanding of how to deploy the product. And when we were done with that engagement, we were off and running."
 

Cons

"The dashboard has limited features."
"There could be an improvement in IoT connectivity."
"Bonita must add a rule engine. We are a 360-degree partner of Bonita. We can integrate with any kind of rule engine. We have a dashboard related to engine performance, but getting a configurable dashboard for the Buildium or transactional data will add value."
"There is a considerable learning curve."
"I would like to improve the product's load balancing."
"The community edition has limited module functionality. If they could release some of the functionality that's available in the enterprise edition that would be helpful to those learning to use the solution."
"We are struggling a bit with integrations."
"The main issue with Bonita is that the workspace crashes sometimes."
"We still have a couple of issues that we are working on right now with stability. Mostly on the configuration side of the tool, and it has been about a month that we have been working to stabilize the platform.​"
"IBM BPM integrated with Spark UI and the UI is now much better, but they still need to improve the UI because competitors have predefined templates and other additional features. In these competitor's solutions, you are able to use the templates, map your data, and the form is ready to use. With this solution, you need to write a lot of code to have the same quality as the competitor's templates. It would be a benefit to make this platform more towards low-code or no-code."
"When you have to integrate files for enterprise applications."
"Could increase vulnerability and security patches to make it more robust."
"IBM BPM's price could be improved."
"We had hoped that the product would provide us with plug-ins like Salesforce. Its development environment needs to improve. We expect to see elastic features like containerization. We don't just need an on-prem virtual machine."
"The initial setup can be tricky because IBM BPM is not based on a popular stack, and it's difficult to hire a developer for this product."
"Finding errors and bugs on the system is not easy. We can't seem to use the events or logs to find them, so it makes it difficult to debug the system. They really need to work on their debugging features to make is much, much easier. It would improve the solution considerably and should be something they add in a future release."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am using the free version of Bonita."
"You pay an annual fee and can have an unlimited number of processes and users."
"have installed the image of Bonita BPM on Amazon AWS and there is just one option to use and pay for."
"I believe this is a very good financial choice."
"The price is fair for what we are using the solution for."
"We are using the Community Version, which can be used free of charge."
"The product is not cheaper, not costlier; it is reasonable. Bonita’s license is very flexible, with options to meet the needs of different customers and clients. Previously, it was less flexible, but now, many different licensing options are available."
"Licensing cost for the Enterprise edition comes out to be around 40,000 a year. There is also a Community edition, which is free. Some customers can go for the Community edition, but some of them require the Enterprise edition. Big companies go for the Enterprise edition, which comes with a lot of additional features such as a mobile app."
"IBM could improve the price. It is far too expensive."
"I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten."
"It gives us a good return on investment."
"It should provide more flexibility to connect with external systems, and there should be in-built services that can be used to integrate with other systems quickly."
"​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."
"It has a low cost to implement. You'll get your money back in the same year that you complete the project."
"IBM BPM is expensive, so most large companies opt for IBM based on their licensing options."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Bonita compare with Camunda Platform?
One of the things we like best about Bonita is that you can create without coding - it is a low-code platform. With Bonita, you can build the entire mechanism using the GUI, it’s that simple. You c...
What do you like most about Bonita?
The user interface is easy to use.
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

Bonita BPM
WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

With more than 1000 customers in 75 countries, and its ecosystem of more than 120,000 members, Bonitasoft is the largest provider of open-source Business Process Management, Low-code and Digital Transformation software worldwide.
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 Bonita vs. IBM BPM and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.