Camunda vs IBM Cloud Pak for Automation comparison

Camunda and IBM are both solutions in the Process Automation category. Camunda is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3, while IBM is ranked #21 with an average rating of 9.0. Camunda holds a 27.6% mindshare in PA, compared to IBM’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of Camunda users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Camunda

Read 77 Camunda reviews

15,091 Views
10,176 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

Read 2 IBM Cloud Pak for Automation reviews

261 Views
150 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Camunda

IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Camunda and IBM Cloud Pak for Automation compete in business process management. IBM often holds an edge due to its expansive features, while Camunda is preferred for cost-effectiveness and support.

Features: Camunda delivers process automation with tools favorable to developers and flexible deployment. Its open architecture allows integration with other tools. IBM Cloud Pak for Automation includes comprehensive automation, advanced analytics, and AI insights to cater to complex needs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Camunda offers simple deployment with its lightweight design, providing easy maintenance and responsive customer service. IBM, with robust infrastructure, necessitates a more complex setup but offers thorough documentation and premium support.

Pricing and ROI: Camunda is valued for its lower costs, benefiting businesses with limited budgets, while IBM Cloud Pak involves more upfront investment, promising higher long-term ROI with its enterprise features.

To learn more, read our detailed Camunda vs. IBM Cloud Pak for Automation Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Camunda vs. IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

April 2025

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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

Camunda

Ranking in Process Automation

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Design (1st), Business Process Management (BPM) (1st)

IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

Ranking in Process Automation

21st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of Camunda is 27.6%, up from 27.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Cloud Pak for Automation is 0.4%, down from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Process Automation

Featured Reviews

FABIO NAGAO

Chief Technology Officer at Looplex SA

Reduces costs with hardware abstraction and simplifies scaling

There is an issue where, in some situations, I need to scale up by observing both CPU and memory usage of containers, yet under the current options available at Amazon, this is not possible. I have to choose between monitoring CPU or memory to scale my solution. Not every software is built for deployment as a container service, although the current architecture trend is changing this.

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SYEDMUJTABA

Vice President - Digital Automation Services at Techvista Systems

Effectively handles parallel instances effectively

I find it quite straightforward, perhaps around 8.5 out of 10 in terms of ease. When we upgraded from the old version of IBM BPM to the new one within IBM Cloud Pak for Automation, we didn't encounter any major issues. There were some minor ones, but they were easy to overcome.The migration process was part of our deployment strategy. We had a plan to migrate two processes per week from on-premises to the cloud. The migration involved taking the instances and migrating them to the new environment. There is an inbuilt feature in IBM Cloud Pak for Automation that facilitates the migration process, although I personally haven't conducted it myself; it's managed by my team. Overall, the setup process was relatively smooth.

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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

"I think that the positives of Camunda Platform are that our customers can start with the free version. I think it is the most important."

"The headless nature of the Camunda Platform is something that has helped us to build our own logic and platforms on it."

"Being able to use a Java-based solution makes the product flexible."

"The graphical interface is very beneficial."

"Camunda seems to have a lot of traction, maturity, and stability. It also matches the need for agile development."

"The UI is very user-friendly compared to other products. The native, vanilla UI is very interesting and intuitive to use. It's user-friendly when it comes to modernizing a business process."

"Its flexibility stands out as the most valuable feature."

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate ECS a ten out of ten."

More Camunda pros

"I believe two significant features of IBM Cloud Pak for Automation are the focus on SLA management and the capability to handle parallel instances effectively. Parallel instances, for instance, are valuable when dealing with a large number of users, enabling tasks to be performed concurrently for efficient system operation. The SLA aspect is crucial for tracking and ensuring timely completion of tasks. Additionally, the cloud compatibility of IBM BAW allows for seamless migration from on-premises to the cloud. This version also includes a business rule management system for storing and managing business rules effectively."

"What this product allows us to do is to move from on-prem instances where we are running independent instances of FileNet, Datacap, and ODM. It allows us to leverage container-based resiliency and availability modeling so that we have some visibility across the CP4BA ecosystem. We're now migrating all of our data to be in the Cloud Object Storage, and we can now use some of the features of Azure in terms of how we store and retrieve content for our members and our providers."

Cons

"It is not difficult to change existing processes. The difficulty was in integration, for example, to call an external web API, and in the security capabilities, to use a vault for secrets. That was difficult."

"Like all BPM tools, they're very bad with proprietary UIs. In general, anyone who uses BPM tools should not expect to use their proprietary UI."

"Initial setup can be quite complex."

"Collaborations and process documentation in Camunda Platform are areas with shortcomings that need improvement."

"The support offered by the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"If they could build some scripts or some configuration to get it up and running in a Docker environment, that would be good. I didn't find anything when on Docker, however, maybe they have something and I didn't see it yet."

"Documentation can be improved."

"I would say that Camunda should actually focus on small cases as well. There's a lot of space out there, for small businesses. If they can, they should cater to them."

More Camunda cons

"One of the challenges we're having is finding vendors who have experience in developing on the cloud. We can find developers on the old platform, but it is leading-edge technology. So, we are having some challenges, and IBM is assisting us to find vendor partners. To be able to leverage all the capabilities of the new platform, we have to upgrade our existing ecosystem of FileNet applications. Upgrading to the new platform while trying to modernize is always challenging because it is like you have a moving target."

"I believe there is room for improvement in the user interface, particularly in the Process Portal that customers use to view and manage their tasks. The UI of the Process Portal needs enhancement. Additionally, in the next release, I would like to see improved compatibility with Angular, allowing for direct integration with front-end systems. It would be beneficial to have built-in GUI features based on Angular within the system, rather than developing separate applications externally. This, in turn, would provide a more seamless and enhanced front-end experience."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We're using the free version. We used the Enterprise version for some time. If I compare free versus what we paid at that time, the Enterprise version costs a lot. For the additional functionality that we got with the Enterprise version, it was too costly."

"We are using the open-source version of this solution."

"Compared to other software, Camunda Platform is quite cost-effective."

"Its price is decent. Everything is included in the license. The Community version is also good to start with. We are using the Community version."

"Camunda is much cheaper."

"We're using the open-source version for now."

"Generally, the price could be better, as well as the licensing fees."

"In Africa, the cost of deployment is an important factor to consider since it adds to the overall cost. This might be the only drawback to using it."

More Camunda pricing and cost advice

"IBM Cloud Pak for Automation is relatively expensive, especially considering it is designed for long-living processes, not for normal automation needs. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the pricing at around 9. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees, but IBM has multiple pricing models that make it expensive in its own way. Different plans are available, but overall, the experience suggests it is a costly solution."

"Its cost is almost the same or comparable to what we pay with FileNet, but I'm not sure what we pay a year. A good part of CP4BA is the CPU-based licensing model. When we're dealing with 50,000 dentists, for example, if we were to use Salesforce, we would be hit with the licensing of 50,000 dentists, whereas when we build out in CP4BA, it is just based on our CPU usage, not on individual licenses."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

27%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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...

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Which do you prefer - Appian or Camunda Platform?

Appian is fast when building simple to medium solutions. This solution offers simple drag-and-drop functionality with easy plug-and-play options. The initial setup was seamless and very easy to imp...

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Which would you choose - Camunda Platform or Apache Airflow?

Camunda Platform allows for visual demonstration and presentation of business process flows. The flexible Java-based option was a big win for us and allows for the integration of microservices very...

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Cloud Pak for Automation?

I believe two significant features of IBM Cloud Pak for Automation are the focus on SLA management and the capability to handle parallel instances effectively. Parallel instances, for instance, ar...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Cloud Pak for Automation?

IBM Cloud Pak for Automation is relatively expensive, especially considering it is designed for long-living processes, not for normal automation needs. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the pr...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Cloud Pak for Automation?

I believe there is room for improvement in the user interface, particularly in the Process Portal that customers use to view and manage their tasks. The UI of the Process Portal needs enhancement. ...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Camunda

April 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Process Automation

April 2025

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Also Known As

Camunda BPM

No data available

Overview

Camunda enables organizations to orchestrate processes across people, systems, and devices to continuously overcome complexity and increase efficiency. A common visual language enables seamless collaboration between business and IT teams to design, automate, and improve end-to-end processes with the required speed, scale, and resilience to remain competitive. Hundreds of enterprises such as Atlassian, ING, and Vodafone orchestrate business-critical processes with Camunda to accelerate digital transformation. To learn more visit camunda.com.

Camunda

IBM Cloud Pak for Automation offers design, build, run, and automation services to rapidly scale your programs and fully execute and operationalize an automation strategy.

IBM

Sample Customers

24 Hour Fitness, Accruent, AT&T Inc., Atlassian, CSS Insurance, Deutsche Telekom, Generali, Provinzial NordWest Insurance Services, Swisscom AG, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, VHV Group, Zalando

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Camunda vs. IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

April 2025

Free Report: Camunda vs. IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

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