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F5 BIG-IQ 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

F5 BIG-IQ
Ranking in Process Automation
25th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM BPM
Ranking in Process Automation
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (7th), Application Infrastructure (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IQ is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM BPM is 5.8%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM BPM5.8%
F5 BIG-IQ0.5%
Other93.7%
Process Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Bikale Kassu - PeerSpot reviewer
Has faced challenges with visibility and technical support but allows centralized management of multiple sites
The configuration part is complex for F5 BIG-IQ. The simplicity and visibility part needs improvement. The dashboard, especially the analytics part, needs to be more simple and presentable. For the security part, it is difficult to present to our management, so we have to capture it and prepare manual reporting options rather than getting them directly from the system. The automation part in F5 BIG-IQ is limited; we are still using it only for load balancing for some services. We haven't integrated it with our Accesso or implemented any automation options. The setup process for F5 BIG-IQ would rate a five out of ten.
Ateeq Rehman - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"F5 BIG-IQ has always provided us with great support."
"The reporting feature is quite good."
"It is quite good in a large environment where I have multiple devices; it is easy to manage the devices."
"The best aspect of the solution is that we can have everything integrated with a rather large capacity in order to personalize and configure specific rules."
"The GUI is fine, at least from an engineer's perspective."
"Features like AFM, the gateway, and Global DNS are the coolest features that save work for us."
"We mainly use F5 BIG-IQ to protect our web-based applications, such as our email and website, so we use it as a web-based application firewall for those services."
"We use this solution on a daily basis, and it is very stable."
"Everything is coupled together and comes as one solution."
"The solution is stable."
"It helps improve your process through continual measurement."
"Compliance with the BPMN 2.0 standard."
"Responsive Portal + Process Federation Server. This set of solutions offers a unified worklist to our customers."
"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."
"The designer feature, compared to other solutions is easy to use."
"It provides value and simplifies processes."
 

Cons

"The solution should improve pricing. It's expensive in comparison to other American solutions."
"Integration with VAS is something that they need to work on."
"For stability, F5 BIG-IQ rates a two or three because currently we are integrating it with our third party as a port forwarding service. We created many VIPs, but on average, weekly, we lose three to five connections, making the troubleshooting part a headache for us."
"F5 BIG-IQ should improve by being a complete certificate management solution because currently, it is only for Venafi. Other automation platforms, should be added."
"The shell, kernel, or Linux has something like a delay, especially with the Virtual Edition, when you are trying to implement it in the cloud and you want to access it remotely with web management. It would be great if they could improve their kernel. It was difficult for me, especially when I got started with BIG-IP. I was struggling to find which commands work with it. If you want to work with it, you have to be a Linux guy."
"Sometimes the solution does not work."
"The solution's rSeries has been made free, and iSeries should be made free as well."
"I had trouble with high availability deployment in my environment."
"UI is an area with a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"One of the things that we are looking at is cognitive learning. IBM has another product called IBM RPA, I think, which is doing some of that stuff. We would like to see more of that with respect to cognitive learning and AI put back into the process engine to help."
"I have an interest around the robotic piece, and integrating that with the processes. I think that is certainly a good direction to be going."
"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."
"The integration could be improved."
"We are a government organization, and we are the largest government power sector in India. We generate around 30% of power in India. Therefore, our processes are quite complex. Although IBM BPM is a low-code or no-code software, if you want to have extremely complex workflows, just the business process diagrams are not helpful in creating those workflows. While implementing complex workflows, only the process flow diagrams did not help us. We had to write a lot of Java scripts and Java queries to achieve what we wanted. Its integration capabilities with the SAP environment have to be improved. At present, we are only talking at the web services environment level. Its price also needs to be improved. It is currently expensive. Previously, Active Directory required a heterogeneous environment, but now they want a homogeneous environment. We had onboarded employees through Microsoft Active Directory, and now I have to implement Microsoft AD only from the cloud for my vendors."
"IBM BPM can improve the dashboards and reports. It only has two dashboards, and reporting is very difficult to build."
"It might not be suitable for entry level clients because it comes with a huge number of modules for processing that at times might not be necessary for upcoming clients."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would like the product to be cheaper."
"There is only one licensing fee for F5 BIG-IQ and everything is included in the price."
"F5 BIG-IQ is a cheap solution."
"Users have to pay an annual subscription fee for the solution's iSeries."
"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."
"Price wise, IBM BPM is cheaper than other similar solutions and has excellent pricing."
"Its price is on the higher side, and it can be improved. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. There are no additional costs."
"The price of the solution is fair for an enterprise solution that has both cloud and on-premise deployments and when comparing to competitors. Recently IBM has introduced Cloud Pak which allows for more flexible licensing options for automation and other features."
"IBM could improve the price. It is far too expensive."
"The cloud and license of the subscription model for IBM BPM can be complex. There are a lot of alternatives to choose from."
"The solution is expensive since it is an enterprise application."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise71
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about F5 BIG-IQ?
F5 BIG-IQ is a central management system for the BIG-IP.
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IQ?
The product is really good with no significant downsides. However, better and simpler integration with ACI could improve the product.
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

Information Not Available
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 F5 BIG-IQ vs. IBM BPM and other solutions. Updated: November 2025.
872,846 professionals have used our research since 2012.