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IBM BPM vs IBM WebSphere Application Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

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

IBM BPM
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (5th), Process Automation (4th)
IBM WebSphere Application S...
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
5th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Application Server (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM BPM is 3.2%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM WebSphere Application Server is 12.0%, up from 10.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Kamran - PeerSpot reviewer
Has efficient processes and intuitive workflow with many valuable features
You will have access to make any needed changes. Additionally, the review will be published on PeerSpot.com in written or audio format, available to other people. You can stay anonymous if you wish. Notifications and the use of the review are subject to PeerSpot's terms of use, which you can find at PeerSpot.com/TOS. I would give the solution an overall rating of ten out of ten points.
BharathirajaSukumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient load balancing and the clustering, achieved by using the deployment manager, is valuable
I believe that the system is already good. However, for improvement or enhancement, it is user-friendly, but it could offer better choices on the front end for different aspects or options. Sometimes, I have to search extensively for features, as there are no upfront tabs. There is a lack of visible, easy, user-friendly, and straightforward options for the number of features.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There are two or three valuable features, like BPM."
"It has an elaborated way to explore the IBM BPM processes."
"Technical support is good. They are very responsive. It is usually me who takes more time to get back to them than they take to get back to me, which is good."
"For me, the most important feature is the easy-to-use business process dashboard. It's simple to orchestrate business processes, and the interface is clean and intuitive. Once your workflow is designed on paper, it's easy for the business process manager to implement and follow it. Another IBM product that was good in the past is the IBM Case Manager. I haven't used it for three or four years, so I'm unsure if it's still available, but it was quite effective."
"The integration capabilities of IBM BPM are excellent."
"IBM BPM should become cloud-native. It should also add a cloud deployment feature."
"We made the transformation to agile. Altogether with BPM, it is the total package."
"There is information during the process that the analyst will look at, their procedures. We created a part of the application such that the business can change those procedures as needed, on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. As the reps go through the process, they don't necessarily know it's changing, they just know they have to refer to some documentation, and the business can keep that up to date."
"The integration between IBM tools and applications is very well executed."
"Without the Admin Console it would be very hard to configure JVM settings, JDBC datasources, mail session settings, and security providers."
"As compared to other applications, it has tremendous support. We have built internal capability so that we use it extensively internally. It is also easier to use with the outside data. You can write in ESQL, Java, or any other technology that you want to use for development. So, it is a lot more flexible in the language that it supports."
"The product offers good performance."
"This solution is easy to use with a GUI that is intuitive and very helpful."
"The solution is robust. The connection management and the scalability, which IBM provides to the Stack, are also valuable."
"The performance is good."
"The solution has good performance."
 

Cons

"I suggest establishing a developer forum for better communication and issue resolution. Also, the administration panel could be improved for task management."
"The user experience, while it has improved, should continue to improve."
"All our clients are changing to microservice and cloud service. However, BPM does not have a solution for microservice and cloud service."
"IBM BPM's UI is an area with shortcomings where improvements are required."
"There is room for improvement in the stability."
"We had a weird problem that whenever the database would go down, even for a few seconds, it broke the connection. It would not come back up as it was supposed to. However, working with IBM, we were able to figure out a fix, then it came back up, even after an interruption of the database."
"They could provide case studies to investigate and understand the functionality of business processes before development."
"One downside is that changing intermediate steps after you've finalized your flow can be challenging. Also, the integration with identity management could be easier. It would be helpful to have role-based access functions, allowing for specific custom models associated with certain streamlines in the IBM dashboard. Also, a simpler way to integrate some notation with other middleware platforms would be beneficial."
"Sometimes, I feel WebSphere runs a bit slow. It might be loading unnecessary libraries, impacting its performance compared to other application servers."
"IBM WebSphere Application Server hasn't changed much. It's still a heavyweight for any company compared to what you get. Unless your code base is deeply linked with it, I don't think it's a great idea to go with this solution. The current trend is toward modularity and containerization, and given the product's requirements, containerization will be difficult. There is a memory requirement as well."
"When we run into memory or locking issues, we resort to using third-party tools. However, it would be preferable to have native tools for debugging this type of problem."
"It should be able to serve more concurrent requests like Oracle. Oracle has more powerful stability, availability, and real-time serving."
"The availability of the solution needs improvement."
"In the next release of this solution, I would like to see support for the Arabic language."
"WebSphere is very cumbersome and not user-friendly."
"Some things are very difficult to do, so the interface and usage could be more intuitive for those."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When considering the features of the solution the price is expensive compared to competitors."
"I give the pricing an eight out of ten."
"It may be cheaper for organizations to pay for the Viewer licenses that are immediately up and running in the cloud, rather than paying for someone to administer publishing to an intranet."
"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."
"It is pricey."
"Price wise, IBM BPM is cheaper than other similar solutions and has excellent pricing."
"The solution is highly-priced."
"Licensing is managed by the client, but we know it is yearly. Camunda is relatively cheaper. There is not much difference in pricing of IBM and PEGA. For large licensing, there are discounts as well."
"It costs more than some of the others, but, you get what you pay for."
"The pricing is a little expensive."
"I don't remember the price, but there are no additional costs."
"IBM WAS base is part of the deal when you purchase IBM FileNet P8 Content Engine."
"If your application is just a web app that does not need to scale big, you can obtain a single core license of WAS Express edition, which has almost the same features with limited processing cores. If you manage a very big application farm (i.e. need to run 10 or more WAS servers) it is better to get IBM WAS Hypervisor Edition."
"WebSphere Application Server is expensive, so it may not be a good option for small companies."
"It's expensive."
"It is very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
13%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What do you like most about IBM WebSphere Application Server?
Network Deployment is the most useful feature for scalability. It has many features within the standard WebSphere Application Server edition.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM WebSphere Application Server?
In Korea, when you buy IBM iOS, the WebSphere base version is included with iOS. That means no additional cost.
What needs improvement with IBM WebSphere Application Server?
I find the server okay, however, using the Maker instance, the Moving instance, and the Change instance is a little bit complicated without WebSphere knowledge.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
WebSphere Application Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
TalkTalk, Property management group, E.SUN Bank, Ohio National Financial Services, Aviarc, Cincom Systems, FJA-US, D+H, Staples, Michigan Municipal League
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM BPM vs. IBM WebSphere Application Server and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.