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IBM BPM vs Magic xpa Application Platform 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)
Magic xpa Application Platform
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Application Server (8th), Mobile Development Platforms (9th)
 

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 Magic xpa Application Platform is 1.2%, down from 1.3% 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.
Mylsamy T. - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables us to develop more than 90 applications in-house, which are used across our organization
It's a bit difficult to work with purely web-based applications to get the data and display it. There have been a few times when the connection was disconnected between the server and your browser. The connectivity on browser-built applications needs to be improved. The mobile application development could be easier. They could include different external applications, like finger sensors. I'm not sure whether it's in version 3.8 or not.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Integration is a big plus for me."
"Its most valuable features are usability and integration with other IBM products."
"The performance is fine."
"It makes the company business processes work more efficiently."
"It is being able to see the process, and understanding what the process is versus having to bury it in code somewhere."
"We use it for automating certain processes which previously took a lot of time for agents to set up different products for customers. They would have to enter a lot of different systems. This has now mostly been automated."
"I think the best way it can be it improved, is to make it easier to install. It's a very complicated piece of software, and there are a lot of things you have to do to get it set up. It's not just running an installer. You install WebSphere. You install the BPM product, and there's a large host of other steps you have to do: run queries against the database, you have to manually configure a bunch of properties files for your environment. I think if they could streamline all that, so it wasn't a considerable effort to install, that would be very useful. Because from an engineering point of view, you want to spend as little time as possible actually installing a product."
"Agility is the key. It gives our customers a faster way to be able to implement processes, get ownership of task, visibility into a process. The ability to modify that process, optimize that process over time, is probably the biggest benefit that they get from the software."
"Magic’s unique approach to development ensures that the programmer stays focused on the objective of the program (i.e. display all customers in California), instead of the repetitive tasks that surround it (i.e. connect to database, open customers table, create the query to retrieve records within the specified criteria, fetch the result of the query, connect it to a data grid, etc.)."
"Typically an experienced Magic developer can do the work of two to three experienced C#/.NET developers. Customers are amazed at how quickly most new features can be added and bug fixes implemented. I have worked for four employers - including myself - using Magic, and in most instances, bug fixes are addressed and deployed in under six hours."
"What I found most valuable in the Magic xpa Application Platform is that it has a client-server and web browser technology that's perfect for company users."
"Magic’s Database Gateway allows the logic of the program to be isolated from the underlying database. This provides the flexibility not only to move existing programs to different database environments without the need to change the logic in the program but also allows the programmer access to different databases without the need to know how to "talk" to them."
"The best feature of Magic is the development time. The time it takes to develop something is incredibly fast if you compare Magic with, for example, Java."
"Without the need to compile code, the time spent in the development cycle is greatly reduced, allowing the programmer to test modifications to a program immediately after they have been saved."
"xpa gives us a fast development speed."
"The ability to use the same development environment for both Windows and Android applications. Magic xpa also supports iOS applications."
 

Cons

"The product is extremely complex to use and administrate."
"The configuration is not that easy, and the initial deployment took three months."
"​The initial setup was complex. It is not always easy to launch a new platform and it needed better coordination with IBM."
"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."
"IBM BPM's price could be improved."
"They could provide case studies to investigate and understand the functionality of business processes before development."
"It is not user-friendly."
"Where it can be improved is Integration. I think that the direction that IBM is taking now, to have something that is much more integrated, that can be seen as one single solution, is clearly the right way."
"There is room for improvement in Magic's marketing and licensing. I would like to see more integration of web functionality."
"In the next version of the Magic xpa Application Platform, I want tables or small programs where I can directly add expressions. I can do it on SQL, but it would make life much easier if that specification were added to the platform."
"The configuration of the xpa RIA mobile environment is complex and a discouragement to new developers. Also, Magic's documentation can be less than complete at times which leads to frustration for new developers. (I encourage new Magic developers to join the Magic Users Group)."
"The ability to display page up, page down, top and bottom buttons along the scroll bar would make my mouse-reliant customers happy."
"The user interface could be improved to be more friendly for developers."
"Throughout my career, I've encountered difficulties when integrating new technologies with Magic xpa Application Platform. In particular, when attempting to incorporate features from other development languages into earlier versions of the solution called uniPaaS. I struggled to integrate .NET components due to the limited options available. This made the process more challenging and complicated. I find it challenging to create a more user-friendly experience for users who may be comparing the system to other systems they have used outside or within the company on different platforms."
"I would like to see a spell checker included with optional language support. Currently, this has to be purchased from a third-party."
"They want to be one toolbox for everything, but primarily, we are using xpa to develop desktop applications, and in that area they're lacking functionalities, flexibility, and modern stuff."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is on the higher side, and it can be improved. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. There are no additional costs."
"I think it's a reasonably priced tool, but it's important to consider which customers should buy this solution. It's designed for enterprise customers, not small ones."
"The solution is highly-priced."
"I already compared some solutions related to business process management, and I saw that the cost of IBM BPM is more expensive compared with that of Camunda, for example."
"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."
"It has a low cost to implement. You'll get your money back in the same year that you complete the project."
"The solution might be expensive, but I can't give you a precise number. In the market here, I've seen two main products for BPM: IBM BPM and Camunda. Camunda is very popular and open-source, so there's no direct comparison."
"I wish it was less expensive. I don't know why their pricing model is so high for a piece of software that could benefit so many. It just seems to me that they could have a lower cost, maybe with fewer features or whatever, but it should be possible to do a lower cost workflow software that uses the same interface and underlying engine but does not cost so much that you have to be a Fortune 50 company to buy it. It is annoying to me. There are a lot of solutions that IBM has that are really powerful but nobody can afford them. They know their business, but I still feel that there are a lot of customers who would benefit from this sort of thing. I don't know what this elitism is all about. I am sure they have people doing the money numbers, but it seems like you can make a lot more money by selling it to way more people for a little bit less."
"The cost for developers is high because you have to pay for licenses as well as runtime."
"There are different licenses, we have the application and the online application. There are two different licenses for two different program sites for the Magic xpa Application Platform."
"My clients have to purchase additional licenses in order to use what I built. It's not a fair approach."
"Magic is not the cheapest IDE out there. If you are considering Magic xpa, you should do a cost-benefit analysis to feel comfortable with your decision. The Magic sales staff is very helpful in providing pricing."
"The licensing is too costly."
"The licensing cost varies because nowadays Magic has tailor-made offerings for clients. I think the solution is worth the money."
"The main problem with the Magic xpa Application Platform is pricing. You have to pay a lot of money for development, and you also have to pay a lot for the deployments and runtime, while in most competitors, you have to pay a lot for one of the two and not both."
"It's not cheap. The licenses are not cheap. Not at all. They cost much money. There are other tools with free licenses but Magic asks for a lot of money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Insurance Company
8%
 

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.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

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

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
ADD, Cape plc, Adecco, Kuno Kinzoku Industry Co., GE Capital, Dove Tree, CBS Outdoor, Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Center, Allstate Life Insurance Company, Titan Software Systems
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM BPM vs. Magic xpa Application Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
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