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IBM BPM vs Red Hat Polymita Business Suite vs SAP NetWeaver BPM [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Featured Reviews

Ateeq Rehman - PeerSpot reviewer
Unit Head System Implementor at Allied Bank Limited
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.
LY
Partner at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Gives you the ability to design the screens outside the software and connect them as a component with the BPM engine
On the improvement part, I think the documentation for the tool, the official documentation, is not as strong as in other tools. You have lot of community. That is good. But sometimes you need - when you are working on a big client or a critical process - to be certain about certain things. So I think that the documentation for the tool, from the company, could be a little stronger. Also, the size of the team within Latin America. The size of the team that, in each country, knows about BPM - because of the size of Red Hat in comparison with the size of IBM or Oracle - is very little. You have maybe three or four people in the company, in Red Hat Mexico, that know about BPM; and in Peru, maybe one, who also needs to know about five other tools. You have help there, but sometimes you don't need that kind of help. You need to sit down with someone and take a good amount of time and discuss a process to solve a problem. It's a consequence of the size. IBM and Oracle are monsters. They have, say, 100 more employees than Red Hat. That is the problem. But on the other side, the price is good. You could pay four times less, five times less, in an average implementation with Red Hat than with IBM. So there is a trade-off.
SAP PO Team Lead
Provides nice graphical representations but is lacking OData
My primary use case for this solution is to display the process in a graphical representation. You can see the process flow, lanes, pools, and flow objects, as well as details about tasks and activities. Thus, you can easily navigate through the process and check the progress on process execution…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I liked its robustness the most. It was a very robust platform in my experience. It seemed like a very stable and powerful tool for handling lots of concurrent users and hammering at the system."
"With the Process Center, I can go to one place and view what all the environments are doing."
"We can scale by increasing the infrastructure which is currently running."
"The customer service is outstanding."
"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."
"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."
"With the tester coach wherein you can interact with the interface while you're designing the process."
"I rate the technical support a ten out of ten...The product's installation was easy."
"The main factor that separates Red Hat software from Oracle, IBM, Pegasystems, is the ability that it gives you to design the screens outside the software and connect it as another component with the BPM engine."
"My primary use case for this solution is to display the process in a graphical representation."
 

Cons

"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."
"Some of the features are not enough for my business. We need to build custom user management for the many end users affected by BPM."
"I see room for improvement in terms of the overall experience."
"Importing and exporting between multiple environments is more difficult with other tools."
"If you want to use IBM BPM, you will have to invest a lot of money for licenses and you need to learn that there are limitations in developing applications. You cannot create anything you want."
"The configuration is not that easy, and the initial deployment took three months."
"The tool's workflow function is very strong."
"We have been experiencing bad performance and instability."
"I think the documentation for the tool, the official documentation, is not as strong as in other tools. You have lot of community. That is good. But sometimes you need - when you are working on a big client or a critical process - to be certain about certain things. So I think that the documentation for the tool, from the company, could be a little stronger."
"The odata can be improved. It represents to users flexible process that can manage and monitor their own business process."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is pricey."
"We have a yearly licensing model. It is not expensive. There are no addition costs to the standard license."
"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."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a ten."
"It gives us a good return on investment."
"Price wise, IBM BPM is cheaper than other similar solutions and has excellent pricing."
"The pricing is quite high, I would rate it two out of five."
"Without any discount, you need tools that cost roughly between $80,000 to $100,000. That is less than with IBM. And on top of that you need the consulting. That will be another $200,000. So a quarter to a third of a million dollars is needed to use get started with BPM. So I usually recommend to my clients that they begin with a little project, with the community version. That way they don't spend $200,000 or $300,000, they spend $150,000 and zero on software."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
No data available
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise72
No data available
No data available
 

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 inter...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM BPM?
Once it is installed, maintaining it is not a big issue.
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Also Known As

WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
Polymita Business Suite
NetWeaver BPM
 

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
Bayer, Grupo Televisa, RCBC, Peavey
Dansk Supermarked A/S, Ego Pharmaceuticals Pty. Ltd, Kaeser Kompressoren, Lenovo
Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda, Automation Anywhere, Pega and others in Business Process Management (BPM). Updated: January 2026.
881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.