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IBM BPM vs SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Portal 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
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (7th), Process Automation (6th)
SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Po...
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM BPM is 3.1%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Portal is 1.4%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM BPM3.1%
SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Portal1.4%
Other95.5%
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Anand_Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
The UI makes the setup easy to do from anywhere
Our customers expect that a page will open within one second, and I doubt this will happen. Also, opening documentation takes time. Fixing this will help the customer and help to meet their expectations. SAP needs to come up with a standardized version of NetWeaver. The solution is good on the internal side, but not so much from the client perspective when they view it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its Analytics is the most valuable feature."
"This solution is very stable."
"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."
"It helps maintain, and in many instances, lower costs, as well as to maintain those costs, keeping them stable."
"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."
"We use the solution to develop and deliver products."
"We are implementing the tool to triple our monthly transaction volume."
"I rate the technical support a ten out of ten...The product's installation was easy."
"From the use of this solution, we have been able to establish better processes and have greater management of our company."
"Workflow functionality and internal portal capabilities are the most important features."
"They integrated it with the SAP router."
"Internal workflow approval around ESS and MSS leave days, capex approval as well as internal communication to the business have improved the way my organization functions."
 

Cons

"The coaches and the user interface are the areas that can be improved a lot. It is good in terms of data processing, but the UI, scripting, and coaches are not very user-friendly and developer-friendly. Performance is always an issue. The scripting and the pattern that it uses are very tedious for new developers to understand, and it takes time to master it in depth. When comparing IBM BPM with IBM APN, a lot of things are provided out of the box in IBM APN. We don't have to write code or a Java connector to make a functionality work. It would be very helpful and time-saving for developers if IBM BPM is improved in this area to provide many functionalities or drag-and-drop options so that the developers don't have to write the code."
"I would like to see more inclusion of RPA technologies. If we have more manual processes, we can use robotic process automation and integrate that in with the solution."
"IBM BPM's price could be improved."
"The front end is not customised for a good user experience."
"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."
"IBM BPM needs to have a better and modified interface."
"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."
"The integration could be improved."
"Our customers expect that a page will open within one second, and I doubt this will happen. Also, opening documentation takes time. Fixing this will help the customer and help to meet their expectations."
"We encountered stability issues, especially on external functionality around its RFP capabilities."
"Due to our business, some setups were very complex."
"The user interface could be improved by making it more user-friendly."
"External portal functionality with suppliers and customers needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​We have definitely seen ROI. When we first kicked it off, we said it had to pay for itself within three years, and it did."
"We chose to purchase IBM BPM because it was bundled with the actual RPA program/solution that we decided to purchase. We decided to use Automation Anywhere tool (RPA), and it is was bundled with IBM BPM."
"I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten."
"It's expensive. All software is always extremely high. The manufacturing cost that we have compared to the selling cost, it's not like you're building a house or building a car. But putting that aside, considering that it's expensive, it's a lot of money. If you compare it with some of the other alternatives in the market, it's a similar price. For instance, if you compare it with Pegasystems, it's a similar price."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a ten."
"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."
"We have a yearly licensing model. It is not expensive. There are no addition costs to the standard license."
"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."
"​SAP is not for every business. It depends on what is required. SAP is always going to be expensive​."
"The cost of this solution is high."
"Because India is so competitive in the IT world, people will start to move away from SAP's pricing because they have a market monopoly. Soon, they will start losing the monopoly part to open source and other things. I don't think their monopoly will run for more than three to four years because people are getting away from these monopolies."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise71
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 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
NetWeaver Enterprise Portal, SAP Portal
 

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
Alliander N.V.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM BPM vs. SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Portal and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,095 professionals have used our research since 2012.