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IBM BPM vs Temporal 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
IBM BPM delivers ROI by optimizing workflows, cutting errors, and reducing issuance time, despite initial costs, within a year.
Sentiment score
6.0
Temporal's cost-effectiveness reduces maintenance costs, essential for high-reliability needs, automating processes and saving time and expenses.
The ROI is apparent in terms of business case automation; previously, a bunch of people filled in data in NetSuite or managed stocks between warehouses and Amazon, but now everything is automated, saving time.
Founder & CEO at Lanzar
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.7
IBM BPM's customer service is highly rated for responsiveness, despite occasional delays, with quality varying by location and issue complexity.
Sentiment score
6.7
Temporal service excels through active forums and Slack, despite time zone delays; users praise its responsive support.
The customer service is outstanding.
Project Manager at Ora-Tech Systems
On a scale from 1 to 10, support deserves a rating of 7 to 8.
Unit Head System Implementor at Allied Bank Limited
We had a contract that provided on-site support, which was very satisfactory.
Compliance Sanctions Senior Analyst at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
IBM BPM is scalable, supports large workloads and complex tasks, but scalability varies by architecture, configuration, and concurrent transactions.
Sentiment score
7.1
Temporal excels in scalability, managing numerous workflows while requiring robust infrastructure like Cassandra and Kubernetes for optimal performance.
The solution has scalability issues; on a scale, I would rate it at eight out of ten.
Project Manager at Ora-Tech Systems
The architecture of the solution offers scalability; we can scale both vertically and horizontally.
Unit Head System Implementor at Allied Bank Limited
I found IBM BPM to be scalable to a certain level but it struggled with large volumes of concurrent transactions.
Compliance Sanctions Senior Analyst at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
IBM BPM is generally stable, with on-premises better than cloud, but faces challenges in migrations and occasionally infrastructure-related issues.
Sentiment score
6.7
Users find Temporal stable with minor SDK challenges, suggesting better documentation and diagnostics for enhanced stability perceptions.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM BPM needs better configuration, improved UI, flexibility, enhanced performance, affordability, cloud capabilities, and easier debugging and maintenance.
Improving Temporal's user-friendliness, documentation, visualization, features, and support would enhance usability for beginners and non-technical users.
IBM BPM also lacks smaller solutions, so I must purchase multiple solutions to start with workflows and applications.
Compliance Sanctions Senior Analyst at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Although IBM BPM is a substantial product, adopting and integrating new technologies quickly is not easy due to the migration and upgrade paths involved.
Unit Head System Implementor at Allied Bank Limited
There are negative aspects, such as IBM BPM being quite heavy and not lightweight, and the licensing cost is higher, which has caused some companies to shift away.
Senior Project Manager at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

IBM BPM is costly with complex licensing, favored by large enterprises, but impractical for small businesses due to high expenses.
Temporal provides cost-effective, flexible pricing with open-source tools, offering savings over competitors, especially for self-hosted deployments.
SAP is more expensive, but IBM BPM is very expensive.
Compliance Sanctions Senior Analyst at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

IBM BPM enhances business efficiency with robust process execution, integration, responsive UI, automation, and comprehensive management tools.
Temporal streamlines workflow management with robust automation, fault tolerance, language integration, and easy deployment via Kubernetes and Docker Compose.
From IBM BPM, you can track your processes, automate your workflows, and that is what we use it for.
Senior Project Manager at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The integration capabilities of IBM BPM are excellent.
Compliance Sanctions Senior Analyst at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The deployment process is quite straightforward as it provides both Kubernetes and Docker Compose versions, allowing us to run it in ECS containers.
Founder & CEO at Lanzar
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM BPM
Ranking in Process Automation
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (5th), Application Infrastructure (6th)
Temporal
Ranking in Process Automation
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of IBM BPM is 4.9%, down from 7.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Temporal is 5.9%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Temporal5.9%
IBM BPM4.9%
Other89.2%
Process Automation
 

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.
MP
Founder & CEO at Lanzar
Automation streamlines operations and improves time and cost efficiency
My overall experience with Temporal is rated between 8 to 9, mainly due to a learning curve that only senior developers can navigate effectively, which makes it a bit challenging for junior developers. We don't have any instances of on-premise, so I cannot comment on that because we are a first company, with all services deployed on cloud infrastructure. Most of the integration is through RPC or APIs, ensuring all our systems are in cohesion. We do state persistence to a Postgres instance, and we have modified it to our use case with better indexing. And for fault tolerance, we built a queue and an alerting mechanism that notifies us if any workflows fail after specific failure points so we can act upon it. On a scale of 1-10, I rate Temporal an 8.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
13%
Retailer
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise72
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise6
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Temporal?
In terms of pricing, Camunda is indeed costlier than Temporal. The cloud deployment costs differ, and while Camunda 7 can be cheaper due to its integrated setup, comparing latest versions between T...
What needs improvement with Temporal?
The only area for improvement in Temporal is the UI. I know it is a non-UI first product, but comparing Camunda versus Temporal UI, there is a difference. Moreover, n8n, being a no-code platform, i...
What is your primary use case for Temporal?
The main purposes for using Temporal are automation flows, especially financial automations and supply chain automations. Our company name is SR, we are a digital-first CPG brand making company, ma...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
No data available
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM BPM vs. Temporal and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,844 professionals have used our research since 2012.