Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM BPM vs TIBCO iProcess Suite comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

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 Business Process Management (BPM)
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (8th), Process Automation (6th)
TIBCO iProcess Suite
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
40th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of IBM BPM is 7.3%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO iProcess Suite is 0.3%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

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.
SA
An easy-to-use solution with great integration
It involves a lot of investment. The learning curve is not similar to other products, like K2. Regarding the user interface, I have to access workflows and define and manage the processes on the variant of a Windows application, which is not accessible if you don't have access from the client to install it on the workstation. And most of the solutions we're currently evaluating are web-based. Our customers and developers have complained that the UI is a little bit confusing. It has lots of elements. It's not user-intuitive compared to other products. Other than that, the licensing model is our main concern.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This product does the job in terms of executing the workflow."
"The functionality to design UI to be responsive and can run on multiple devices."
"Responsive Portal + Process Federation Server. This set of solutions offers a unified worklist to our customers."
"Initially, the process architecture studio was very helpful and it was compliant with BPMN standards."
"Scalability is good. In the time that I have been there, we have added more JVMs to help with the increased workload, so it does scale."
"With the tester coach wherein you can interact with the interface while you're designing the process."
"The most valuable feature of IBM BPM is the low code design, and ease of maintenance. Additionally, the integration is good and easy to do."
"IBM BPM's most valuable features are its speed in implementing and providing any changes."
"It's very simple to use and the integration features between Java and other services within the workflow are very easy."
 

Cons

"It is a really powerful tool, but its entry price is so high, which makes it a very exclusive club for who gets to use it. The thing that seemed to be the most intolerable was that you could put lots and lots of users on it, and it worked fine, but if you put lots and lots of developers on it, it sure seemed to have challenges. The biggest challenge was the development because of the Eclipse tool. It just seemed like irrespective of the development team that you put together, whether it had 10 or 50 people, you would end up having to reboot the development server throughout the day when you concurrently had lots of people hammering on the system. The development server just got sluggish. This was true for every project I was on. Once you got more than about five people working on the system at the same time, it would just get slower and slower during development work, and the only way to fix it was to reboot the server. It became just like a routine. Sometimes, we would reboot at lunch or dinner time, which is silly. After the cloud instances started rolling out, I never saw that again. That was probably the one big advantage of the cloud version. Instead of using an independent Eclipse-based process development tool, we moved to web-based process and design. The web-based tool definitely had greater performance than the Eclipse-based tool. I never got onto another project after that with 50 people, so I don't know how the performance is when you get a large team on it, but it definitely seems that the cloud design tool was a massive improvement."
"We have been experiencing bad performance and instability."
"I hope IBM uses something from IBM Content Navigator to make the interface easier to navigate."
"The people working on the front desk are having some problem with managing the documentation. For instance, they get a picture, and if the picture comes rotated 90 degrees, together with a picture that is not rotated, they have some problems dealing with that, technically. There are some minor aspects that on the usability side that are still lacking. That has to do with FileNet, too, I'm talking about the suite together."
"We have had to use Mule as an alternative integration tool because it is more flexible than IBM BPM."
"I'm hearing things might be improving, to really deliver on BPM as opposed to simply workflow. That really should be emphasized a lot more than it has been, because a lot of customers will simply implement the process and leave it there, because the product maybe doesn't emphasize BPM as much as it should, as much as maybe they talk about it in the sales process. The whole idea of BPM, is to iteratively improve the process, and in order to do that you have to have the analytics tool with it. A lot of times that doesn't go as far as it should simply because there's a lot more work to be done for that to happen, and just some sort of technical limitations that don't make that as easy as it should be."
"There needs to be better documentation for IBM BPM in a central place. There is not any standard documentation for each component available and has been a barrier for developers."
"We still have a couple of issues that we are working on right now with stability. Mostly on the configuration side of the tool, and it has been about a month that we have been working to stabilize the platform.​"
"Our customers and developers have complained that the UI is a little bit confusing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is highly-priced."
"The pricing is quite high, I would rate it two out of five."
"IBM could improve the price. It is far too expensive."
"The pricing is very high."
"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."
"The cloud and license of the subscription model for IBM BPM can be complex. There are a lot of alternatives to choose from."
"It is pricey."
"I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten."
"The price could definitely be lower."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business Process Management (BPM) solutions are best for your needs.
850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
31%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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
iProcess Suite
 

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
Delta Air Lines, Detroit Water and Sewerage, DVLA, E-Plus, FedEx, Geisinger Health System, ING Turkey, Kempen & Co., KPN, LCL, Merck, Merial
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM BPM vs. TIBCO iProcess Suite and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.