IBM Cloud Pak for Automation vs Temporal comparison

IBM and Temporal Technologies are both solutions in the Process Automation category. IBM is ranked #30 with an average rating of 9.0, while Temporal Technologies is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.6. IBM holds a 1.0% mindshare in PA, compared to Temporal Technologies’s 5.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Temporal Technologies users who would recommend it.

IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

Read 2 IBM Cloud Pak for Automation reviews

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413 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Temporal

Read 18 Temporal reviews

2,773 Views
2,773 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

Temporal

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

IBM Cloud Pak for Automation and Temporal are competitors in the realm of business process automation. Temporal seems to have an edge due to its superior features and flexibility.

Features: IBM Cloud Pak for Automation features integrated artificial intelligence, support for complex business processes, and compliance management. Temporal is known for managing workflow state, persistent storage, and scalability. Its event-driven architecture suits modern workflows.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Temporal offers straightforward deployment with cloud-native infrastructure and enables agile service upgrades. IBM Cloud Pak for Automation provides a guided deployment process with strong customer service and extensive documentation.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Cloud Pak for Automation is cost-effective, especially for users in the IBM ecosystem, with strong ROI and support options. Temporal, though potentially more expensive upfront, offers valuable long-term investment due to advanced features and efficiency, suggesting higher ROI in dynamic settings.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Cloud Pak for Automation vs. Temporal Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Pak for Automation vs. Temporal

December 2025

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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 Cloud Pak for Automation

Ranking in Process Automation

30th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (22nd)

Temporal

Ranking in Process Automation

3rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of IBM Cloud Pak for Automation is 1.0%, up from 0.4% 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
Product	Market Share (%)
Temporal	5.9%
IBM Cloud Pak for Automation	1.0%
Other	93.1%

Process Automation

Featured Reviews

SYEDMUJTABA

Vice President - Digital Automation Services at Techvista Systems

Effectively handles parallel instances effectively

I find it quite straightforward, perhaps around 8.5 out of 10 in terms of ease. When we upgraded from the old version of IBM BPM to the new one within IBM Cloud Pak for Automation, we didn't encounter any major issues. There were some minor ones, but they were easy to overcome.The migration process was part of our deployment strategy. We had a plan to migrate two processes per week from on-premises to the cloud. The migration involved taking the instances and migrating them to the new environment. There is an inbuilt feature in IBM Cloud Pak for Automation that facilitates the migration process, although I personally haven't conducted it myself; it's managed by my team. Overall, the setup process was relatively smooth.

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ManibabuPippalla

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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I believe two significant features of IBM Cloud Pak for Automation are the focus on SLA management and the capability to handle parallel instances effectively. Parallel instances, for instance, are valuable when dealing with a large number of users, enabling tasks to be performed concurrently for efficient system operation. The SLA aspect is crucial for tracking and ensuring timely completion of tasks. Additionally, the cloud compatibility of IBM BAW allows for seamless migration from on-premises to the cloud. This version also includes a business rule management system for storing and managing business rules effectively."

"What this product allows us to do is to move from on-prem instances where we are running independent instances of FileNet, Datacap, and ODM. It allows us to leverage container-based resiliency and availability modeling so that we have some visibility across the CP4BA ecosystem. We're now migrating all of our data to be in the Cloud Object Storage, and we can now use some of the features of Azure in terms of how we store and retrieve content for our members and our providers."

"It is very useful for long-running workflows."

"The initial setup is easy."

"Temporal focus on developers rather than business users."

"Temporal provides visibility into workflow progress and analytics and supports scheduled tasks with customizable settings, making it very convenient."

"The most valuable feature is its ability to manage and automate workflows without manual intervention efficiently."

"The solution's most valuable feature is its ability to fix things quickly."

"The solution's most valuable feature is its ability to retry from an interrupted state."

"It's easy to get started and user-friendly."

More Temporal pros

Cons

"One of the challenges we're having is finding vendors who have experience in developing on the cloud. We can find developers on the old platform, but it is leading-edge technology. So, we are having some challenges, and IBM is assisting us to find vendor partners. To be able to leverage all the capabilities of the new platform, we have to upgrade our existing ecosystem of FileNet applications. Upgrading to the new platform while trying to modernize is always challenging because it is like you have a moving target."

"I believe there is room for improvement in the user interface, particularly in the Process Portal that customers use to view and manage their tasks. The UI of the Process Portal needs enhancement. Additionally, in the next release, I would like to see improved compatibility with Angular, allowing for direct integration with front-end systems. It would be beneficial to have built-in GUI features based on Angular within the system, rather than developing separate applications externally. This, in turn, would provide a more seamless and enhanced front-end experience."

"Developers often mention the desire for a more intuitive visualization of workflow states."

"We previously faced issues with the solution's patch system."

"While the tool can be a bit daunting initially, especially if you're not used to async programming models, it's generally a pleasure. There's always room for improvement, though. I've noticed some limitations with the .NET SDK regarding dynamic workflows, but this might have been improved in recent versions. Overall, I think Temporal could be more open about implementing features in a more—.NET-friendly way, especially in how you add workers and clients."

"There are areas where Temporal could improve. For instance, calling multiple microservices with Temporal introduces latency due to workflow registration and analytics overhead."

"Temporal images aren’t FIPS compliant, and we have to be FIPS compliant."

"Temporal doesn't have built-in data storage to store the state of the ongoing execution."

"Configuring workflows can be improved —the solution could offer more options, but it's not a must-have."

"I don't like the limitations on data flow, particularly the difficulty of passing large amounts of data between different activities."

More Temporal cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM Cloud Pak for Automation is relatively expensive, especially considering it is designed for long-living processes, not for normal automation needs. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the pricing at around 9. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees, but IBM has multiple pricing models that make it expensive in its own way. Different plans are available, but overall, the experience suggests it is a costly solution."

"Its cost is almost the same or comparable to what we pay with FileNet, but I'm not sure what we pay a year. A good part of CP4BA is the CPU-based licensing model. When we're dealing with 50,000 dentists, for example, if we were to use Salesforce, we would be hit with the licensing of 50,000 dentists, whereas when we build out in CP4BA, it is just based on our CPU usage, not on individual licenses."

"The savings weren't as big as we initially expected, but they were pretty great from a developer's perspective."

"The tool is open source under the MIT license, so there are no hidden fees. You can freely use everything on their GitHub and Docker images."

"It is worth the price."

"Temporal is a free, open-source tool."

"Temporal is open-source and free to use, which is great. We didn't have to pay for any premium features."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

29%

Computer Software Company

13%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	6

Questions from the Community

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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...

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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...

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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...

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Comparisons

IBM BPM vs IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

Compared 27% of the time

Appian vs IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

Compared 23% of the time

Pega Platform vs IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

Compared 18% of the time

ServiceNow Orchestration vs IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

Compared 17% of the time

Nintex Process Platform vs IBM Cloud Pak for Automation

Compared 15% of the time

More IBM Cloud Pak for Automation Competitors

Camunda vs Temporal

Compared 42% of the time

Flowable vs Temporal

Compared 14% of the time

Orkes vs Temporal

Compared 12% of the time

Pega Platform vs Temporal

Compared 7% of the time

Control-M vs Temporal

Compared 4% of the time

More Temporal Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Process Automation

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Temporal

January 2026

Download Temporal product report

Overview

IBM Cloud Pak for Automation offers design, build, run, and automation services to rapidly scale your programs and fully execute and operationalize an automation strategy.

IBM

Temporal automates and manages workflows efficiently, offering resilience in distributed systems with features like retry and fault tolerance. Its capabilities in handling complex workflows and integrating with programming languages make it a valuable tool for managing diverse business logic.

Temporal excels in workflow orchestration, automating tasks across multiple platforms, and ensuring durability in asynchronous operations. It supports long-running workflows and simplifies handling distributed transactions, reducing boilerplate code. Temporal is noted for its durable execution and built-in retry policies, enhancing resilience. Despite its complexity and steep learning curve, it is valued for its integration with popular programming languages and relatively easy setup process, though it requires improvements in user-friendly features, documentation, community support, and security.

What are Temporal's key features?

Automation and Efficient Management: Automatically handles workflows without manual intervention.
Resilience and Fault Tolerance: Features built-in retry policies for increased reliability.
Integration: Supports various programming languages, easing development.
Distributed Transactions: Simplifies complex transaction handling with reduced boilerplate code.
Durable Execution: Ensures long-running workflows are reliably managed.

What benefits or ROI should users evaluate?

Scalability and Reliability: Enhances IT environments through robust workflow management.
Ease of Integration: Supports seamless multi-platform automation.
Improved Operational Efficiency: Reduces need for extensive coding, streamlining processes.
Durability and Fault Tolerance: Provides reliable asynchronous operations.

Temporal is implemented in sectors requiring robust workflow orchestration, such as managing data pipelines, API integration, and scheduling tasks. Organizations in a Kubernetes environment leverage it for its scalability and infrastructure management capabilities, securing integrations and enhancing reliability across IT operations.

Temporal Technologies

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Pak for Automation vs. Temporal

December 2025

Free Report: IBM Cloud Pak for Automation vs. Temporal

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