BPMN Tools Alternatives and Comparison

Requirements of Business Workflow

Business Process Management tool uses various methods to model, analyze, measure, improve, automate and optimize the business process. There is a list of components which we are expecting in the Business Process Management tool based on the requirements.

1. Business Process Modeling: This feature allows to design and store processes for managing efficiently and executing certain tasks based on the business process.
2. Form Builder: In this feature we can capture the results of a certain automated actions. It allows to program and automate certain tasks.
3. Workflow Engine: Execute process that are defined in Business Process Model & Notation (BPMN). It allows to monitor and manage multiple tasks at the same time.
4. Role-based Access Control: Since the BPM tool contains certain business information, it’s important to restrict the access to some parts of the system to only certain users.
5. Reporting & Analysis: This feature allows to monitor some of the important information of the workflow and form it into an analytical dashboard or a report.
6. Content Management: This feature allows to store and secure the information processed or provided by the system.
7. Collaboration Tools: Allows to integrate with the third-party tools.
8. Orchestration: This feature allows to auto configure & manage the computer system and software.
9. Support: This feature shows whether the tool is well managed by the development team or community.

Tools

Modelio

Open-source UML tool that support BPMN with huge variety of technical models to cover most of the scenarios.

1. UML Modeler
2. BPMN support with UML
3. Java code generator
4. XMI import/export enables to exchange UML2 models between different tools
5. Publish model in HTML format
6. Support for extensions
7. Scripting language support (Jython)
8. Allows to draw all UML2 diagrams and specific diagrams for business process modeling

Activiti

Activiti is a light weight workflow and Business Process Management (BPM) platform trarget at business people, developer, and system admins. It's core is super-fast and rock-solid BPMN 2 process engine for Java. Its open source and distributed under Apache license. It runs on server, cluster and cloud as it is extremly lightweight.

1. Eclipse-based and web-based editor to support the graphical creation of your business processes and case definitions (drag & drop).
2. Pluggable persistence and transactions based on JPA / JTA.
3. Pluggable human task service based on WS-HumanTask for including tasks that need to be performed by human actors.
4. Management console supporting process instance management, task lists and task form management, and reporting.
5. Optional process repository to deploy your process (and other related knowledge).
6. History logging (for querying / monitoring / analysis).
7. Integration with various frameworks such as CDI/EJB, Spring(Boot), OSGi, etc.
8. We have TaskService and HistoryService to keep the track on various Activities.

Alfresco

Alfresco Process Service is the enterprise edition of the open source BPM engine Activiti, provides a set of enterprise grade services and capabilities to make digital process automation faster and easier.

1. It can handle complex business scenario.
2. It can help us to create reusable component.
3. Graphical tools like Step Editor and BPMN Editor is used.
4. Java based process engine and support's open API.
5. Extensive integration with business applications and content sharing system.
6. As a part of Alfresco Tracker Subsystem we have ContentTracker.

Red Hat: Process Automation Manager

Process Automation Manager is a platform that enables developers and business experts to create cloud-native application that automate business operations.

1. It supports BPMN-2.0 and DMN-1.2.
2. It is designed to run in cloud, hence highly supportive to cloud native applictaions.
3. It uses Drools-7, a highly scalable forward and backward chaining inference engine is capable of processign very large rules and data set.standard Predective Model Markup Language(PMML).
4. It can import and execute machine-learned predictive models via the industry standard Predective Model Markup Language(PMML).
5. It includes OptaPlanner, a tool for constructing solvers for complex optimization problems.
6. It has a very high community support include the members of Drools and jBPM communities.
7. Modern user experience.

jBPM

jBPM is a toolkit for building business applications to help automate business process and decisions. It is an open source workflow engine written in java that execute business processes described in BPMN 2.0.

1. History logging(for querying/ monitoring/ analysis)
2. jBPM can be combined with the Drools project to support unified environment.
3. Embeddable, lightweight process engine in Java.
4. Process authoring, collaboration, monitoring and management through jBPM console.
5. Keep track of execution using Business Activity Monitoring capabilities.

Pega BPM

Pega BPM is comprehensive and unified platform to build intelligent business process management (BPM) solutions, including dynamic case management, business rules, mobile application development, reporting, security, integration and predictive and adaptive analytics.

1. No code related support which completely eleminates the hard-coded programming.
2. Support real time data delivery
3. Supports the integartion with big data for intelligent business operations
4. Goes beyond workflow to automate retrieval of relevant data and adapt decisions in real time.

Salesforce

Salesforce provide components for BPM solution such as Process Builder enables to automate business processes quickly. If concerned about workflow automation, then Flow Builder is helpful.

1. No code related support
2. real time data delivery
3. Huge integration with various salesforce tools as well as third tools
4. Comes with all the default salesforce features

Oracle BPM

Orcle BPM Suite is a single, comprehensive platform with a single design-time and unified engine for process, case, rules, human tasks, forms, analytics, and integration.

1. Real-time analytics
2. Web based business targeted tooling for modeling
3. Support from oracle marketplace
4. Agile process development
5. Multi-channel BPM Apps for (web/mobile/email) for greater user productivity
6. Automates structured and unstructured processes to reduce overhead and costs

BPM Tool Comparison

Below is the BPM tool comparison metrics which we have reviewed.

Tools/ Feature	Camunda	Activiti	Alfresco	jBPM	Modelio	Process Automation Manager	Pega BPM	Salesforce Flow	Oracle BPM
Business Process Modeling	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Form Builder	✔️	❌	✔️	✔️	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Workflow Engine	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️
Role-based Access Control	✔️	❌	✔️	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Reporting & Analytics	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Content Management	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Collaboration tools	✔️	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Orchestration	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Support	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌	❌	✔️
BPMN 2	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️	❌	❌	✔️
Pricing	Free	Free	Contact for Pricing	Free	Free	Contact for Pricing	Contact for Pricing	Contact for Pricing	Contact for Pricing
Auditing	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Tracking	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️

Reference

1. Camunda: https://camunda.com/
2. Activiti: https://www.activiti.org/documentation
3. Alfresco: https://www.alfresco.com/bpm-software
4. jBPM: https://www.jbpm.org/
5. Modelio: https://www.modelio.org/
6. Process Automation Manager: https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/jboss-middleware/process-automation-manager
7. Pega BPM: https://www.pega.com/system/files/resources/pdf/Pega-Business-Process-Management-Data-Sheet.pdf?_rid=YToxOntzOjc6ImNvbnRfaWQiO3M6ODoiQ09OVC0zMjEiO30-
8. Salesforce Flow: https://www.salesforce.com/products/cpq/resources/what-is-business-process-management/
9. Oracle BPM: https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bpm/overview/bpm-suite-12c-ds-2264242.pdf