Levi Olmstead
14 Best Business Process Management Software (2024)
- Published: October 4, 2023
- Updated: November 21, 2023
If you’re a BPM software vendor decision maker (CIO, IT Director, COO, Operations Manager, etc.)—you’ve done your research, read through Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Business Process Management tools, and run into a problem in the process: they’re just too many options to choose from.
Even if that’s not your exact situation, you’re still faced with a tough choice: G2 has 300 different BPM platforms in its directory, ranging from basic iPaaS tools like Tray.io to enterprise RPA solutions like AutomationAnywhere. How do you choose?
This article will break down 14 different BPM platforms ( from Gartner’s Magic Quadrant and G2 Grid) as objectively as possible, walk you through their different features, compare them against their peers, understand how they’ll handle day-to-day, and why (or why not) it might be the best fit for your organization’s needs.
What is the best business process management software?
- Appian BPM Suite
- AutomationAnywhere
- MS Power Automate
- IBM Business Automation Workflow
- Workato
- CMW Platform
- Oracle BPM
- Kissflow
- Laserfiche
- Nintex Workflow Automation
- Oracle Fusion Middleware
- Smartsheet
- ProcessMaker
- Process Street
What Is Business Process Management Software?
Business Process Management (BPM) is a systematic approach to optimizing and managing an organization’s processes for better efficiency, effectiveness, and agility. It involves designing, modeling, executing, monitoring, and continuously improving processes to streamline operations and enhance overall business performance.
BPM software enables organizations with the tools to accelerate application and process development, improve business process performance, perform business process analyses, expedite business process mapping, and digitalize business processes.
14 Best Business Process Management Software in 2024
Here are 14 of the best BPM software tools you should consider, judging by their functionality, feature set, pricing, customizability, and the degree of technical skill you need to get started using them.
1. Appian BPM Suite
Appian’s BPM suite is designed to help enterprises build internal tools and workflows within one workspace. Essentially, it is a low-code development environment where non-technical users can design workflows and basic tools and collaborate with their teammates on business processes.
Here are some of the key functions and capabilities of Appian BPM:
- Process Modeling: Appian BPM allows users to model business processes visually using a drag-and-drop interface. This makes it easier for business analysts and subject matter experts to create and modify processes without extensive coding.
- Workflows: Automate repetitive tasks with if-then workflows that routes tasks, data, documents, and alerts to the right person or endpoint when pre-programmed conditions are met.
- Integrations: Connect third-party SaaS platforms, databases, and custom scripts with pre-built connectors.
- Real-time Monitoring and Analytics: Track progress on your processes, identity bottlenecks, and get detailed analytics into your workflows.
Limitations
- Ecosystem: Unlike platforms like NetSuite, Salesforce, and SAP, Appian has a smaller network of capable contractors and third parties you can contract to assist you in getting setup.
2. AutomationAnywhere
AutomationAnywhere is a robotic process automation platform designed to help enterprises automate repetitive, rule-based tasks and processes using if-then rules—like Zapier, but for larger enterprises, and with AI, machine learning, and analytics built in. Based on that ethos, AutomationAnywhere empowers non-technical users to:
- Build no-code tools from a drag-and-drop interface.
- Automate repetitive tasks such as data entry and extraction, reporting, data migration, etc.
- Deploy virtual robots that can mimic human action on desktop and cloud environments.
- Incorporate AI into their workflows using functionalities such as natural language processing (NLP), optical character recognition (OCR), and automated decision-making.
AutomationAnywhere is easily one of the most powerful options on our list, judging by its RPA functionality, its integrations library, and a powerful RESTful API, but if you’re a smaller, budget-conscious company, it might not work: pricing starts at $10,500 per month for a team of one developer and 30 users. If you’re not at the scale where you need to automate hundreds (or thousands) of actions daily, AA might be overkill for your needs.
3. Microsoft Power Automate
Power Automate helps developers and non-technical users alike build automated step-by-step processes that complete preset tasks on autopilot.
- Build, train, and publish AI models internally without writing code.
- Automate tasks between different applications and databases, using Power Automate’s API.
- Scan, read, extract, and categorize data from spreadsheets, documents, and unstructured sources like PDFs, images, and invoices.
- Analyze positive/negative sentiment in text.
- Design and launch flows for desktop, server, and cloud environments using a drag-and-drop UI.
- Launch workflows faster using pre-built templates that can connect your cloud applications, databases, and on-premise application instances.
Using Power Automate, you can design workflows based on parameters such as:
- If a new email arrives, then extract it in HTML format, summarize it with GPT, and send me a one-line summary in Slack
Beyond basic if-then process automation, Power Automate’s most powerful feature is the AI-powered, “describe it to design,” that uses natural language processing (NLP) to interpret your instructions and automatically build workflows from start to finish in response.
4. IBM Business Automation Workflow
IBM promises to help you, “automate your digital workflows to increase productivity, efficiency and insights” across processes such as procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, customer onboarding, accounts payable, and incident management.
Perhaps, the best way to explain IBM Business Automation Workflow’s USP would be to paint use cases and how it’d help non-technical users and enterprise-scale companies to:
- Reduce maverick buying, restrict purchases to approved vendors, and use automation to move buying decisions through different approvers and stakeholders
- Analyze your process, identify bottlenecks, and remove inefficiencies from their root
- Onboard customers and employees on autopilot with pre-programmed suggestions, alerts, and course invitations that are pushed to them using if-then sequences
- Assign virtual bots to monitor technical incidents and report on any suspected SLA breaches
Unless you’re at enterprise-scale and you have a clear set of use cases where you intend to deploy IBM’s process mining features, even taking it for a spin can be expensive, with pricing starting at $17K per month and $28K per month for their document processing and workflow management features respectively.
5. Workato
Workato is a software automation platform that enables you to connect different applications (and route data, alerts, and approvals between two or more endpoints) using if-then workflows. These workflows are no-code by default, and can be designed and customized visually using Workato’s drag-and-drop editor.
Some real-life use cases where Workato comes in handy include:
- Sales and Support: Send leads, tickets, and alerts (from HubSpot, Salesforce, etc.) to the right decision maker in Slack
- HR: Collect referrals from employees, schedule interviews, and send interviewees automated reminders without leaving your applicant tracking system (Greenhouse, Bamboo, Ashby, etc.)
- IT: Generate IDs for new hires, detect and close accounts, and revoke permissions automatically once an employee quits (i.e., inside Okta, SailPoint, or ForgeRock )
- IT (2): Automatically create a ticket in ServiceNow or Jira whenever Datadog detects a bug or crash
In essence, Workato executes tasks inside one (or more) software applications once a trigger action is completed in another across their network of 1,000 applications.
Workato Automation Institute offers certification programs, pre-recorded multi-language explainers, live training sessions, and modular courses designed to help users navigate Workato’s BPM features.
6. CMW Platform
CMW is a BPM suite that combines—
- Process modeling and analysis: Design workflows step-by-step with a no-code editor
- Third-party integrations: Route data, send alerts, execute processes, and launch workflows across hundreds of third-party applications when a trigger condition is met
- Digital data collection: Replace paper forms and 1:1 conversations with configurable electronic forms that export data to third-party repositories
- Visualize process flows with graphical notation that shows your process’s high-level architecture
While CMW Lab comes with lots of features, it comes with an even heftier price tag. Customer support also tends to be slow, and the learning curve might be a little too steep, especially if you’re deploying CMW primarily for non-technical users.
7. Oracle BPM
Oracle BPM enables organizations to design, automate, monitor, and optimize business processes. It follows a model-driven approach, where business analysts and process designers can create process models using a graphical interface.
- Process modeling: Design processes visually, plotting activity flows, decision-making, and interactions
- Automation: Program if-then workflows that automatically execute tasks when a preset condition is met
- Monitoring and Analytics: Track KPIs and identify bottlenecks in active processes
- Optimization: Remove redundant steps, merge repetitive tasks, and simplify processes
- Integrations: Connect hundreds of software applications to share data, trigger tasks, and send notifications between platforms.
For all its functionality, Oracle BPM isn’t cheap, import options (from non-Oracle BPM tools) are limited, and the UI is complicated to figure out. If you’re considering Oracle BPM seriously, it’s important to note some of the challenges you might face with adopting it, including:
- Implementation: Can be complex and might require third-party implementation partners, especially if your organization is a large enterprise with complicated use cases.
- Customization: If you want to explore beyond its basic functionality, you need to master JDeveloper and ADF, which effectively excludes non-technical users.
- Integration complexity can be a nightmare, especially if you’re trying to orchestrate processes between SaaS applications and outdated server-side software.
8. Kissflow
Kissflow automates repetitive workflows so that processes can progress on autopilot. At its core, Kissflow is designed to help growing companies build scalable systems that can complete tasks without minimal human input, such as:
- Onboarding new employees without 1:1 handholding every time,
- Getting purchase requests approved by running them through preset rules before being routed to approvers,
- Creating a system team leads can use to request an assistant to be seconded to their team, or
- A vacation request process that can approve or deny requests based on the number of staff available and an employee’s remaining vacation entitlement.
Kissflow offers a drag-and-drop interface that can be used to design form, specify field types and parameters, and arrange process flowcharts. On the Kissflow dashboard, users can cycle through the processes they’re involved in and filter them by start date, stakeholder involved, type, etc.
Kissflow supports integrations with Google Workspace, Salesforce, Office 365, and thousands of other third-party applications via API.
9. Laserfiche
Laserfiche is a document management and business process automation platform designed to help organizations streamline their document-related processes, improve productivity, and enhance information governance. Its main USP is that it helps enterprises (that generate and process huge document volumes) digitize, organize, secure, and automate document-centric processes.
Laserfiche’s core capabilities include:
- Document capture: Scan physical documents or import digital files into the Laserfiche workspace electronically.
- Workflow Automation: Design and automate workflows to route documents and tasks through predefined processes.
- Customizability: Workflows and processes are infinitely customizable, as long as you have the technical skills to code it up
- Analytics and Reporting: Users can generate reports and gain insights into document and process performance.
On the downside, support is a bit of a headache since you have to go through third-party channels, keeping the platform up-to-date is demanding, and performance can be erratic. Functionality sometimes breaks randomly, log-in can be hit-and-miss, and their UI is quite dated.
10. Nintex Workflow Automation
Nintex helps enterprises discover, automate, and improve their core business processes from a drag-and-drop interface. For users who’re already familiar with Microsoft and their Office Suite of tools (Sharepoint, Visio, etc.), Nintex acts as a BPM layer that helps you process large volumes of documents and makes your applications talk to each other.
- Design workflows visually in step-by-step, flowchart pattern
- Integrate different applications across your stack without writing custom code
- Generate detailed reports for your process’s performance, and
- Generate documents from existing databases, and extract info from PDFs, images, and files
Limitations: Load speed can be improved, process docus are limited (there are Nintex features that lack any training whatsoever), and Nintex forms lack features like repeating tables that technical users may expect by default for writing custom code.
Also, since Nintex is a third-party application built on the Microsoft ecosystem, large parts of their platform can become unusable if Microsoft makes drastic changes to their platform.
11. Oracle Fusion Middleware
Oracle Fusion Middleware is a comprehensive suite of middleware products and tools offered by Oracle Corporation. It serves as an integration platform for connecting various software applications, systems, and services within an organization. Among others, Oracle Fusion offers:
- BPM: A management suite for designing, modeling, and automating business processes
- Technical customizability: User can expand basic functionality with JDeveloper and Oracle’s Application Development Framework
- Analytics: Visualize bottlenecks and understand how to improve your performance across your processes, and
- Integrations: Connect SaaS, cloud, and on-premise applications using pre-built connectors and APIs
Like Oracle BPM, Fusion Middleware’s most powerful functionality is easily the most significant bottleneck it poses: Fusion’s core functions can only be activated fully with JDeveloper and ADF and non-technical users will be severely limited trying to navigate the platform without technical help.
12. Smartsheet
Smartsheet offers work management features, with an emphasis on business process management—that is, the platform serves as a single source of truth where teams (and organizations) can collaborate on projects, tasks, and processes, but more importantly, orchestrate workflows that propel themselves forward with minimal human input.
In practice, Smartsheet’s BPM functionality helps you:
- Share data, route notifications, and trigger actions between 100+ applications on a set-and-forget basis.
- Design processes visually using Kanban, Gantt charts, or table format.
- Choose from Smartsheet’s library of pre-built workflow templates that can send periodic status updates, complete actions using conditional logic.
- Keep tabs on user activity and automated workflow sequences from a real-time activity log.
- Build and manage custom applications to expand Smartsheet’s core features.
Although it’s essentially infinitely customizable as a project management tool, Smarthseet is limited as a BPM solution: compared to other options, it supports a smaller ecosystem of pre-built connectors, offers limited reporting features, scales poorly, and tends to slow down when you start handling large data volumes.
13. ProcessMaker
ProcessMaker helps you automate repetitive tasks, integrate applications across your stack, strip out useful data from documents, images, and files, and empower your create workflows with NLP.
- No-code Workflows: Design workflows visually from a drag-and-drop interface
- Automations: Trigger tasks automatically and customize workflow behavior with conditional logic
- Form Builder: Create custom forms for collecting data and validating entries automatically
- Analytics: Monitor processes and discover potential bottlenecks with comprehensive dashboards and reports
- Document Management: Store, retrieve, and extract data from documents
14. Process Street
Compared to the rest of the tools we’ve covered here, Process Street is by far the easiest to get started with, it’s designed primarily with non-technical users in mind, and puts AI tools at your fingertips to automate low-level creative work.
Compared to the rest of the tools we’ve covered here, Process Street is by far the easiest to get started with, it’s designed primarily with non-technical users in mind, and puts AI tools at your fingertips to automate low-level creative work.
Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of what using Process Street for the first time would look like:
- Choose a pre-built template or start from scratch.
- Define different stages in as much detail as possible.
- Customize workflow with conditional logic (if this, then that) and multi-stage approvals that loop in collaborators both within and outside your organization.
- Connect third-party tools so that actions can be automatically triggered across different applications when conditions are met
- Generate tasks and workflows with ChatGPT.
- Store helpful SOPs and policy documents inside Process Street to guide other users through.
Process Street also has extensive technical documentation and unlike most of the options on our list, guarantees real-time support within five minutes.
Enable your employees with in-app guidance and self-help support to drive process adoption with Whatfix
A business process management platform serves as a second brain of sorts for your entire organization—it routes information between applications, propels workflows with minimal human involvement, and automates repetitive tasks.
It offers so much power that it can be overwhelming, especially for your non-technical users who may not be familiar with visual design and conditional logic. Whatfix can help you bridge that knowledge gap with our in-app guidance solution that offers:
- Step-by-step walkthroughs that guide your employees through your BPM.
- An on-demand self-help hub embedded into your BPM platform’s dashboard.
- UI hotspots and UX tooltips that can expand to offer users context on how buttons, features, and elements, and
- Persona-specific onboarding experiences customized for employees based on their use cases.
Whatfix transforms your BPM from an obscure mystery box designed for developers to an accessible productivity machine everyone can use to automate tasks, connect applications, and use conditional logic to make ideal decisions at scale.
What Is Whatfix?
Whatfix is a digital adoption platform that provides organizations with a no-code editor to create in-app guidance on any application that looks 100% native. With Whatfix, create interactive walkthroughs, product tours, task lists, smart tips, field validation, self-help wikis, hotspots, and more. Understand how users are engaging with your applications with advanced product analytics.
Like this article? Share it with your network.
Subscribe to the Whatfix newsletter now!
Table of Contents
Software Clicks With Whatfix
Whatfix's digital adoption platform empowers your employees, customers, and end-users with in-app guidance, reinforcement learning, and contextual self-help support to find maximum value from software.
Thank you for subscribing!
Sign up for the Whatfix blog
Join 300,000+ monthly readers learning how to drive software adoption by signing up to receive the latest best practices and resources.