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Adobe Experience Manager vs. IBM Business Automation Workflow

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Adobe Experience Manager

    Score8.6 out of 10
    N/AAdobe Experience Manager is a combined web content management system and digital asset management system. The combined applications of Adobe Experience Manager Sites and Adobe Experience Manager Assets is offered by the vendor as an end-to-end solution for managing and delivering marketing content.N/A

    IBM Business Automation Workflow

    Score10 out of 10
    N/AIBM Business Automation Workflow is a solution that helps users automate digital workflows to increase productivity, efficiency and insights — on premises or on cloud.N/A
    Pricing
    Adobe Experience ManagerIBM Business Automation Workflow
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Adobe Experience ManagerIBM Business Automation Workflow
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Adobe Experience ManagerIBM Business Automation Workflow
    Considered Both Products
    Adobe
    No answer on this topic
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    95%
    Would buy again
    180 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    145 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    97%
    Happy with the feature set
    184 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    90%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    113 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    87%
    Implementation went as expected
    125 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Adobe Experience ManagerIBM Business Automation Workflow
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Adobe Experience Manager and IBM Business Automation Workflow
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    8.4
    38 Ratings
    4% above category average
    IBM Business Automation Workflow
    -
    Ratings
    Role-based user permissions8.438 Ratings00 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Adobe Experience Manager and IBM Business Automation Workflow
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    8.0
    33 Ratings
    0% above category average
    IBM Business Automation Workflow
    -
    Ratings
    API7.829 Ratings00 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language8.129 Ratings00 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Adobe Experience Manager and IBM Business Automation Workflow
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    7.5
    38 Ratings
    6% above category average
    IBM Business Automation Workflow
    -
    Ratings
    WYSIWYG editor7.433 Ratings00 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness6.734 Ratings00 Ratings
    Admin section7.034 Ratings00 Ratings
    Page templates7.637 Ratings00 Ratings
    Library of website themes7.326 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design7.835 Ratings00 Ratings
    Publishing workflow8.135 Ratings00 Ratings
    Form generator7.629 Ratings00 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Adobe Experience Manager and IBM Business Automation Workflow
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    7.3
    37 Ratings
    10% above category average
    IBM Business Automation Workflow
    -
    Ratings
    Content taxonomy7.731 Ratings00 Ratings
    SEO support7.133 Ratings00 Ratings
    Bulk management7.236 Ratings00 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions7.534 Ratings00 Ratings
    Community / comment management7.130 Ratings00 Ratings
    Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Adobe Experience Manager and IBM Business Automation Workflow
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    -
    Ratings
    IBM Business Automation Workflow
    10.0
    4 Ratings
    26% above category average
    Dashboards00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
    Standard reports00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
    Custom reports00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
    Process Engine
    Comparison of Process Engine features of Adobe Experience Manager and IBM Business Automation Workflow
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    -
    Ratings
    IBM Business Automation Workflow
    10.0
    4 Ratings
    18% above category average
    Process designer00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
    Process simulation00 Ratings10.03 Ratings
    Business rules engine00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
    SOA support00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
    Process player00 Ratings10.03 Ratings
    Support for modeling languages00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
    Form builder00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
    Model execution00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
    Collaboration
    Comparison of Collaboration features of Adobe Experience Manager and IBM Business Automation Workflow
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    -
    Ratings
    IBM Business Automation Workflow
    10.0
    3 Ratings
    18% above category average
    Social collaboration tools00 Ratings10.03 Ratings
    Content Management Capabilties
    Comparison of Content Management Capabilties features of Adobe Experience Manager and IBM Business Automation Workflow
    Feature
    Adobe Experience Manager
    -
    Ratings
    IBM Business Automation Workflow
    10.0
    4 Ratings
    21% above category average
    Content management00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Adobe Experience ManagerIBM Business Automation Workflow
    Small Businesses
    Yext
    Score6.8 out of 10
    Process Street
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Score8.9 out of 10
    TIBCO® BPM Enterprise
    Score8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Progress Sitefinity
    Score7.9 out of 10
    IBM Blueworks Live
    Score9.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Adobe Experience ManagerIBM Business Automation Workflow
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.6
    (220 ratings)
    10.0
    (8 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    Usability
    8.1
    (181 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Availability
    8.6
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.2
    (11 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    5.0
    (3 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Professional Services
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Adobe Experience ManagerIBM Business Automation Workflow
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Adobe
    I'll answer the second one because I mean, the first one I don't have an issue with. The second scenario is we oftentimes have the need to spin off very small campaign style sites or sites that generate leads but are unbranded and that sort of thing. So that's hard to do in AEM because you have to then create another organization within AEM to do that. And we're talking about sites that are maybe five to 10 pages in size. So we've been investigating Edge, but then that's a different workflow, so we'd have to train people on that. So it would be nice if there was something within the AEM structure that could allow you to do something very similar to Edge, where you make some small micro sites that are not necessarily branded, that you could still host within the platform and not have to retrain everybody on a completely different platform.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    Have your process first on paper Its important to first document the process before venturing into BPMS. It will save a lot of pain and heartaches. A BPM tool is no magic bullet, it merely automates your process. Its upto you to put visibility and tracking on top of it. Provide monitoring so that you get a chance to improve your process continously. BPM is not an application If you are trying to build an application with BPM, chances are that your are alraedy failing. BPM must be a strategic initiative for an organization. Yes, you build Dashboards, Reports and other software in BPMS, however you do it at a process level not at an application level. http://bpmstech.blogspot.com/2011/05/bpm-initiative.html Know the difference between process data and business data http://bpmstech.blogspot.com/2011/05/lombardi-best-practices.html http://bpmstech.blogspot.com/2012/02/bpm-system-architecture.html
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    Pros
    Adobe
    • It allows us to scale so that we can make a change on a global footer. And it applies to all of the different property websites. It allows us to set up components and compartmentalize things in a way. The big thing is that it's scalable. And then it also ties into Adobe Analytics and other Adobe products. So we are a complete Adobe shop. Every Adobe product that we can use, we use. I don't think we do it for marketing so much, but for doing target testing and analytics, data scientists are using the same product and so it all speaks.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    • System does a great job normalizing business process and automating order processing tasks. Before TeamWorks, the process was much more manual and more expensive staff ($65k to $70K) were required to manage the process. Since implementing TeamWorks, we need much lower-skilled workers to manage order processing.
    • System ensures that we have consistent data across all systems.
    • Rules engine is really the “company playbook” – it is the heart and soul of how the company works. It handles thousands of orders per day
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    Cons
    Adobe
    • There are some glitches in permissions inheritance that require us to toggle a save on permissions in groups that inherit from a group that was recently updated.
    • Large packages require stopping the workflow launcher OSGi components or many workflows will slow down the server.
    • Locked pages are hard to find unless I use /siteadmin... I often hear that the CQ tools will go away, but if we lose that, some small things might be harder to do, like finding locked pages.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    • The system gets crashed when many instances go into the queue stage. The system even crashes and sometimes restarts automatically when the load on the server increases. We had to develop a separate software for this and maintain the same.
    • We cannot manipulate the data during run time. It is difficult to develop user-interfaces with complex functionality.
    • In order to consume external services that follow HTTP protocol, we need to use IDE for that, and consuming services from IDE takes a lot of time to give a response.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Adobe
    We had and still have a fantastic experience using Adobe CQ. Lots of flexibility, great integration with other Adobe products we already use and a powerful technology make it a great fit for our corporate environment. Also as the community grows, it makes it easier to network with other developers and users to get new ideas on how to continue to get the best out of the software.
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    IBM
    This particular decision will be made by other people. Overall IBM BPM is the best BPM engine that I have worked with. It is implemented at our company and IT and business are already somewhat familiar with it. Therefore if asked I will recommend renewal as long as the price is reasonable.
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    Usability
    Adobe
    Adobe Experience Manager overall is fairly easy to use and caters to a wide range of users when it comes to their technical abilities. It has the flexibility to enable UI/UX designers to pop in and easily design new content with drop in components. It also has sufficient capabilities for those who are more technically inclined and want to dig more into custom code or solutions
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    • The system is easy enough to use but, by definition, is a complex tool. However, they have done a good job generally balancing tool complexity / capability with usability. When comparing to MS Biz Talk, for example, Biz Talk has less functionality but is actually harder to use.
    • Software is very flexible. For somebody with the right technical background, it’s quite easy to write some Java code to overcome any hurdles or make the product do what is needed
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    Reliability and Availability
    Adobe
    Being part of Adobe Suite means you are already notified when the tool has any outages. However, I have never faced unplanned outages. Whenever you face any issue with the site, it is clearly stated if there were any planned outages and how quickly you will be back to normal. So, I will say that even the outages are planned and managed in a great way like their other services.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Adobe
    With respect to performance, Adobe experience manager is one of the best in the CMS space. We didn't observe frequent slowness on platform, however the systems which are accessing experience manager should be of good specifications without which slowness would be observed. Adobe experience manager works well in integration with other solutions, unless the destination application is designed to trigger frequent calls to AEM.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Adobe
    Adobe Experience Manager, in all its capacity, is a great alternative to any other CMS you are using. It helps in rapid development and makes life easier for maintaining the website for multi-language sites. Technical know-how is eliminated at content authoring. Better documentation in terms of live examples with videos would be appreciated.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    Issues can be raised through tickets and it works based on the priority of the issue. The Support Team response is also good and the solution is provided in a short span of time. In a case where the issue is serious, they try to find out the root cause and provide an alternative for it.
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    Adobe
    No answers on this topic
    IBM
    • Attended on premise sysadmin training for 4 days, 8 hours per day. Although further follow-up training was available, I never felt the need to go back. Training was very hands-on with real modeling (rather than just following a manual). Very effective.
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    Implementation Rating
    Adobe
    Depending on your individual needs, It is really quite simple to create an authoring experience for a website that looks really good. I have been part of many implementations and many teams and have seen many projects that were super successful and others that were not implemented well. AEM has room for a lot of flexibility in the implementation process compared to other CMS like SharePoint
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    IBM
    • Very satisfied – not too difficult at all.
    • We had a consultant available as part of our contract, but we didn’t really need to use (except for some advice on ActiveDirectory and single sign-on)
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    Alternatives Considered
    Adobe
    SSO is one fits all, so we don't have to have a separate SSO for each application of Adobe The integration with Analytics works perfectly and bring directly value really quickly Target remains more complicated to set up, but can also bring a lot of value once integrated with the rest of the Adobe platform The fact that the solution is Cloud services is also a big advantage for maintenance
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    Pega Pega is a comprehensive suite which offers a unique theme of BPM development in the market. A no-coding approach based on rules with inheritance makes Pega a very powerful product. However Pega, falls short on integration centric capabilities and very rigid to customize. On the other hand IBM comes with array of products which suits needs of varying degree. Advanced integration is solved by BPEL Process Server which has support for state based patterns and mediation. Dynamic rules and event management can be solved with WODM, Cloud to on-premise connectivity with Cast Iron, Enterprise gateway and security usecases with DataPower, Social BPM with IBM BPM , WODM, mobify with Worklight. Pega has a little bit of eveything here and there. It solves the dynamic rule management, brings out the flavor of Social BPM and mobility with Antenna ( I guess) and predictive analytics as well in one single suite. There are certain usecases which needs to have a little bit of everything, however this little bits and pieces of functionality when its blows, Pega would have problems to scale. With IBM its a bit nightmare to maintain a variety of technologies, however you can wish to go for one without the other and go for something only when you truly need it. Pega vs IBM Its difficult to pick a winner. In nutshell when you want a full scale BPM with rich integration capabilities go for IBM BPM. On the other hand if you hava mature integration capability already, Pega can yield quick results for you as well. Pega's strength is its methodology. IBM BPM's strength is integration. Actually you can't go wrong with both in terms of implementation. My strong recommendation is to invest time to process analysis and pick a good vendor to support consulting and implementation.
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    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Adobe
    Instead of being directly involved in the tool purchase, I am involved in analysis or what we can use to maximize the tool. Small organizations may find it expensive. However, if the team or organization focuses more on your ROI or the features you will get, then it will definitely be worth it. Pricing is based on a number of factors, including team size or the use of the tool. The user can select the pricing option that best fits their needs based on the number of form submissions they make or the number of pages they wish to publish on their global/multisite sites.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Scalability
    Adobe
    No answers on this topic
    IBM
    It scales from small team interactions to business processes serving thousands of employees, as well as straight-through-processing needs that go well beyond. Of course, scale is always in the eye of the beholder, but IBM BPM does a good job of giving you all of the hooks, APIs, and data that you need to take on whatever scaling approaches you need to meet the load
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    Professional Services
    Adobe
    The professional services team within adobe is one of the best in terms of technical and solutioning knowledge. However, considering the billing charges of adobe professional services team, it is always recommended to involve them during platform initial setup or when a complex solution is to be built with platform customizations.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Adobe
    • too soon to tell on increased conversion rates based on external marketing factors in play but having increased visibility into customer engagement trends will most likely lead to improvement of our conversion rates.
    • There have been productivity gains from the perspective of actually migrating all of our externally managed sites to the same in-house Adobe Experience Manager platform and then being able to utilize those universal components.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    • It has added value to the upper management to give visibility into what is happening at any time in the enterprise.
    • Boosted employee morale because it gives them all the information to work the case/task in a single location.
    • Identifies bottlenecks and improves the turnover.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    Adobe Experience Manager Screenshots

    Screenshot of AEM Forms - Creates an adaptive formScreenshot of AEM Forms - themes libraryScreenshot of AEM Forms - where to create a templateScreenshot of AEM Forms - the interactive communications editorScreenshot of Adobe Experience Manager Sites - document-based authoring enables marketers to create and publish content with familiar tools.Screenshot of Adobe Experience Manager Sites - Universal Editor, an advanced visual editor, empowers marketers to edit and publish content.