Item: Bonita Platform
Rating: 9
Author: Miguel Koren O'Brien de Lacy

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We started using Bonita in 2008 for some automation projects when it was part of the Bull group in France with versions 3.x and 4. After Bonitasoft was formed we signed on as partners in late 2009 and are probably one of the older ones at this time, having worked with Bonita 5.0 onwards. Since 2008 we've implemented the Bonita platform in the community and subscription versions for several customers in different industries (government, industry, technology, pharma) in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. The Bonita Platform helps our customers organize their work and have visibility of the status of their process instances. One very important aspect is the integration with ECM software (Alfresco in our case) so that the platform is used as an ECM/BPM solution. Integration is seamless through built-in connectors and we can also create specific customer connectors, apply scripting in Groovy and develop custom REST APIs. Some customers are also currently migrating to the Bonita UI designer for their solution needs.

Pros and Cons

Integration
Low code customisation.
Rapid UI browser based design.
MVC separation of data, process and front-end.
DevOps support with Bonita Continuous Delivery module.
Multi-platform as a Java solution (customers on Linux and Windows).
Modern technology stack support including Docker images.

Bonita BPM Studio should have a web based alternative.
Complete support for all BPMN v2 artifacts, although the missing element(s) is/are trivial and not frequently needed.
DMN modelling support not just DMN rule support.

Return on Investment

Our customers have achieved significant cost reductions.
Improved quality through visibility and agility of business areas where Bonita is deployed.

Alternatives Considered

Alfresco Activiti and Camunda Platform

The Bonita platform is by far the most complete and flexible solution as a BPM suite with the added advantage that the Community edition is usable for production deployment. From a cost perspective, Bonitasoft licenses the subscription edition per server with no limitations as to hardware, users, processes, etc.

Key Insights

Do you think Bonita Platform delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Bonita Platform's feature set?

Yes

Did Bonita Platform live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Bonita Platform go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Bonita Platform again?

Yes

Usability

Automating an application requires managing different parts of the entire solution which don't always have the same way of working so that some previous experience is required to be productive. Apart from that validating the solution, error handling, and the usability of the final solution (automated process) are very good. From the end-user point of view, usability is excellent, he would not know that he's using a process baes application.

Extensibility

Excelent support for the tools used in IT.

Other Software Used

Alfresco Content Services, Liferay Digital Experience Platform (DXP), Docker

Likelihood to Recommend

The Bonita platform is available in a Community edition with no licensing costs, a subscription model, and a PaaS alternative in the Bonita Cloud. This lets a potential customer experiment by himself before deciding on the platform. The Community edition is not a toy and is fully functional for a vast majority of requirements. Bonitasoft has very good publicly available documentation that helps you get started, an area for contributions where you can find different connectors, widgets, and examples, and a good forum for questions and answers.

Any company wanting to automate business projects will have a very positive experience with the Bonita platform.

Deploying process based solutions with Bonita BPM platform

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Bonita Platform