Camunda

Camunda is used for domain-specific business processes. For example, Camunda is used for a process to schedule technicians, send them to the customer, and then receive and process their feedback.

The development and improvement of new and existing processes has improved significantly. It is much easier, even for non-developers, to understand processes and identify errors or weaknesses in a process.

Direct metrics are not available, but communication between departments has definitely improved as a result.

BPMN as a processing language and modeling language is very practical both to work with and develop processes, as well as to understand processes.

A very practical feature of Camunda is the connectors, which basically extend BPMN and allow for developing better tools to create processes even more easily and understandably.

I consider the governance and security capabilities regarding AI to be very high. Camunda is used with an AI process, and it is not possible for the AI to do something it should not do.

Camunda Modeler is often used, for example to ask questions about certain modeling techniques or more specific functions within a process, and the accuracy and answers provided are very accurate and reliable.

I am not aware of any better provider for orchestration of complex business processes.

Process speed is extremely important. The goal is to provide customers with the fastest possible process for their orders. In the delivery of a product, many business-related and technical processes are directly involved. It is important that this single process runs through completely and is understandable and extendable for a wide variety of business units.

This already works relatively well. An AI agent first tries to handle its tasks on its own, and as soon as it reaches a point where it cannot move forward or where certain critical tasks need to be completed, an employee is involved via a user task.

Quality is extremely important, and automated and manual decisions should be combined in a meaningful way to avoid errors and respond flexibly to customer requirements.

Currently, there are no areas for improvement that come to mind.

Camunda has been used for approximately five to six years.

Camunda is extremely stable.

Scalability is very good. Starting with just one or very few processes, Camunda has enabled development to scale to create more and more processes faster and faster.

Customer support is very good. As soon as there are problems or inquiries, an answer or appropriate help is provided within a short time.

A self-implemented workflow engine was used and is still in place, which had already automated many business processes. Due to new requirements, it reached its limits, and there were also certain technical reasons why a replacement was or is necessary in the near future.

Precise figures on ROI are not available, partly because metrics were not in place beforehand.

Much cannot be said about setup cost as that was not my area. However, colleagues have indicated that there has always been a good contact person in this regard.

Previous experience with BPMN meant that Camunda was the only solution really considered. After trying Camunda, it was determined that it was the right choice.

The combination of being able to program oneself and go as deep as possible, while also being able to use existing options and functions from Camunda, is valuable.

Camunda is used as a direct customer relationship.

For the introduction of Camunda, I would recommend choosing the most manageable use case possible as a kind of prototype product or project. I would also recommend involving Camunda support as much as possible to accompany a project at the beginning. This way, valuable hints and support are obtained that would otherwise require significant effort to discover.

Camunda has been given a rating of 10 out of 10.

Public Cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

The use case we developed is for enforcers, so police and other enforcement type of organizations, and it's our embedded engine for process orchestration and workflow. We use all the BPMN and DMN functionality in the system.

We do not use the AI agent in Camunda yet. We are now moving from Camunda 7 to Camunda 8, and the first customers are on Camunda 8. First, we have to finish the migration for all customers with their processes from Camunda 7 to Camunda 8, and then we will also integrate AI in our solution combined with Camunda. I am uncertain if you refer to integration of AI in the processes or AI in the products of Camunda.

Camunda does not help us with end-to-end processes rather than running agents in isolation yet, but that is one of the advantages we already discussed with our customers. We first have to finish the migration for all customers.

My impressions of Camunda for orchestrating complex end-to-end business processes are very positive because we use it in quite complicated setups with a lot of business rules to combine validation and enrichment steps combined with user interaction. The scalability and complexity supported by Camunda are impressive, and the upgrade from Camunda 7 to 8 was particularly valuable. We were a late adopter because the functionality of Camunda 8 was not mature until about a year or one and a half ago, and now that we have adopted it, the scalability and integration possibilities are much better than Camunda 7.

The best features in Camunda are difficult to pinpoint, but for me, it is the seamless integration of services and human tasks. We can combine this and per customer decide what should be first. The possibility to integrate human tasks and services is what stands out to me, and it is a generic solution rather than something specifically about special tools. It is the whole concept that appeals to me.

Camunda works effectively with handling long processes. We have customers with very short processes of just a couple of seconds or a maximum of one or one and a half hours, and we also have customers with processes lasting two, three, or four months. Both scenarios are supported, but sometimes it is difficult for customers to have insight into all the statuses and tasks. We are now trying to build our own dashboard, which can be challenging when there are long running processes with many different tasks and statuses, especially since we cannot give customers direct access to Camunda dashboards in our multi-tenant environment.

Areas that have room for improvement in Camunda include the user interface. We moved from Camunda 7 to Camunda 8, and previously we had Camunda 7 Cockpit, and now we have Operate. The UI of Operate is less user-friendly. It may be a little more modern, but it is less user-friendly, so some insights are missed. The UI could be improved.

Another topic is something that should have been recently solved in Camunda 8, but in Camunda 7, we had a case management system based on Camunda, and we had our own identifiers in our system. It was easier in Camunda 7 to link these identifications, the business identification to the process identification, and in Camunda 8, this was not implemented until the 8.10 release. We really missed that feature, as it made it very difficult to embed and especially for debugging. The combination with the new Operate instead of Camunda 7 Cockpit made it difficult to find specific running processes.

The maintenance of Camunda is somewhat complex. Recently, we had to move from 8.8 to 8.9 or 8.10, and everything was broken, which cost us a lot of time to repair and revert. The complexity is particularly evident because of the architectural changes Camunda made when moving from Camunda 7 to Camunda 8. It took about three years to make Camunda 8 mature, and sometimes it seems they realized they made a wrong decision by switching to a completely different approach. It is not just a matter of pushing a button and installing it; it has a bigger impact than expected, which is indeed one of the downsides we recently faced.

The ability to observe and control processes at runtime, related to Operate, rates at a six in my assessment, so that could definitely be improved.

I have approximately eight to ten years of experience using Camunda.

Regarding stability, I would rate Camunda at a seven.

Our clients are indeed enterprise-level organizations. For example, we work with Rijkswaterstaat, which manages all the routes and waterways in the Netherlands, and it is a large organization with 10,000 employees, but only a limited number of enforcers, about 200 to 300 users in this type of organization. In the City of Antwerp, we have 300 users, and at the Dutch Railways, we have 800 users, but approximately 10,000 persons work there overall, so it represents about 1% or half a percent of their total employees.

When it comes to scalability, Camunda is scalable, but sometimes it is not always clear how to improve it. Sometimes we reach the limit and have to decide what to extend; should it be memory or processor power? It is a puzzle to optimize in combination with the services. Overall, Camunda is scalable, but it is not as straightforward as one would hope.

I would rate the technical support at an eight out of ten. They react promptly and the support is adequate.

When it comes to ROI, the question is tricky because we use it as an embedded software solution, so we should compare this only with using a BPMN tool of a competitor or building it ourselves. We do not have the advantages of the process improvements since we work with our customers to make it possible for them to improve their processes. Our customers are governmental organizations, so with fewer people, they can do more enforcement and receive more income from parking, but the problem is we do not receive the extra money. Since there are public tenders, the prices are always under pressure. We offer a solution with business process optimization, and the benefits are for our end customers. They pay maybe a little more than for our competitors, but they save millions, and we earn about 10,000 per year extra. That is the relation based on the public tender and the regulations in the governmental tender market.

The normal discussion for us is about the build or buy aspect, especially concerning Camunda, since we are an embedded software solution and should compare it only with using a BPMN tool of a competitor or building it ourselves. We do not have the advantages of the process improvements, and our customers can do more enforcement and receive more income, but we do not get the extra money. Public tenders put pressure on prices, meaning we provide optimization for customers while they save millions, and we only earn a small amount.

My thoughts on the pricing are that the list price is expensive, but since we have limited use and do not use the user tasks because we create software around Camunda engine, the pricing for embedded is acceptable for us. It should not rise; it is just acceptable for us now. They should not raise the prices because otherwise, it becomes the build or buy discussion. Overall, I am happy with the current pricing.

Regarding the deployment, we use on-premises infrastructure at AWS. We have our own installations, but it is hosted in our own AWS environment, so it is on-premises in the cloud.

In my organization, the number of specialists working with Camunda is very limited; I myself work more as the business process redesign person, and we have three developers.

My advice to others looking into Camunda is to do a proof of concept, specifically for the user tasks. The user task is the most significant cost factor in the pricing model. In Camunda 7, we used the user task intensively, but it was not clear that we were not allowed to use it according to our existing subscription. Be aware of the costs because they can rise if you reach the limit or thresholds. It is essential to think about all components in relation to your subscription, as it was one of our key findings in previous years. Camunda is easy to use, but you do receive the invoice at the end, and that can sometimes be the downside. I would rate Camunda an overall eight out of ten.

On-premises

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

What do you like best about the product?

Camunda 8 is confirmed as a modern process orchestration platform, particularly suitable for enterprise contexts with high application complexity, a microservices approach, and the need to orchestrate cross-system processes. The solution stands out for adopting the BPMN standard, its cloud-native architecture based on Zeebe, and its ability to integrate heterogeneous systems while maintaining a clear separation between process logic and application logic. Overall, this makes it easier to manage complex flows and coordinate interactions between multiple systems without burdening the application code.

What do you dislike about the product?

Migrating from Camunda 7 is not trivial: it requires dedicated planning and a clear analysis of the impact on existing processes to avoid surprises during adoption. In multi-application scenarios, it is also necessary to carefully evaluate the most suitable deployment model (shared cluster vs. dedicated clusters), finding the right balance between costs, isolation, and autonomy of different domains. Finally, operational management requires solid skills in Kubernetes/OpenShift, DevOps practices, and distributed monitoring tools, as daily operations are more complex compared to less containerized contexts.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Camunda 8 is a technologically mature solution well-aligned with application modernization strategies based on events, APIs, and microservices. For enterprise entities like CDP, it allows the implementation of complex workflows while maintaining high levels of control, auditability, and scalability. Overall, the platform is particularly suited to serve as a central orchestration engine for next-generation digital processes.