Let your IT department work miracles for you with Camunda or empower your business users to build and expand business processes on their own without the need for advanced IT expertise with Pneumatic workflows.
| Pneumatic | Camunda | |
|---|---|---|
| Use Case Focus | Human-in-The-Loop | Back-end API Orchestration |
| Implementation | White-glove Implementation | Open Source Community |
| Business Maintenance | Business Users | IT Team |
| Deployment options | Cloud or On-prem | Cloud or On-prem |
Pneumatic and Camunda represent a new breed of business process management systems that disrupt the existing BPM market, however, each does it in its own unique way.
Both systems offer powerful process orchestration capabilities, the principal difference between them being that Pneumatic emphasizes human-in-the-loop processes, whereas Camunda focuses on back-end automations with the human-in-the-loop option being included as an extra.
Pneumatic is designed around more hands-on workflow management with more direct human involvement. It offers straightforward, user-friendly workflow design and management tools with a focus on human-centric tasks. It’s particularly well-suited for teams without deep technical skills who need a system that lets them quickly set up their processes in a visual no-code environment and then lets them see and access all their running workflows in a similar intuitive setting.
Camunda targets companies that require highly complex workflow automation capabilities and are willing to invest a significant amount of time and effort in upfront setup. It caters for the more technically savvy audience who aren’t afraid to get down and dirty with configuration files, command line tools and scripting. In Camunda’s case, the ideal outcome is a set of fully-automated processes orchestrated with minimal human involvement.
Pneumatic offers an intuitive user interface that simplifies navigation and workflow creation, making it accessible to users without extensive technical knowledge. The idea is to present workflows as ‘tangible’ objects the user can manipulate through the interface with ease.
Camunda has a significantly steeper learning curve due to its extensive features and reliance on BPMN for process modeling. It is better suited for users who have technical expertise in process modeling, system integration and IT systems in general.
Pneumatic emphasizes no-code/low-code integrations through third-party platforms like Zapier, however, more advanced integrations can be built and deployed using Pneumatic’s public API.
With Pneumatic, enterprise customers can quickly build and experiment with proof-of-concept workflow management and integration solutions on their own in a matter of days and then, if need be, double down on enterprise requirements such as SLAs, advanced security and others to deploy more complex orchestrations that make use of Pneumatic’s more advanced features available through the public API. Naturally, implementing the latter requires some programming skills.
Camunda is positioned as a high level orchestration system so, naturally, advanced ‘high-code’ integrations are its bread and butter. It offers a robust API and support for a wide range of enterprise systems, making it highly flexible in complex IT environments.
The downside is that with Camunda, there is no way to quickly throw together quick-and-dirty proof-of-concept solutions with zero coding or upfront configuration. You have to go in from the get-go.
Pneumatic uses a proprietary no-code interface for designing workflows, which does not require knowledge of BPMN. Here the focus is on speed and ease of use.
Camunda uses BPMN for process modeling, supporting more complex and detailed workflow designs that can accommodate intricate business logic and automation rules.
Similar to integrations, Pneumatic’s intuitive interface makes simple workflows extremely easy to design and deploy. These can then be expanded upon and added complexity by using more advanced tooling on the backend. By contrast, in Camunda, users always have to complete the formalized process of creating a BPMN diagram even for the simplest of processes. The upside of this formalized approach is that it ultimately makes building more complex branching processes easier.
Pneumatic hides the complexity of business process design, encouraging users to start small and then evolve their processes from simple to complex in iterations. Camunda throws you in at the deep end, making users confront all the challenges of business process design from the word go. Automation and Execution Capabilities
Pneumatic is designed with the human-in-the-loop processes in mind, automation and integration are included as extras, to be implemented by more IT savvy staff in more advanced cases. For simple automations and integrations, Pneumatic makes heavy use of third party SaaS platforms.
Camunda’s entire focus is on integration and event-driven process automation, with the expectations that the system will be primarily deployed in environments that rely heavily on system interactions and human-in-the-loop tasks are only included on an as-needed basis.
At the end of the day, Pneumatic is more of a frontend kind of system where users see all the workflows and tasks, interacting with them directly whereas Camunda is more of a backend kind of system in which workflows operate in the background while users complete tasks in other systems without direct interaction with Camunda processes.
Pneumatic scales well for large numbers of standard operating procedures and workflows. Reliance on third-party tools for integrations can limit scalability if the wrong tool is selected, but using the public API instead can solve that.
Pneumatic offers a broad selection of deployment options. The default is Pneumatic’s own Google-powered cloud deployment, but clients can also have Pneumatic instances deployed in their own private clouds or on premises. All deployment options come with advanced backup and versioning solutions. Private cloud and on-prem installations also offer access to the source code and the option to have a private git branch.
Camunda is expressly designed for large-scale deployments. The downside for that is that it doesn’t really scale down very well. It’s a big system comprising multiple components in which it falls upon the user to choose and provide the infrastructure to support the assumed high transaction volumes and extensive process complexity.
Pneumatic offers enterprise customers the ease of deployment and process design that were traditionally only found in the SMB segment, without compromising on features or process complexity. With Pneumatic you have the option to start big like in Camunda and implement a bunch of highly automated complex processes, but you also have the option to start small, with a handful of simple human-in-the-loop processes and evolve your BPM solution from there. Camunda clearly lacks the latter option.
By default, Pneumatic offers cloud-based deployment with minimal setup and maintenance, however, there is also a selection of more advanced options for enterprise customers.
Thus you can start with a quick proof-of-concept solution to automate just one specific process in a self-serve account and quickly see the results, like practically on the same day.
The turnkey plan offers assistance with the design and deployment of more complex enterprise-grade processes that may require advanced backend automations. You get white-glove support and a turnkey solution within 6-8 weeks.
Last but not least, the enterprise plan is for customers that need to meet the whole gamut of enterprise level requirements such as SLAs, multiple region support, on prem deployments, custom modules and private deployments, you name it.
Camunda doesn’t offer default deployments, you can’t just sign up for an account and start using it, you have to think first about how and where you plan to deploy your instance. It can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud and supports containerization technologies like Docker and Kubernetes, offering flexibility depending on the company’s IT strategy. Camunda also offers a community edition which companies can use on their own. Pneumatic is better if you want to see fast results, Camunda assumes advanced IT competencies on your part.
Pneumatic provides a competitive pricing model with a free tier suitable for small teams and startups, and scalable paid options for larger organizations.
Camunda offers both open-source and enterprise versions, where the enterprise version comes at a cost but includes additional support, features, and guarantees that are crucial for large deployments.
Pneumatic offers direct support through its service channels, but has a smaller community compared to Camunda. Camunda has a large and active community with extensive documentation, forums, and professional support, beneficial for troubleshooting and developing complex solutions.
Pneumatic provides basic security features suitable for most small to medium businesses but does not detail extensive compliance certifications.
Camunda offers robust security features designed to meet the requirements of enterprise environments, including compliance with major international standards.
If you want your business people to get up and running with business process management quickly and don’t have a large IT department, then Pneumatic is the better choice for you. You can start using it immediately on your own or pay Pneumatic’s team to help you set up your business processes for you.
If you already have a set of existing software systems in place and seek an advanced solution to orchestrate their communication in highly flexible ways and you have ready access to robust IT competencies, you might wanna give Camunda a shot.
Pneumatic targets companies with a strong pressing need for a set of human-in-the-loop business processes with backend automations/integrations.
If you want an open-source solution and are willing to invest your time and effort to build your custom deployment yourself, go with Camunda. The results, potentially, can be just as great, but they won’t be anywhere as fast as with Pneumatic.
