Camunda vs. Drools

Camunda Platform is well suited for scenarios where there are different stages in a business flow and the flow is driven by user action at each stage. For example placing of an order on an ecommerce platform. Depending on whether user was able to make the payment or not the workflow would go to dispatch or retry stage. Now the retry stage would trigger further actions like sending follow up emails etc. Likewise, dispatch stage would have a different set of actions. Since every order is important and we need to know where it stands, using Camunda Platform is imperative. Camunda Platform might not be a right choice where just a one off thing needs to be done. For example, uploading of product information by user or periodic processing of heavy images by a worker. These are all either one step processes or periodic automated processes where we can track the status without using a business modeler like Camunda Platform.

Incentivized

Drools is well suited for big projects where business logic and rules must be separated from program code. So they can evolve when business evolves without being tied to code evolution and deployment.

Incentivized

• Task orchestration
• Freeware
• Graphical interface allows normal users to understand business process model diagrams more intuitively

Incentivized

• Writing rules with business focus
• Rules evolution and maintenance
• separate business logic from program code

Incentivized

• Documentation - It is usually daunting for beginners because of lack of good documentation
• Simplified setup on local machine for Camunda Server would help developers test changes quickly
• Easier migration from one deployment version of a Camunda process to another deployment version would help in making changes and deploying them faster.
• Heap memory management becomes issue at times resulting in stuck processes. This needs to be resolved.

Incentivized

• Fusion doesn't support persistence of working memory, which brings some extra high availability risk to our business.
• Guvnor still has a lot room to be implemented, it is not so user-friendly for non-technical people, so a lot of business users complain it is hard to master.
• Rule execution server doesn't even have JMX implemented, hard to be monitored.
• Drools is still lacking support for key Web services standards.

Incentivized

Camunda provides pretty standard product support offerings.

OpenRules provides the non-technical Excel way for a business user to easily modify and manage the rules. Sometimes we found Drools is a little bit overkill for some small and quick projects and we found Roolie is a not bad option as Drools alternative.

Incentivized

• We've built a good business around developing and deploying Camunda for our clients over the last 7 years.
• Our clients are finding it a cost-effective way to try before they buy.
• There's an over-reliance on big offshore outsourcing shops, which hurts ROI and success rates.

• The IT department quickly adopted Drools as it is a very good java-based rule engine, which saves a lot of time to meet the project timeline and balanced our business requirements.
• Recently we start considering the OpenRules, which may be more business user-friendly.

Incentivized