Top 10 Celonis Competitors and Alternatives (2024)

Celonis is a market leader in process mining, but it’s not the only alternative available in the market. In this article we go through the top ten competitors you can compare to find your ideal process mining solution.

Is Celonis right for your business?

Celonis is a popular software solution that helps enterprise organizations optimize their business processes. For many people Celonis is synonymous with process mining software. They were founded in 2011 and have been one of the first commercially available solutions in the market. 

The different Celonis solutions are packed into the Execution Management System (EMS) - a platform that helps businesses analyze and visualize processes, identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies, and provide guidance on process improvements.

Key features of Celonis

• Focus on enterprise businesses: Celonis provides a high level of service, security and data management for the needs of large enterprise organizations.
• Event log mining: Celonis have a large customer base and broad experience in extracting event logs from different source systems, especially popular  ERPs such as SAP and Oracle.
• Wide partner network: Celonis has over 250 partner agencies that provide implementation consulting services.

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Who are the top Celonis competitors in 2023?

There are over 35 process mining software solutions available in the market today, so if you're looking for a Celonis alternative you've got plenty of options to choose from. If you're simply looking to know who are the largest and most established competitors, a good place to look is recent tier analyst reports.

In the recent Gartner Magic Quadrant for Process Mining in 2023, the top competitors to Gartner in the "leaders" category were Software AG, SAP Signavio, Mehrwerk, ABBYY and Apromore.

You can find key features of all these Celonis competitors later in this guide.

Why look for a Celonis alternative?

While Celonis is a popular option, it is not an ideal fit for every enterprise organization. Some of the common dislikes and challenges mentioned by customers in peer review sites such as G2.com include:

1. Difficulty to implement - Celonis process mining requires integrations to every different source system to extract event logs. There are many business applications that don’t have event logs available and some organizations simply have many different applications to track - leading to significant data integration hassle.
2. High cost to implement - Celonis is a robust process mining solution, but it is known for requiring significant costs to implement. Customer reviews mention the long contract length (typically 3 years) as well as the indirect costs involved of hiring data scientists and process analysts.
3. Complex user interface - while Celonis offers many advanced features for experienced process analysts and data scientists, some users find the user experience complicated and challenging to learn.

Our Top Celonis Alternatives List

1. Workfellow

Workfellow is a new entrant to the process intelligence space. It is the first object-centric task mining solution combining process mining and task mining into one natively integrated and AI-powered platform.

Typically enterprise business customers uncover ~20% savings within 30 days of plug-and-play installation of Workfellow. Read a case-study how one medium-sized accounting firm uncovered over € 2 million ($2.17 million) in process waste.

Depending on your resources and needs Workfellow can augment or replace Celonis use cases. For example, Workfellow customers use Celonis for SAP-focused core process mining and leverage Workfellow’s speed and flexibility for finance or procurement process analysis across different business applications.

Key features of Workfellow

• Effortless implementation: Workfellow does not require access to event logs, instead it generates event logs automatically through a method called Work API. See Work API Whitepaper.
• 360 degree analysis: Through Work API Workfellow is able to track tasks and process flows across different business apps, allowing for end-to-end analysis of workflows.
• Automated insights: Workfellow includes ready-made dashboards and provides automated insights within it’s analytics.
• Privacy first: Workfellow is a GDPR-free solution that does not process personally identifiable data.

Looking to combine task and process mining for faster and more actionable process intelligence? Download the Work API whitepaper.

Who is it for?

Workfellow is a good option for any organization that doesn’t have extensive data science and process mining resources in-house looking for an effortless and fast way to gain process intelligence without data mining hassle.

2. UiPath Process Mining

UiPath is a major process automation and orchestration platform. It provides a suite of tools to help automate processes, including an easy-to-use visual workflow designer, a powerful robotic automation platform, and an AI-powered document understanding component. 

UiPath is a pioneer in robotic process automation originally founded in Bucharest, Romania and now headquartered in New York. It is used by over 10,000 customers ranging from independent developers to large enterprise businesses such as Verizon, Coca-Cola and Takeda Pharmaceuticals. UiPath’s process mining solution has been developed based on the acquisition of ProcessGold in 2019.

Key features of UiPath

• Automation suite: All-in-one platform for automation including RPA, low-code app development and integrations.
• Accessible and scalable: UiPath is relatively quick to start to use, starting from free-to-try UiPath Cloud Platform.
• Training: Broad set of training materials for intelligent automation, including the UiPath Academy and certifications

Who is it for?

UiPath is well suited for an enterprise with a strong focus on RPA looking to advance their intelligent automation through a single-suite platform. 

3. SAP Signavio

For organizations with an SAP ERP landscape Signavio is a process discovery and mining solution to consider. In the past you may have been more familiar with SAP’s Intelligent Business Process Management Solution or the integration of Celonis Process Mining within the SAP solution. SAP acquired Signavio in 2021 and has worked on integrating Signavio as a prime process intelligent offering.

SAP Signavio’s Process Transformation suite can be used for a variety of purposes, including process insights, process automation, process management and process modelling.

Key features of SAP Signavio

• Integration to SAP. Signavio has deepened integrations to the SAP data ecosystem and partner network.
• Process management. in addition to process mining Signavio offers broader process design and management capabilities'
• Collaboration Hub. Signavio includes unique functionality to share process models, which is especially helpful to create the should-be state of processes.

Who is it for?

SAP Signavio especially valuable for enterprise looking to implement a broad business process management (BPM) approach on the SAP data stack.

4. IBM Process Mining

If you’re a believer in “you won’t get fired for buying IBM,” you’ll be glad to know the Big Blue offers its own process discovery and intelligence solution. Added to IBM’s portfolio in 2021 through an acquisition of MyInvenio, IBM Process Mining discovers, monitors and optimizes business processes by extracting system data from enterprise systems.

Key features of IBM Process Mining

• Easy to use. IBM Process Mining has advanced process enhancement features which discovers business rules based on event log data and adds them to a standard BPMN model.
• Visualizations. IBM Process Mining offers a variety of visualization options relevant to process discovery, including process graphs, process variants and conformance analysis.
• Process simulation. IBM Process Mining has simulation features enabling to-be processes and what-if scenarios.

Who is it for?

IBM Process Mining is a good option for companies looking to build on IBM's data and consulting expertise, especially with the interest to align business process management and design models with standard practices, such as BPMN models.

5. Automation Anywhere / FortressIQ

Automation Anywhere is a major enterprise automation suite founded in 2003. Its process discovery and mining solution was integrated into the Automation Success Platform through the acquisition of FortressIQ in 2021.

Automation Anywhere is used extensively by large enterprise organizations across different geographies. It is especially known for combining elements of robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) to enable end-to-end automation of business processes.

Key Features of FortressIQ / AA Process Mining

• Integration to automation suite: FortressIQ is now embedded into Automation Anywhere’s intelligent automation offering.
• Task capture: FortressIQ leverages computer vision to capture screen activity for task mining and process discovery.
• Large enterprise client list: both FortressIQ and Automation Anywhere have an impressive list of enterprise clients, including 4 Fortune 10 companies.

Who is it for?

FortressIQ initially gained traction with contact centers serving North American clients. It is a potential option for automation-focused enterprise in regions where task capture and personal data privacy are less of an issue.

6. SoftwareAG / Aris Process Mining

Aris Process Mining is a solution developed by Software AG, an enterprise software vendor founded in Darmstadt, Germany in 1969. Software AG has over 10,000 enterprise customers in over 70 countries.

Aris Process Mining was one of the first commercial process mining tools originating in 2000. Its core advantage is a deep integration with business process modelling and enterprise architecture design.

Key Features of Software AG / Aris Process Mining

• Interactive root-cause analysis: Aris Process Mining includes unique automated root cause mining and insights.
• Process modeling: process models can be enhanced by real performance measures.
• Process Performance Management (PPM): a tool to manage business processes based on the process mining and analytics insights.

Who is it for?

Customers finding value in Software AG’s broad ecosystem of solutions and partners across various geographies.

7. ABBYY Timeline

ABBYY Timeline can be broken down into three steps: recording, analysis, and recommendations. The scalable and nonintrusive technology captures variations in how tasks are performed over a large period of time to enable large teams of desktop users to see variations in user interaction paths.

ABBYY Timeline also protects privacy with OCR technology that removes sensitive information. After gathering and analyzing information, the technology recommends tasks for automation based on length of time, repetition, and complexity. By doing this, ABBYY Timeline helps organizations scale high-value automation and build transformation plans.

With ABBYY’s task mining technology, users can identify:

• Tasks worth automating
• Possible tasks to automate
• Automation’s effects on processes
• Tasks that waste time
• The best set of tasks necessary to complete work.

8. Mehrwerk Process Mining

Mehrwerk is a process mining solution built on the Qlik Sense business intelligence platform. It offers comprehensive pocess mining capabilities combines self-service functionality process visualizations.

Key functionalities of Mehrwerk ProcessMining (MPM):

• Business intelligence integration: MPM is integrated to Qlik Sense for modern business intelligence visualizations.
• Self-service analytics: flexibility of dashboards with the ability to create and modify charts.
• Data extraction: over 100 connectors leveraging the ETL functionality offered by Qlik.

Who is it for?

Mehrwerk is ideally suited for business process analysts who prefer to build their solution with a deep integration to a well-established Qliktech business intelligence solution.

9. Apromore

Apromore is a process mining solution with deep links to the academic sector founded by university professors. Apromore offers a free version of it's software for education and research purposes.

Key features of Apromore Process Mining:

• Free version: Apromore offers access to it's Enterprise Edition SaaS product free of charge for students and researchers.
• Salesforce integration: Apromore has received funding from Salesforce and is an official partner to Salesforce.
• Academic connections: Apromore has strong connections to academia, including the University of Melbourne.

Who is it for?

Appian is especially strong in the North American region and could be a good fit for large enterprise service companies.

10. Do-it-yourself  eg. PowerBI / Tableau / Splunk / Alteryx

While Celonis has many best-of-breed and process automation suite competitors, a final natural alternative is build-it-yourself process mining.

Here is a summary of the popular alternatives in the business intelligence space.

Celonis vs Power BI

The main difference between Power BI and Celonis lies in their purpose and focus. Power BI is a general-purpose business intelligence tool that helps users analyze and visualize data from various sources. It's suitable for businesses looking to create dashboards, reports, and data visualizations to support decision-making.

Celonis, on the other hand, focuses specifically on process mining and optimization. It is designed for organizations that want to gain insights into their operational processes, identify bottlenecks, and improve efficiency.

Both Power BI and Celonis support data integration from multiple sources. Power BI offers a wide range of connectors to various databases, cloud services, and file formats. Celonis, while also supporting multiple data sources, primarily focuses on integrating data from enterprise systems like ERP, CRM, and supply chain management.

While both tools offer data visualization capabilities, Power BI provides a richer set of options for creating interactive and customizable dashboards and reports. Celonis focuses more on process visualization, representing process flows and performance indicators in a clear and understandable way.

TL;DR:

Celonis can be considered a process intelligence solution, while PowerBI is a more general visualization and business intelligence tool from Microsoft.

Celonis vs Tableau

Tableau is a data visualization tool that helps users create interactive and shareable dashboards. It is designed for exploring and analyzing data from various sources, making it easier to understand and communicate insights. Celonis, on the other hand, is focused on more closely on process mining and execution management.

Tableau can connect to a wide variety of data sources, including databases, spreadsheets, and cloud-based storage. It allows users to create visualizations, such as charts, graphs, and maps, to represent the data and uncover hidden patterns. For the data ingestion, Celonis mostly uses event logs in enterprise source systems.

Tableau has a broader user base of different types of users, encompassing data analysts, business intelligence professionals, and decision-makers across various industries. Celonis caters to a more specific audience, mainly business process analysts, operations managers, and executives who are looking to optimize their organization's processes.

TL;DR:

While Tableau offers advanced visualization and business intelligence (BI) solutions, Celonis is more comprehensively focused on process mining and process intelligence.

Celonis vs Splunk

Splunk is a software platform primarily used for log management, monitoring, and analysis. It enables organizations to collect, index, and analyze machine-generated data from various sources, such as applications, servers, and network devices, to gain insights into system performance, security, and operations. In this regard, it can be used for data mining and process intelligence.

Splunk can ingest a wide variety of data formats, including structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. Its primary function is to index and make this data searchable, enabling users to run real-time or historical searches, generate reports, and create alerts based on specific conditions. In this aspect, it works similarily to Celonis in event log data mining.

Splunk provides various features for data analysis, such as search processing language (SPL), data visualization, alerting, reporting, and machine learning capabilities to support anomaly detection, forecasting, and clustering. There are use cases where Splunk can match the use-cases of process mining vendors like Celonis eg. in conformance monitoring.

Splunk is mainly targeted at IT operations, security, and DevOps teams who need to monitor and analyze system performance, troubleshoot issues, and detect security threats or anomalies. It's use cases are in this way not directly comparable to Celonis in the business process management space.

TL;DR:

Splunk is a broadly used data mining and monitoring tool, while Celonis is more narrowly focused on enterprise process management.

Celonis vs Alteryx

Alteryx is an end-to-end data analytics platform that focuses on data preparation, blending, and advanced analytics. It allows users to clean, transform, and enrich data from various sources, making it suitable for analysis, reporting, and visualization. In this set of features, it can be compared to Celonis.

Alteryx supports a wide range of data formats and sources, including databases, spreadsheets, cloud-based storage, and big data platforms. It provides a drag-and-drop interface for data preparation tasks, such as filtering, joining, and aggregating data. Celonis also provides a comprehensive way for integrating and extracting process data, but it generally involves event log data mining.

Alteryx targets a broad audience, including data analysts, business intelligence professionals, and decision-makers across various industries who need to prepare and analyze data for generating insights. In this way, you can view it as a broader toolkit for advanced data science and analytics automation than Celonis, which focuses more closely on the needs of business process management professionals.

TL;DR:

Alteryx enables automated data science and analytics while Celonis is more narrowly focused on enterprise process management.