Oh, Camunda! Let’s fork!
In response to the licensing changes in Camunda 8.6, we decided to develop an alternative—Flowee BPMS. This is a lightweight, efficient BPM engine based on the JVM, compliant with BPMN 2.0, CMMN, and DMN standards. Flowee BPMS enables modeling and automation of complex business processes, and its architecture allows seamless integration with business applications, including running as a library within Spring Boot.
Camunda, known for providing an open-source business process management (BPM) platform, has announced that support for Camunda Platform 7 Community Edition will end in October 2025. From that point, the Enterprise Edition will enter maintenance mode, receiving only bug and security fixes. As a result, companies using Camunda 7 in production environments will need to consider moving to a commercial license (even if they stay on the no-longer-developed version 7), migrating to a newer version (now only available under a commercial license), or finding another solution—such as a fork.
Budget Constraints
Oh! Camunda, I am but a fool
Darling, I love you, though you treat me cruel
Camunda 8.6 has switched to a licensing model. This introduces new financial and organizational challenges for companies. Previously, the BPMN platform was available for free as an open-source version. Now, using it in production involves licensing costs. Camunda offers various pricing plans. The Starter plan starts at €99 per month. It includes up to 10 users and one development cluster. For large enterprises, there is the Enterprise plan – starting at around €50,000 per year. It includes advanced features and 24/7 technical support.
For many companies, especially those with limited budgets, the need to cover additional licensing costs can be a significant financial burden. These organizations now need to carefully analyze their business process automation needs. They also have to decide whether investing in a commercial Camunda license is cost-effective for them. Camunda has not publicly released data on the percentage of companies that have chosen the Enterprise license. As a result, it is difficult to determine exactly how many users have made that decision. Companies considering migration must individually assess the value of advanced features and technical support. They need to compare those benefits with the total cost of the license.
Popular Choice—Widespread Problem
You hurt me and you make me cry
Camunda is a BPM platform for business process automation. It is widely used in finance, insurance, telecommunications, and logistics. The platform enables system integration and microservice orchestration. In the financial sector, it supports tasks such as mortgage application processing, report generation, and deposit management. In insurance, it is used for claims handling, policy management, and risk assessment. The telecommunications industry applies it for network management, invoicing, and customer onboarding. In logistics, Camunda helps track deliveries and optimize warehouse operations.
There is no precise data on Camunda's market share in the BPM space. Nevertheless, it is a popular choice among companies. It's popularity stems from flexibility, scalability, and compliance with BPMN 2.0, DMN 1.1, and CMMN 1.1 standards. Organizations frequently choose it to automate business processes.
Fork Deployments
But if you leave me, I will – fork you.
As a result of Camunda’s shift to a new licensing model, companies looking for alternatives to the Enterprise license have several options to consider. One of them is migrating to other open-source business process management (BPM) platforms. However, the market offers a range of solutions that can replace Camunda, providing features tailored to the specific needs of organizations. As a result, alternatives such as Appian, Pega, and ProcessMaker are often mentioned. These platforms offer different approaches to business process automation.
Another solution is using Camunda forks, created in response to the licensing changes. Forking involves creating an independent version of the software based on the original source code. This approach allows organizations to retain key functionalities from Camunda 7 while ensuring continued development and support in the open-source community. For clients, this means they can continue using the technology without incurring licensing costs. Moreover, companies do not have to search for such solutions on their own—IT service providers and Camunda partners often offer ready-made support and fork deployments, making the transition much easier.
Fork by Finture
Thanks to compatibility with Camunda 7 models, process migration can be significantly simplified. Flowee supports the External Task Pattern, making it a natural choice for microservice-based architectures. Its advanced integration capabilities with LDAP, Keycloak, and other identity providers make access and role management easier. Additionally, the system offers a cockpit for real-time process monitoring and debugging, as well as flexible options for extending process logic using Groovy, JavaScript, and the Java SDK.
Versioning of definitions, persistent data storage, and full execution history logging support auditability and change control. Flowee can also run in a cluster, offering scalability and high availability—making it a viable and cost-effective alternative to Camunda in production environments.
Changes in Camunda’s licensing model may also affect your organization. Let’s talk and assess together whether the better option is migrating to Camunda 8 or switching to - Flowee BPMS.
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