What is the difference between "workflow engine" and "business process management engine"?

Question

I have heard about these two concepts after a lot of time.

Such as "windows workflow foundation" and Activiti and jBPM and other project is "business process management engine".

Are these two nouns ("workflow engine" and "business process management engine") the same thing?

Answer 1

In Wikipedia, a "Workflow Engine" is defined as:

A software application that manages and executes modeled computer processes.

and from the same source, "Business Process Management" is defined as:

A "holistic management" approach to aligning an organization's business processes with the wants and needs of clients

Hence these nouns should not be used interchangeably; a "Workflow engine" is a generic engine used for modelling any workflow, whereas a "Business Process Management Engine" is a specific implementation of a "Workflow Engine" which models business process management.

So you could make the analogy, "Workflow Engine" is to a block of wood as "Business Process Management Engine" is to a carved wooden walking stick.

Answer 2

There is a big difference between Business process management and workflow engine. Some qualities are much similar but rest of that both have their own activities to perform.

Similarity

IN workflow engine and business process management on thing is similar which is about the tasks to complete. eg in workflow engine the pending loan approval files are considering the approval from the person who gives the access to that and in business process management the same the tasks are uploaded and assigned to the person who has to complete the thing

Difference

In business process management system all the business process are handled by the software and in which the uploading tasks, it defines the pending tasks, it also shows you the pending task time from the person and you can also check the task status that how much it was completed. In workflow engine all the tasks are assigned and only needs the approval there is no task goes on pending during its completion