Choose between Alfresco and Activiti for workflow solutions?

Question

We are going to build custom workflow solution to our clients and most of the time we need to integrate it to their existing system predominately using Microsoft technologies e.g. Exchange Server and SharePoint.

Clients are expecting use workflow to computerize tasks from HR processes, product inventory management. They may or may not have their own CRM but some of them may already using Sharepoint for some processes and they are willing to move away if we can offer a more robust, flexible and economical solution.

I found Alfresco and Activiti very promising but not sure which should I adopt. From my research Alfresco is a full blown CRM with Cloud and workflow (using Activiti as engine) whereas Activiti is the engine on its own.

How should I judge when to go for Alfresco and likewise for Activiti?

TIA

Answer 1

Alfresco is, first and foremost, a repository. If you need a place to store files (either end-users storing files or applications storing files) you should consider using Alfresco as your repository for those files.

As you point out, Alfresco has embedded the Activiti workflow engine. This includes an abstracted service layer that wraps the engine so that, for many operations, when working with Java or server-side JavaScript, you don't need to know much about Activiti. (Obviously you do need to know how to define BPMN 2.0 process definitions to create the workflow).

So if you need to store files and you need to route those files in a business process, Alfresco's embedded workflow engine makes it very easy to do that.

If your primary use case is more general than that (ie, you don't always need to route files in a business process) then you may want to consider a standalone workflow engine. Alfresco can still participate in those workflows, of course, but if your primary use case isn't about files, why go to the trouble of setting up and maintaining a document repository?

In the end, there is no hard and fast rule here. The beauty is that both Alfresco and Activiti are open source. You can try them out, dig into the details, and decide for yourself what is the best fit.