Camunda is a process orchestration platform used to control complex business processes for enterprise companies. The software is classified by specialist media as a business process automation tool[2] or digital process automation software and therefore represents a further development of the classic workflow management platform.
Camunda focuses on the automation of end-to-end business processes.
Camunda provides tools for creating process and decision models operating deployed models in production, and allowing users to execute process tasks assigned to them.[3]
The software provides a Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) standard compliant workflow engine and a Decision Model and Notation (DMN) standard compliant decision engine. It's used as an architectural component which integrates with distributed systems using a REST API. External endpoints can be integrated into processes via APIs through Connectors, which can be created and shared on the Camunda Marketplace to integrate various business systems.[4]
The different components of Camunda are released under various licenses, some of which being source-available. Zeebe is free under the Zeebe community license[5] with its source code available. Operate, Tasklist, Optimize and Identity as well as Camunda-developed and maintained out-of-the-box Connectors are free for development only under the Camunda Self-Managed Free Edition license with their source code available, while a commercial license is needed for production use. Production use is defined as using Camunda to power any aspect of an organization's operations, whether internal or external, outside of development and testing environments.
On October 8th, 2024, Camunda released under a unified license for all components of the distribution, including Zeebe, Operate, Tasklist, Optimize and Identity. This license will permit free use of the distribution for development and testing purposes, but will require a production license for any production use. Additionally, the new license will allow free access to the Web Modeler for up to five users.
Process orchestration is the main topic at the biannual CamundaCon (formerly BPM Con)[6], which is organized by Camunda. Other conferences such as JAX (and W-JAX) or Devoxx are also regularly dedicated to the topic.[6]
Developer
Camunda is developed by Berlin-based Camunda Services GmbH. The company was founded in 2008 by Jakob Freund and Bernd Rücker as a consulting firm for business process management (BPM).[7] Over the next four years, Camunda built a consulting customer base of more than 250 customers.[7] Now, Camunda has a customer base of approx. 600 customers.
In December 2018, Camunda raised €25 million in series A funding from Highland Europe.[8] In March 2021, Camunda raised €82 million in a series B funding round led by Insight Partners, along with series A investors Highland Europe.[9]
Camunda was listed on Viva Technology's “Top 100 next unicorns” list in 2023[12] und and 2024.[13]
History
Camunda 7 is an originally commercial workflow management system, which was based on Activiti, a free business process management system. Alongside Alfresco, Camunda was one of the biggest contributors of Activiti.[14]
On 18 March 2013, the further development of Camunda was spun off from the development of Activiti.[15][16]
In April 2022, Camunda released Camunda Platform 8,[17] (now Camunda 8) as a rebranding to Camunda Cloud, incorporating the cloud-native workflow and decision engine Zeebe. It is being developed and supported primarily as a cloud-based platform in parallel to Activiti-based Camunda 7.[18] Camunda 7 will be supported, with full support for the Enterprise version until April 2027. After that, it will only receive bug fixes and security updates.[19] Key differences between Camunda 7 and Camunda 8 include Camunda 8's cloud-native architecture and its use of the Zeebe engine, while Camunda 7 relies on a monolithic, Activiti-based design. Additionally, Camunda 7 is available for free, while Camunda 8 is a paid offering.[20] This evolution presents migration challenges for organizations, especially those with complex, customized workflows or on-premise deployments, requiring careful planning and adaptation to transition to the new platform.[21]
In October 2023, Camunda Marketplace was launched, allowing users to share custom-made Connectors and process blueprints to integrate various business systems into BPMN processes via APIs.[22]
In May 2024, Camunda began integrating Generative AI functionality into its platform as part of the new feature suite called Camunda Copilot. These include suggestions for process modeling as well as a prompt-based human input form generator.[23]
In 2024, Camunda achieved a turnover of over 100 million euros.[24]
Features
Camunda consists of a number of components and applications that are used together to define and execute business processes:[25]
External endpoints can be integrated into processes via Connectors, which are pre-built and customizable packages consisting of BPMN-elements and API templates. With the release of Camunda 8.3, Camunda Marketplace was added, allowing users to share and download additional Connectors for various business systems.[27]
Created files are deployed in the Camunda Engines, which use a BPMN parser to transform BPMN 2.0 XML files, and DMN XML files, into Java Objects, and implements BPMN 2.0 constructs with a set of BPMN Behavior implementations.[28]
Typical use cases for the Camunda BPMN Workflow Engine can be microservices orchestration and human task management.[29]
The Camunda DMN Decision Engine executes business-driven decision tables. It is pre-integrated with the Workflow Engine but can be used as a stand-alone application via REST or inside Java applications.[30][31]
Camunda's additional web applications provide the following tools for developers and business users:[28]
Operate: A tool for technical process operations enabling users to monitor workflows and decisions in production, to analyze and solve technical problems.[30]
Tasklist: Allows end users to work on assigned tasks and provides additional visibility when using the Camunda Workflow Engine for human task management.
Optimize: An analytics and reporting tool to identify errors and bottlenecks in workflow processes.
Modeler: A collaborative modeling tool allowing multiple users to create, edit and specify BPMN process diagrams.
Console: Allows users to manage Camunda web applications or REST API users. Existing user management can be integrated via LDAP.
Architecture
Camunda Platform is a lightweight, Java-based framework. It can be used as a standalone process engine server or embedded inside custom Java applications. It offers non-Java developers a REST API and dedicated client libraries to build applications connecting to a remote workflow engine.[30] With the open source fork CIB seven, CIB will maintain long-term operation, support, updates and further development of the Camunda 7 Community Edition.[32]
Camunda 8 is a cloud-native solution based on the Zeebe orchestration and decision engine, which is developed and supported in parallel with Camunda 7. Zeebe uses Event Stream Processing (ESP) to enable high-performance process automation. Developers can interact with Zeebe via clients written in Java, Go and various other programming languages. Camunda 8 also provides extensive REST APIs for all parts of the platform.[33]
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