What are workflow management tools? Workflow management tools are applications that instantly automate tasks and simplify time consuming processes by eliminating human dependencies and redundancies. These softwares are business user’s answer to BPM (Business Process Management) software because they are a human-centric approach to managing and automating common business processes. These softwares uses a systematic approach and are generally designed to require less coding and programming, letting the people closest to business processes use them.
But not every workflow management software is built the same. Common features like cloud integration and the ability to co-exist with other automation applications are given a different level of priority across various workflow management tools.
Think of workflow management software as the traffic controller of your business. It keeps things moving, makes sure no one gets stuck, and helps everyone see where they’re headed. Here’s what it usually does:
Picture drawing a simple map of how work moves from one person to another. The software does that for you—laying out each task, decision point, and trigger so you can see the big picture at a glance. It’s like having Google Maps for your business processes.
Every company has those tasks that feel like washing the same pile of dishes over and over. The software takes those off your plate. Once you set the rules, it moves tasks to the right people automatically, cutting down delays and errors.
Imagine everyone huddled around one big whiteboard, except it’s online. The software lets people share updates, ask questions, and stay aligned without a mess of emails or chat threads.
Instead of asking “where are we on this project?” twenty times, you can just look at the dashboard. You’ll see deadlines, bottlenecks, and progress in real time. It’s like checking a flight tracker—you always know what’s on time and what’s delayed.
Most businesses already use CRMs, HR platforms, or communication tools. Good workflow software connects with them, so data moves freely without extra copy-paste work. That way, you don’t create silos or lose context.
Workflow platforms can simplify complicated business processes for maximum efficiency by eliminating redundancies and automating repetitive tasks. As errors get reduced, efficiency increases, and tracking and managing processes becomes easier.
Finding the right workflow management tool can transform how your team operates. Here are the key factors to consider when making your decision:
Define what processes you want to manage or automate — approvals, task tracking, multi-step workflows, etc.
Choose a platform with an intuitive interface that requires minimal training and supports drag-and-drop functionality.
Select tools that let you automate repetitive tasks, assign roles dynamically, and set up condition-based triggers.
Ensure the tool integrates seamlessly with your existing systems like email, CRM, project management tools, or databases.
Good workflow tools let you adapt the system to your processes — including custom fields, conditional logic, and role-based flows.
Look for platforms with built-in dashboards, audit trails, and performance tracking to monitor efficiency and spot bottlenecks.
Choose a solution that can grow with your team, from a few workflows to hundreds, without losing performance or usability.
Evaluate the cost against the features offered. Consider both short-term value and long-term ROI from saved time and productivity gains.
If your workflows involve multiple stakeholders, ensure the tool supports commenting, notifications, and access controls.
Always take advantage of free trials or demos to validate the tool’s fit with your needs before purchasing.
Let’s look at the top workflow tools of 2025 for managing workflows more effectively.
Kissflow is a powerful yet simple low-code platform with workflow automation and business process management capabilities. Users can create workflows from scratch or choose a pre-built template. Kissflow has prebuilt workflow templates for HR, sales, finance, and other departments.
The drag-and-drop form builder helps users collect and store data, while automated notifications allow users to stay updated on workflow progress.
Why Kissflow
Kissflow allows business and IT users to build processes with little to no coding. The project and process management tool can streamline workflows, boosting productivity and efficiency. Admins can define user roles and permissions to manage governance while encouraging collaboration.
Lumen, an Australian automotive manufacturer, revolutionized their manual processes with Kissflow's intuitive platform:
Automated 10+ critical processes, including Premium Freight Authority, Purchase Orders, and more
Successfully connected data across processes without duplication
Created custom management reports that leadership loved
Achieved measurable improvements in cost savings, tracking efficiency, and SLA adherence
Reduced delays and missing data across operations
"Kissflow is one of our main systems. It lets everyone have any form request that goes through multiple departments for actions."
— Madhuri Balimane, CI/LEAN Lead, Lumen
Read the full Lumen success story →
Image Souce: Capterra
Zoho Creator, a leading low-code development platform, offers a strong selection of pre-built apps and templates that streamline application development. Users can automate workflows to boost productivity, saving their organizations time and money.
The workflow software helps businesses digitize their operations without resorting to traditional development. They can manage their data and workflows, gain important insights from their databases, and get their apps running in minut
Low-code app development: The intuitive interface allows business domain experts to build custom, low-code applications.
Workflow customization: Zoho Flow allows users to build smart integrations and connect apps to automate workflows.
Analytics: Zoho Analytics lets users analyze their data for advanced reporting and analysis, whether on the cloud or on-premises.
Works seamlessly with other Zoho products: Zoho Creator integrates seamlessly with all the other Zoho products.
Advanced analytics: Businesses that leverage Zoho analytics boost efficiency and productivity by optimizing processes and removing bottlenecks.
Reusable components built using Deluge: Zoho’s online scripting language, Deluge, enables users to add logic to applications incrementally, making the apps more powerful.
Limited integrations outside Zoho products: Zoho Creator offers integrations with popular tools like Gsuite and Microsoft 365, but API integrations are limited.
Platform updates often affect applications: Sometimes, updates made by Zoho Creator require users to develop new applications.
Users must learn Deluge: While Zoho offers low-code development, users must learn Deluge, Zoho's proprietary development language, to add custom capabilities to their apps.
Image Souce: Capterra
Creatio is a low-code/no-code platform that allows businesses to automate workflows and build applications. It provides industry workflows for 20 verticals and marketplace add-ons. Studio Creatio, its no-code platform, enables users to create powerful business applications quickly.
All Creatio products are powered with no-code and low-code technology to help enterprises digitize workflows, enhance customer experiences, and boost efficiency across business units
Process management: Businesses can analyze the performance of processes, identify bottlenecks, and make changes to optimize workflows.
CRM: It is possible to organize, automate, and synchronize every facet of customer interaction.
Marketing and sales automation: Marketing Creatio and Sales Creatio help sales reps and marketers find, engage, and convert prospects.
No-code process management: Creatio’s no-code tool allows users to implement integrations and workflow automation without writing a single line of code.
Easy deployment: Applications built with Creatio can be deployed on-premises in the cloud or as a hybrid solution.
Custom solutions for sales, marketing, and services: Ready-to-use industry workflows for sales, marketing, and service allow users to automate processes, saving time and resources easily.
Requires BPMN knowledge: Users need some BPMN knowledge to automate routine processes and create custom business logic, such as integrations and custom UIs.
Primarily for CRMs: Creatio heavily focuses on CRM and is not a dedicated low-code/no-code development platform for workflow automation.
Requires a partner or system integrator (SI) to implement: Businesses using Creatio need an SI or partner to connect internal and external disparate systems. Implementation can’t happen without partners.
Image Souce: Capterra
The user-friendly workflow automation platform allows businesses to automate their processes rapidly. It has customizable workflows, a drag-and-drop design, and real-time analytics that help enterprises save time and increase efficiency.
With Nintex Automation Cloud Services, users can leverage data-driven insights to optimize processes.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA): Businesses can automate repetitive, mundane, or labor-intensive tasks to improve efficiency and agility.
Process mining and discovery: Organizations can mine data from the platform to analyze process performance and identify areas for improvement.
Document generation for SalesForce: Nintex for Salesforce lets users instantly transform Salesforce data into mission-critical documents–from contracts to invoices.
Complex for business users:Nintex has a steep learning curve and isn’t as intuitive for those new to process automation.
Lack of data storage: Nintex doesn't store data. Users must rely on external data storage applications like Salesforce and SharePoint.
Does not offer custom user experiences: Users have limited customization options as the platform only offers system-defined user experience.
Image Souce: Capterra
Pipefy is a workflow management platform that allows businesses to build, automate, optimize, and orchestrate different processes to boost operational efficiency across different departments. Business users can standardize processes and workflows without any IT support.
Drag-and-drop workflow builder: It has a simple and intuitive drag-and-drop builder that makes it easy for users to design and deploy custom processes.
Automation rules: Users can set automation rules to trigger actions based on predefined conditions, minimizing manual intervention and accelerating task completion.
Reporting and analytics: Pipefy's real-time dashboards allow users to monitor process performance and get visual insights into tasks, bottlenecks, and overall progress.
Free plan for up to 10 users: It provides a free version with limited features for up to 10 users. Small teams can use the plan to boost efficiency and productivity.
Templates for popular use cases: Pipefy offers templates that can be fully customized or used as they are.
Intuitive, user-friendly interface: The platform’s interface makes it easy to get started, and users can navigate complex features without feeling overwhelmed.
Image Souce: Capterra
Process Street is a workflow tool that offers a powerful way to manage recurring checklists and procedures. Powered by AI, it helps teams transform their core processes into powerful no-code workflows. Users in different industries can build numerous workflows, from content approvals to tenant screening.
Drag-and-drop workflow builder: It lets users easily create the exact workflows they need, from the simplest to the most complex.
Customizable templates: Users can customize templates with instructions, images, videos, and attachments.
Reporting and analytics: The reporting dashboard displays key metrics and insights, helping users understand workflow performance and make data-driven decisions.
Built-in document editor: It helps users capture, edit, organize, and share documents to establish team knowledge.
Scalable: The Enterprise plan allows users to easily expand their processes by adding more tools and participants, maximizing process scalability.
Custom solutions: Process Street users can build customized apps—for HR, IT, service teams, and other business functions—that work on desktop and mobile devices
Image Souce: Capterra
Bonitasoft helps companies worldwide create agile applications for continuous and incremental improvement. The platform accelerates app development and production by offering visual programming and coding tools. It promotes collaboration between IT and business teams.
Open source: Developers can add their code to the platform to unlock the full potential of applications.
Ideal for developers: Bonitasoft offers coding capabilities for accelerating the development, production, and maintenance of automation projects.
Workflow automation and process design: Users can model and monitor business processes to streamline operations and accelerate the development and deployment.
Requires system installation: Users must install Bonita Studio on Windows, Linux, or Mac operating systems to use the platform.
Not ideal for business users: Bonitasoft has an integrated development environment that’s quite technical and unsuitable for business users.
Requires BPMN knowledge: Bonita supports BPMN 2.0, and users must apply the modeling language to visualize business processes and make workflows more efficient.
Image Souce: Capterra
It is a low-code/no-code process automation platform that aligns IT with business, letting users rapidly build cloud apps. From modeling to automation and deployment, Bizagi supports the complete application lifecycle to make continuous improvement a reality. Users can monitor and continuously improve their business processes on the comprehensive reporting platform with real-time analytics.
Check out: Kissflow vs Bizagi: A Detailed Comparison
Requires BPMN knowledge: Bizagi users must apply BPMN to model and document business processes.
Not for complex workflows: Technical knowledge is needed when building highly customized workflows with advanced use cases.
Not built on a modern tech stack: Bizagi’s core technology is on-premises, and web apps built on the platform may not be easy to maintain or scale.
Image Souce: Capterra
Integrify is a low-code/no-code workflow solution for organizations looking to automate their business processes and boost productivity. Users can automate complex processes and accelerate digital transformation. The platform provides tools for designing and building automated HR, operations, finance, IT, sales, marketing, and more workflows. Its also possible to leverage Integrify’s consulting and development services to expand their use of workflow automation.
Developer-friendly: Integrify is built for developers as it is robust enough to handle integration and customization.
Scalable applications: The workflow tool puts development in the hands of users, enabling them to build scalable web applications.
Not suitable for business users: Integrify has a complex UI, and finding relevant features can be challenging.
Limited out-of-the-box integrations: While Integrify has REST API capability, integrations with third-party applications can be complex.
Requires custom integrations for full functionality: Users who want to build and integrate workflows into core applications must use custom integrations.
When juggling tasks, teams, projects, and campaigns, keeping everything organized can be a nightmare. Missed deadlines and avoidable mistakes become the order of the day. A past study by the IDC revealed that transforming inefficient workflows increases productivity by up to 30%.
A workflow management tool like Kissflow simplifies and automates processes, boosts collaboration, and increases productivity. It helps enterprises coordinate and manage the diverse tasks and procedures in process execution. Users can design, implement, and automate workflows, ensuring processes are completed systematically and on time. In today’s digital era, Business Owners and Managers must embrace automation to stay competitive. A no-code platform enables seamless digital transformation.
Sign up with Kissflow to learn why it’s the best workflow automation tool you need. Compare the top workflow software tools and choose the best one for your needs.
Solve your workflow challenges with Kissflow Platform and optimize your team's productivity.
1. What types of tasks can Kissflow automate?
Kissflow can automate approval processes, data collection forms, task assignments, document routing, employee onboarding, expense management, and custom business workflows across departments.
2. Why is workflow automation important?
Workflow automation eliminates manual bottlenecks, reduces human errors, ensures consistent processes, and allows employees to focus on strategic work rather than repetitive administrative tasks.
3. What are the benefits of workflow automation?
Key benefits include increased efficiency, cost reduction, improved accuracy, better compliance tracking, faster turnaround times, and enhanced visibility into business processes.
4. How can workflow automation be implemented?
Implementation involves mapping current processes, identifying automation opportunities, selecting appropriate workflow platforms, configuring workflows using business workflow tools, testing, and training users.
5. What types of workflows can be automated?
Common automated workflows include HR processes, finance approvals, customer service tickets, inventory management, marketing campaigns, project management, and compliance procedures.
6. How can businesses measure the ROI of workflow automation?
ROI is measured by tracking time savings, reduced processing costs, error reduction rates, improved productivity metrics, and faster process completion times using workflow management tools.
7. What are some common misconceptions about workflow automation?
Misconceptions include believing automation is too complex for small businesses, that it replaces human workers entirely, or that workflow automation tools require extensive technical expertise to implement.
8. Can workflow automation software be customized for unique business processes?
Yes, the best workflow management tools offer customizable templates, drag-and-drop builders, and flexible configuration options to adapt to specific business requirements and industry needs.