In-depth introduction to SharePoint-Comparison of third-party workflow engines

 

But in general I can post thepros and cons of K2, nintex as follows

 

·1) K2 appears to havethe most mature products. Both are quite pricy, though they aresupposedly reworking their cost model. Their blackpearl product is atrimmed
Down version that focuses on SharePoint integration, so hooking extends other lob systems will be limited, but still possible. Allowing theworkflow engine to be separated from the WSS Front End Server, not so innintex.

·2) nintex appears tobe a step up from SPD 2007 and 2010. Compared to K2 blackpoint (theirsharepoint/nintex Competitor price wise) nintex has some Active Directory
Andexchange actions that cocould come in handy for provisioning new staff.

·3) K2 has an upgradepath to their blackpearl full product, which provides an environment/API forcreating custom enterprise data connectors so your workflows
Canintegrate with any system. nintex has an API for developing customactions, though not as completely defined.

 

4) K2 has ad and exchange integration today (for read and emailpurposes) but just announced rich extended ad and exchange integration (see
Http://www.k2.com/en/blackpearl.aspx-Look in "whats coming" tab) in addition to lots of othercapabilities.

5) k2provides a range of visual designers (from one built on Silverlight 4 andembedded into Sharepoint to a standalone designer and one fully integrated withvisual Studio (2008 and 2010), a very rich "SharePoint
Integrated "process management capability called process portals and rich out of boxreports and analytics.

6) K2 alsohas amazing infopath integration and fully manages forms and process versioningand lifecycles, something critical to any process requiring infopath.

7) K2 alsoadds some really important workflow fundamentals out of the box. Your pointdesigner is a cool tool, but you will very quickly run out of steam, especiallywhen you have to think about issues like
How to "go back to a previusstep (one or more steps back) in the process (eg a re-work capability)" and do this at multiple places in the process. using Real-Life humanworkflow processes require this ability. just three other examplesare support for time
Zones, working hours and rich rules capabilitiesthat are highly extensible through K2 inline functions.