Alternatives to BizTalk as a rules engine

Question

My customer wants a end-user configurable rules engine. Currently they are considering BizTalk. Are their any other alternatives that they should consider?

This is a duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/61437/what-are-some-viable-alternatives-to-biztalk-server — , Feb 01 '12 at 21:40
Not really. I am specifically interested in rules engines, not the rest of BizTalk's functionality. — Jonathan Allen, Feb 01 '12 at 21:42
Have a look at [FlexRule](http://www.flexrule.com). It is written fully in .NET and you can handle all different rules and logic: Procedural, Validation, Inference(RETE), Flow, Decision table, Workflow... — Arash Aghlara, Sep 23 '13 at 02:45

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 01 '12 at 21:46

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InRule makes an interesting looking rules engine, but I have no idea on the price: http://www.inrule.com/

Review and some screenshots here: http://geekswithblogs.net/bosuch/archive/2011/09/19/review-of-inrule-v-4.0-business-rule-authoring-system.aspx

answered Feb 01 '12 at 21:46

Bill Osuch

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1) The review link is broken – mPrinC Mar 01 '21 at 20:11
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That geekswithblogs.net site may no longer be online... either way my 10 year old review is probably not relevant anymore.... :) – Bill Osuch Mar 02 '21 at 21:20

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 01 '12 at 23:52

I wrote a Windows Workflow based rules engine. It allows a programmer to layout the basic rule repository (storage and interface) and has a rehosted workflow designer to allow business analysts to define rules.

It currently doesn't implement forward or backward chaining of rules so the rules are only executed from top-to-bottom in order (I guess you could argue that this means it's not technically a rules engine yet).

I like to keep it simple so if you don't need the rule chaining check it out.

If you want some free advertising on InfoQ send me an email at jonathan@infoq.com. I have ways to promote projects like yours using interviews and educational articles. — Jonathan Allen, Feb 04 '12 at 01:43

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 01 '12 at 03:28

Depends if you are looking for windows/.net only or if Java is also an option. Drools is an open source rules engine with a web based rules authoring environment (as well as an IDE) that implements both forward and backward chaining, as well as support to CEP (Complex Event Processing):

http://www.jboss.org/drools/drools-guvnor.html

It is open source, and free. If you need support with SLA, Red Hat productizes it as the JBoss BRMS product:

http://www.redhat.com/products/jbossenterprisemiddleware/business-rules/

There is also Drools.NET http://droolsdotnet.codehaus.org/ – Mr Moose Mar 01 '12 at 03:39 — Mr Moose, Mar 01 '12 at 03:39

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 01 '12 at 00:55

.Net Framework has a basic rules engine as part of what is considered Windows Workflow. Coupled with the sample applications (including an almost-usable rule editor using a SQL backend), this can provide basic rule engine functionality.

We are successfully using it in a web project with hundreds of business rules without using any other Windows Workflow features.

See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd349785.aspx

Alternatives to BizTalk as a rules engine

4 Answers4