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?

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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

Answer 3

.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

Answer 4

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/