What is our primary use case?
There are multiple use cases of Appian. A banking customer uses it more for agent onboarding; we are working on contract management for a manufacturing customer; and we are working on an incident management system for an airport. There are almost seven to eight use cases, as of now.
We don't use Appian, we are partners and we implement this solution for customers. I'm working on both on-premises and cloud-based deployment. Appian's deployment is hybrid.
What is most valuable?
Appian has many valuable features, the first being the ease of development—rapid development. Second, the process of learning the product and tool is faster when compared to its peers in the market. It's closer to low-code, and while it's still not very easy, it's more low-code than other products in the industry. Appian has a good user interface, a seamless model user interface, which comes without additional coding. It can also integrate with multiple systems.
What needs improvement?
There are four areas I believe Appian could improve in. The first is a seamless contact center integration. Appian does not have a contact center feature. The second is advanced features in RPA. The third would be chatbot and email bot integration—while Appian comes with chatbot and email bot, it's not as mature as it should be, compared to the competition. The fourth area would be next best action, since there is not much of this sort of feature in Appian. These are all features which competitors' products have, and in a mature manner, whereas Appian lacks on these four areas. I see customers who are moving from Appian to Pega because these features are not in Appian.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Appian for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability and performance are good. Appian is focusing a lot on this because they recently came out with a Kubernetes system acquisition, which is providing them the ability to scale as well as an expansion model that can be as stable as required. The performance is very good, as this solution is available across multiple cloud systems.
As far as maintenance, it's pretty straightforward because Appian, as a company, comes with very mature hotfixes when required, as well as seamless upgrades. As long as you do not do any customizations—which is not recommended—it is pretty easy and straightforward to maintain, and does not take much effort.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Appian is definitely easy to scale, especially if you understand the requirements. It's a good architecture.
Of our customers who use Appian, I would say most of them are medium-sized. Next would be large-sized, and then there are not many small-sized customers. Medium- and large-sized companies mostly go for Appian.
How are customer service and support?
I would rate the technical support of Appian about a seven out of ten because there is definitely room for improvement when compared to the other product support we are seeing.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is a simple process. If it's on cloud, it does not take much time. If it's on-premise, you have to have all the required hardware. It takes around four hours.
What about the implementation team?
We implement this solution for customers.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Appian is very flexible in their pricing. In general, Appian's pricing is much, much lower when compared to competition like Pega or other products. Appian also has a flexible licensing model across geographies. Pega usually goes with a single licensing cost—which is a US-based cost—for all global customers, and it's costly. Whereas Appian has a different regional licensing cost model and it can be cheaper, depending on geography. So Appian's licensing is very flexible, and cheaper when compared to other competition.
The pricing is pretty straightforward. If you're going for a cloud-based deployment, there are no additional costs because you're just going to be on the cloud. However, if you're going to deploy it on-premise, you would need to install software, so you might have to procure your own database and servers and everything. The current recommendation, and what most customers are going for, is the cloud because it's easy to maintain. There aren't really any costs except for the licensing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Pega and Appian are both good BPM platforms. The area where Appian has the advantage is that it's really low-code. It takes much less effort when compared to Pega, both for developing and for setup and implementation. Within about 30 days, maximum, you can build out a product in Appian, whereas it will take you much longer in Pega. However, in regard to the four areas in which I believe Appian is lacking, Pega has all those features in a mature manner: seamless contact center integration, advanced features in RPA, mature chatbot and email bot integration, and next best action.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Appian an eight out of ten.
If you are looking for a fast, rapid rollout of applications and you have multiple medium-scale and small-scale processes that you want to roll out at a faster pace, with ease of maintenance, then Appian is a good product to go with. Appian can also be leveraged for large-scale implementation—for example, financial service customers, for loan origination or claims organization—but you would really need to understand your requirements in order to achieve this with Appian. Whereas with Pega, it has framework for loan originations and everything, which Appian doesn't come with. Appian is a plain vanilla product, and if you go for a large-scale core implementation, then you should have enough information and requirements to capture it. Appian is best suited to mid-scale and small-scale processes and a rapid rollout.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
I am sure this comparison between Appian and Pega is going to be extremely beneficial for me to do evaluation.