Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

ARIS BPA vs Appian comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.2
Appian enhances profits, reduces process time, achieving break-even in year one, with widespread adoption and demonstrated ROI.
Sentiment score
6.8
ARIS BPA improves operational resilience, transparency, and stakeholder alignment, offering significant time savings and enhanced management understanding.
Appian is very efficient, allowing us to build a lot of applications within a financial year, making it cost-effective.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Appian's customer support is praised for efficiency and personalization but faces challenges with response times and complex issues.
Sentiment score
6.6
ARIS BPA technical support is praised for responsiveness, though improvements in communication and complex issue handling are needed.
Their customer service is responsive, and the team is very prompt for support.
The technical support is generally good.
Appian has a community where I can put my questions.
The consultants are fine, however, reliance on single experts for modules can be risky.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Appian is scalable with expert setup, handling cloud configurations well, though hardware and complexity issues may impact performance.
Sentiment score
7.6
ARIS BPA is scalable and flexible, supporting cloud-based growth across industries despite its cost considerations, accommodating various deployments.
Appian is scalable, but it depends on how you build your applications.
Initially, without much coding, I can easily handle five thousand records.
For user scalability, it is a matter of licenses, while functional scalability is supported and easy to implement.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Appian is highly stable with 99.99% uptime; issues are mostly linked to development choices, while users commend its reliability.
Sentiment score
7.2
ARIS BPA is stable, with challenges in large environments; users appreciate performance improvements and responsive support.
It depends on how it has been designed and how it has been configured.
The stability of ARIS BPM is quite strong, rated eight out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Appian users want better UI customization, mobile flexibility, enterprise features, and integration, with improved scalability and reduced licensing costs.
ARIS BPA is criticized for high costs, complexity, and integration challenges, needing significant training and better user interface.
I would like to see more enhancement in the user interface to allow more freedom in designing the sites and pages.
If there is a very complex process that includes a lot of data transitioning and memory-centric processes, it consumes a lot of memory.
Software AG could improve this by making the database more open.
 

Setup Cost

Appian offers high-value, cost-effective cloud solutions with flexible licensing, competitive in specific regions, and affordable workload-based options.
ARIS BPA's high cost is justified for large enterprises, offering flexible options and extensive features with negotiable terms.
On the pricier side, both Appian and Pega are enterprise-level solutions, placing them on the slightly higher side.
The pricing of Appian is based on the number of users and generally ranges from 70 to 100 USD per user per month.
 

Valuable Features

Appian offers low-code development, intuitive interfaces, and BPMN 2.0 compliance, enhancing application deployment, workflow management, and business process automation.
ARIS BPA features a centralized repository, robust analytics, integration options, customizable methods, and supports notations like BPMN and EPC.
The zero-code integration feature is remarkable, allowing for ease of data transfer and workflow enhancement.
I can create tables, perform database-related activities, and create multiple tables.
It is easy for me to define the process and create configurable workflows.
The maintenance capabilities of ARIS BPM and the strong underlying database are particularly valuable.
 

Categories and Ranking

Appian
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (6th), Rapid Application Development Software (5th), Low-Code Development Platforms (4th), Process Mining (6th)
ARIS BPA
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of Appian is 6.1%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ARIS BPA is 5.1%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

Featured Reviews

Srimanta Pandit - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexible, improves operational efficiency, and reduces the time taken to complete processes
The solution’s turnaround time for development is better compared to other tools. The solution enables fast development. The traceability of the processor is good. There is much more governance and regulations on the processers. The tool reduces the time of the processes by 30% to 40%. The solution’s low-code aspect has greatly impacted the development and deployment speed. One of the major reasons we are using the product is that we can reuse the modules. The developers can reuse all the modules. It enables us to make subsequent developments in less time. The prebuilt modules can be deployed within two to three weeks. The tool is very flexible. Compared to other platforms, the Appian product team was agile in quickly customizing things for us.
Libor Černý - PeerSpot reviewer
I can usually find an answer to my issue on ARIS Community
From the start, there were some difficulties on how to create outputs since there wasn't a repository tool in version 6. However, in version 7, there has been a tool for creating standards for a company, and that tool has been very intuitive. While I have been using this tool for several years, other people just starting to use it find the learning curve steep. This tool is very robust and accommodates many roles, where people can participate from compliance, IT designers, etc. This can create problems for users who have no experience with similar tools. It took me a year before I felt comfortable with this tool, because when I came from university it was the first or second tool that I worked on. It took me a year to run every feature or use it for every possibility since this tool is very robust. We sometimes have to create the link to the server and the repository twice because it is deleted once for some unknown reason. Though, this is not a big problem. There should be a more intuitive tool when creating reports.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business Process Management (BPM) solutions are best for your needs.
847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
29%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which do you prefer - Appian or Camunda Platform?
Appian is fast when building simple to medium solutions. This solution offers simple drag-and-drop functionality with easy plug-and-play options. The initial setup was seamless and very easy to imp...
Is Appian a suitable solution for beginners who have no additional preparation?
Appian is actually pretty big on educating its users, including with courses that reward you with certifications. There is a whole section on their company’s website where you can check out the edu...
Is it easy to set up Appian or did you have to resort to professional help?
We had some issues when we were setting up Appian. It was quite surprising, since this is a low-code tool which, in its essence, means it is meant for business users and inexperienced beginners. So...
What do you like most about ARIS BPA?
The most valuable features of ARIS BPA are its flexibility and reporting.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ARIS BPA?
Pricing for ARIS BPA is average, not cheap or expensive. It's cost-effective and worth the money we pay.
What needs improvement with ARIS BPA?
I find it difficult to access the database as I want with direct querying. I must write scripts, which requires specific knowledge. Software AG could improve this by making the database more open. ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
ARIS, ARIS BPM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Hansard Global plc, Punch Taverns, Pirelli, Crawford & Company, EDP Renewables, Queensland Government Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning (, Bank of Tennessee
Tesco, Weifu, Airbus, Siemens, Proximus, Alicorp, Sekerbank, Bancor, Philips,Sky, Emirates NBD, Dubai Municipality, Suva, U.S. Army, Australia Post, Westfalen Weser Energie - ARIS serves customers across all industries and of every size worldwide. Companies trust ARIS as the market leader for process excellence with more than 30 years of experience in the market, 10 million users worldwide, from 1 user companies to the Fortune 500.
Find out what your peers are saying about ARIS BPA vs. Appian and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.