ARIS Cloud vs Appian comparison

Appian and Software AG are both solutions in the Business Process Management (BPM) category. Appian is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.0, while Software AG is ranked #21 with an average rating of 6.8. Appian holds a 6.2% mindshare in BPM, compared to Software AG’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Appian users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of Software AG users who would recommend it.

Appian

Read 60 Appian reviews

6,398 Views
4,538 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

ARIS Cloud

Read 13 ARIS Cloud reviews

619 Views
504 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Appian

ARIS Cloud

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

Appian and ARIS Cloud compete in the business process management category, with Appian having an edge in rapid deployment and low-code development, while ARIS Cloud is preferred for user-friendly modeling and collaboration.

Features: Appian is known for its rapid low-code development and cohesive architecture that simplifies integration and reduces implementation time. It also offers robust form-building and quick app deployment. ARIS Cloud excels in collaborative process modeling and enterprise adaptability, with an intuitive interface that is user-friendly for team collaboration.

Room for Improvement: Appian needs better support for complex models, more architectural flexibility, improved integration with development tools, and enhanced mobile capabilities. ARIS Cloud can improve its mapping capabilities, user process intuitiveness, and stability, as well as enhance its security and support options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Appian provides flexible deployment models across public, private, and hybrid clouds, with seamless integration and superior customer support for high-severity issues. ARIS Cloud offers versatile deployment but lags in customer service responsiveness compared to Appian, which delivers consistent service globally.

Pricing and ROI: Appian is considered expensive but delivers a significant ROI through rapid deployment and efficient processes, with pricing models appealing across various regions. ARIS Cloud offers cost-effective licensing, particularly for cloud deployments, with competitive pricing but potentially higher initial investment costs that might challenge smaller organizations.

To learn more, read our detailed ARIS Cloud vs. Appian Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

ARIS Cloud vs. Appian

January 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 832,138 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Appian

Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)

5th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Process Automation (4th), Rapid Application Development Software (5th), Low-Code Development Platforms (4th), Process Mining (6th)

ARIS Cloud

Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)

21st

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Design (15th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of Appian is 6.2%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ARIS Cloud is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Process Management (BPM)

Featured Reviews

Srimanta Pandit

Senior Consultant at Protiviti consulting

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.

Read full review

BPMexp67

BPM Expert at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

The dynamic and flexible approach, akin to outsourcing, is beneficial for both small and large enterprises

Security is a consideration when migrating to the cloud. It's crucial to address potential risks and include security measures in the contract with the cloud provider. While there haven't been issues so far, acknowledging the risks is essential, especially when dealing with applications like ARIS. With the increasing capabilities and advancements in technology, many current challenges are likely to be resolved in the future. Despite security concerns, utilizing opportunities in the cloud and the internet offers significant advantages. Regarding areas for improvement, security remains a key consideration, especially when deploying ARIS in the cloud. However, this is not solely a product-specific concern but also pertains to the cloud environment. Beyond security, the strength of ARIS lies in its ability to serve as a unified repository for enterprise architecture. Having all information in one place facilitates alignment with the company's vision, strategy, and business objectives. Reducing redundancies across departments is crucial for maintaining service quality and minimizing costs. It ensures that everyone is on the same page, fostering collaboration and preventing discrepancies in information and services. While I currently use Guardis for this purpose, the concept of enterprise architecture is applicable, and ARIS stands as a valuable tool to support business processes and technology alignment within the company.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The process models provide self-documenting systems."

"Even with an on-premise implementation, the scalability is still high, so it is easy to scale up."

"The initial setup is easy."

"What stands out are the speed of the product, the quick, easy development, and visual diagramming."

"Technical support is helpful."

"Appian is a very low code platform. It's very easy to learn and use."

"Appian's most valuable feature is that we can create end-to-end process workflows with minimum turnaround."

"There is no need to worry about vulnerabilities in the system, because Appian built a secure system."

More Appian pros

"Aris Connect opens collaboration opportunities between team members within the organization where they can actually submit change requests, navigate processes, and offer comments. It opens up the potential for BPM within the organization. I didn't see such an angle of a BPM portal with any other products. So I would say that's the best selling feature."

"It's very easy to collaborate with. It's very user-friendly"

"The cloud version has the advantage that you can work on it from anywhere."

"It has proved that it also works in complex circumstances."

"In terms of using the cloud version, if you're somebody who, like myself, has got a lot of experience and understands measures and notations and things, basically it's unrestricted. You can do so many things. You can do your Archimaze, you can do BPMN. There's lots of stuff you can do in there and if you're a good field person and you cause yourself re-using things or whatever, then it's very nice, it's very easy to use."

"In terms of UX design, somebody who has not had experience with ARIS will be able to use it very easily."

"Signavio is more intuitive, allowing users with no prior knowledge to navigate and understand its functionality more readily."

"In the end, what stands out to me is the ease of using the cloud. I don't see any distinct or unique advantages in business process modeling software compared to other application software. The cloud simplifies operations and removes many operational complexities, which is a significant benefit."

More ARIS Cloud pros

Cons

"We would like to have more granular control for interface styling."

"There is no UI customization possible."

"Something I would like to see improved is an SQL database connection."

"It is also not easy to learn. Training tutorials could be improved."

"Appian could be improved by making it a strict, no-code platform with free-built process packs."

"The solution needs more features. For example, a way to connect to our viewing database, to record, and more interface and component design."

"A point of improvement would be the SAIL forms. The built-in tool used to generate forms does not have debugging support (to view local variables as they change on live preview, and step-by-step valuation) which is a big drawback for form development. Moreover, the script language used to build SAIL forms does not support inheritance or lambda expressions (functions as arguments of other functions), which makes the code base more verbose."

"It would be useful if they could create an academy or forum in the future to help active users answer questions they have about the solution."

More Appian cons

"The stability was poor, with frequent outages."

"The support team of ARIS Cloud has certain shortcomings where improvements are required."

"It would be very helpful if this solution were more open and could integrate with other solutions like ServiceNow."

"The trial version of this solution does not give you enough time to learn how to use it, so it should be extended to one year."

"I encounter challenges, and I am using Yuri to establish principles, define rules, conduct training sessions, and offer coaching to application owners, SMEs, and individuals responsible for technologies. This aids in providing support during these migrations. Security is a consideration when migrating to the cloud. It's crucial to address potential risks and include security measures in the contract with the cloud provider. While there haven't been issues so far, acknowledging the risks is essential, especially when dealing with applications like ARIS. With the increasing capabilities and advancements in technology, many current challenges are likely to be resolved in the future. Despite security concerns, utilizing opportunities in the cloud and the internet offers significant advantages. Regarding areas for improvement, security remains a key consideration, especially when deploying ARIS in the cloud. However, this is not solely a product-specific concern but also pertains to the cloud environment. Beyond security, the strength of ARIS lies in its ability to serve as a unified repository for enterprise architecture. Having all information in one place facilitates alignment with the company's vision, strategy, and business objectives. Reducing redundancies across departments is crucial for maintaining service quality and minimizing costs. It ensures that everyone is on the same page, fostering collaboration and preventing discrepancies in information and services. While I currently use Guardis for this purpose, the concept of enterprise architecture is applicable, and ARIS stands as a valuable tool to support business processes and technology alignment within the company."

"If you have multiple tiers of approvals into that update of the policy, or the process design itself, it takes ages to prepare those internal flows within the system."

"Initial setup is rather complex. You have to find a way to isolate the complexity, and find common ground."

"The price is quite high. This is one weak point of the solution."

More ARIS Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Product pricing compared to some of the earlier vendors, like IBM, CA, and Oracle, is quite well-priced. Although, we do feel that as we increase the number of users and the workload increases, we will have to spend more."

"The cost is a bit higher than other low-code competitors, OutSystems and Mendix. The price needs to be more competitive."

"The price is high."

"More flexibility in the licensing model is still needed because initially there were customers who are looking at only one or two use cases of business areas, but now the business areas are changing and there is a larger scope. One license model may not fit everyone. They need to be a little more flexible on the licensing model."

"You can't really test the software properly without actually buying the license first."

"It is expensive, but powerful. I would recommend comparing against cheaper licensing products and open source."

"The cost is calculated on a per-user basis. It might be expensive for small and mid-sized enterprises."

"It's good value for the price."

More Appian pricing and cost advice

"The cloud deployment is not more expensive. In the cloud, you pay for what you use, and there's no need for maintaining infrastructure or additional personnel, making it cost-effective. On-premises deployment, on the other hand, involves infrastructure costs and maintenance expenses."

"The licensing model of ARIS Cloud is leaner and more beneficial to the customer. The new license model is great. With the on-premise, you needed to subscribe to many more types of licenses. Now there are licensed bundles available on the cloud."

"There is a student version of this solution that can be used for free."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business Process Management (BPM) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

30%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Energy/Utilities Company

12%

Insurance Company

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about ARIS Cloud?

The solution's most valuable feature stems from its being very easy to use, making it a very user-friendly tool.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ARIS Cloud?

From what I understand, ARIS Cloud is a very expensive solution. The company opted for a cost-effective route, leading to limited functionality.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ARIS Cloud?

The mapping capability of ARIS Cloud lags behind other less recognized players, making it difficult to map processes. The platform was not intuitive, leading to a complex setup and requiring signif...

See all answers

Comparisons

OutSystems vs Appian

Compared 14% of the time

Microsoft Power Apps vs Appian

Compared 11% of the time

ServiceNow vs Appian

Compared 10% of the time

Camunda vs Appian

Compared 10% of the time

Salesforce Platform vs Appian

Compared 8% of the time

More Appian Competitors

ARIS Architect and Designer vs ARIS Cloud

Compared 29% of the time

IBM Blueworks Live vs ARIS Cloud

Compared 19% of the time

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs ARIS Cloud

Compared 17% of the time

Salesforce Platform vs ARIS Cloud

Compared 7% of the time

MEGA HOPEX vs ARIS Cloud

Compared 6% of the time

More ARIS Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Appian

February 2025

Download Appian product report

Buyer's Guide

ARIS Cloud

February 2025

Download ARIS Cloud product report

Also Known As

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS

Process Live, ARIS Simulation, ARIS Aware, ARIS Connect

Overview

Appian is a unified low-code platform and solution used by businesses to build enterprise applications and workflows. This product adapts to the needs of clients and the technologies they are already using to combine their data in a single workflow and maximize resources. The platform has four main components through which it transforms the work process for companies of various sizes. They are:

Complete automation: Through complete automation, companies are able to coordinate and manage employees, existing systems, bots, data, and artificial intelligence (AI) in a single workflow. The solution offers a way to centrally manage all third-party automation vendors as well.
Low-code applications: Appian offers the ability to build applications faster with visual development and low-code tools. All applications are ready-made to be suitable for mobile.
Low-code data: Appian lets companies source data from multiple types of sources, eliminating the need for data migration. Through no-code and low-code solutions and industry-standard connectors, the platform also eliminates the need for data silos.
Enterprise ready: The platform offers options for companies to scale their businesses to an enterprise level without complications.

Appian is utilized across a diverse set of industries, including automotive and manufacturing, energy and utilities, education, financial services, telecom and media, transportation, retail, insurance, healthcare, and life sciences. The most frequent use cases of Appian are customer journey, governance, risk and compliance, operational efficiency, supply chain, distributed order management, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) management.

Appian Features

Appian has various features that allow users to create solutions for their businesses. These features can be separated into a few groups according to function, including automation, low-code application development, and integrations and data. Some of the most frequently used features of Appian include:

Robotic process automation (RPA): Users of Appian can assign software bots to perform rules-based tasks that need to be repeated over a set course of time. This can improve efficiency and performance within an organization while saving human resources.
Intelligent document processing: The tool offers a feature for quick and accurate extraction and structuring of data. This can reduce time and costs for organizations because it eliminates the need for outsourcing such services.
AI: Appian utilizes artificial intelligence to enhance applications, workflows, and automation. AI is also used to address complex processes and unique situations.
Business rules: Organizations can automate and simplify work processes while adhering to their operating procedures.
Application development: Appian provides a low-code development feature that allows users to deploy applications over ten times faster than through conventional approaches. This feature not only allows for quick application building, but also applications that run on multiple types of platforms, seamless data integration, and business scalability.
Integrations and data: Appian allows for data integration from a wide array of sources without the need for migration. This contributes to easy access to data across systems, real-time data insights, improved user experience, and accelerated development.

Appian Benefits

The benefits of using Appian include:

The solution ensures seamless organization growth, as it supports various UX patterns, common data schemes, and upgrades, used to facilitate application development on a bigger scale.
Appian can increase process speed and deliver applications considerably faster compared to conventional development.
The platform is easy to use and suitable for complete beginners to build applications and workflows.
Appian offers a variety of design tools that facilitate development and deployment.
Appian offers detailed real-time data insight which allows organizations to access relevant information about their processes as they are developing.
The solution offers clients the ability to move data between the cloud, on-premise, and hybrid configurations.
The platform is easy to optimize, which allows businesses to utilize it according to their personal needs.
Appian offers connectivity across web, mobile, email, voice, and chat, providing a multi-channel experience for companies and their clients.

Reviews from Real Users

A practice leader - digital process automation at a computer software company values Appian highly because the product is easy to develop, low-code, and has a good user interface.

Alan G., an advisory board member at Codecon VR, Appian offers a clear application life cycle, easy to learn documentation, and comes with a fundamentals course.

Appian

ARIS is the market-leading solution for professional business process management and modeling. Whether you want to document the "as-is" state of your operations for quality or certification reasons or design the "to-be" in terms of continuous improvement in your transformation program, ARIS is the best choice for establishing a single source of truth regarding all process excellence topics in your organization. It is for any organization looking to digitally transform their business, increase operational excellence and customer experience and ensure compliance in execution. ARIS helps you to make the most out of your processes with Process Mining, Risk & Compliance Management, RPA and much more.

What makes the difference?

The most comprehensive platform for process excellence in the market

Easy to use

Covers business & IT architecture from all angles

Full flexibility and >100 diagram types

Customer-driven development based on best practices

Strong partner ecosystem

ARIS is the market-leading solution for any organization and ideally suited to digitally transform the organization, increase operational excellence and customer experience and ensure compliance in execution.

Software AG

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 and 10 million users worldwide, from 1 user companies to the Fortune 500.

Buyer's Guide

ARIS Cloud vs. Appian

January 2025

Free Report: ARIS Cloud vs. Appian

Find out what your peers are saying about ARIS Cloud vs. Appian and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our ARIS Cloud vs. Appian report.

See our list of best Business Process Management (BPM) vendors.

We monitor all Business Process Management (BPM) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.