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Appian vs Bonita comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

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)
9th
Ranking in Process Automation
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Rapid Application Development Software (10th), Low-Code Development Platforms (4th), Process Mining (7th)
Bonita
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
17th
Ranking in Process Automation
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of Appian is 5.3%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Bonita is 3.1%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Appian5.3%
Bonita3.1%
Other91.6%
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

Featured Reviews

Kunal Sharda - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience enables seamless automation and elevates process efficiency while embracing innovative technologies
The features of Appian that have proven to be the most beneficial are its capability to create processes and integrate with external systems while ensuring data consistency across all the systems. The latest features of Appian are quite useful around the UI/UX design and the artificial intelligence integrations. Appian is aiding in leveraging AI technologies in multiple ways: one way is for developers, as they make development efficient and quick by enabling developer co-pilots across various phases of the application, which helps design Appian quickly and provides suggestions along the way. Another way is through AI Skills, which can be integrated anywhere in the process model to leverage artificial intelligence for tasks such as extracting data from documents, summarizing information from documents or long paragraphs, and building custom prompts with Appian. Appian also utilizes AI for business users, providing a feature called process each view, enabling business users to create their own dashboards, reports, and gain insights from their data and processes using artificial intelligence. It's multi-fold and always growing.
Paparao Nadipineni - PeerSpot reviewer
A simple and lightweight college course automation system with third-party integrations
The initial setup is straightforward and can be completed with the environment within an hour. First, take the latest from the git repository and check the git code to the monitor studio and a bar file, a deployable Bonita archive file. Then, take that process to the Bonita server, running at runtime on another server. Finally, deploy and enable it by selecting the proper organization.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Appian's most valuable features are the quick time it takes to develop for the market. It's easy and faster than other BPM solutions."
"The most productive aspect of Appian lies in its ability to develop interfaces, particularly user interfaces. Creating user interfaces is highly productive, when these interfaces are integrated with the original database. In such cases, using record types proves to be a very efficient method of handling data. The synergy between interfaces and record types enhances productivity."
"The application life cycle is very clear. I started learning it and giving some workshops to my team. Creating the users and the building is very structured. Documentation is nice and it's easy to learn."
"The most valuable features of Appian are workflow management and the ease with which you can build the UI."
"Appian helps you do a lot of things. It's easy to configure and build an application platform, and it offers a lot of features that you find in an RPA solution. It's flexible so you can reuse it for a variety of use cases."
"The tool is very flexible."
"It has good integrations. We were looking for out-of-the-box integration with both on-prem and publicly accessible data sources. We needed integration with the cloud, OData, our REST API feed, and then on-prem passthrough to go to a SQL database or on-prem APIs through Azure local deployment, etc."
"Technical support is helpful."
"This product is very easy-to-use and user-friendly."
"Bonita is simple and lightweight and is flexible to integrate with third-party systems. The UI is now flexible, whereas it was previously rigid. Any technology can be used as a frontend, including ReactJS, Angular, and others."
"Its user-friendliness, along with the availability of comprehensive and clear documentation on the website is the most valuable."
"Development of forms and flows."
"Compared to other products on the market, Bonita presents a pretty acceptable level of robustness."
"We use the tool to validate and give access to the users. It is for access management."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The user interface is better than all of the open-source BPMs that I have tried."
 

Cons

"​Appian is easy to set up, but JBoss is complex. JBoss is the application server for running Appian."
"Offline capabilities and responsive capabilities could be better. The mobility features of Appian platform are still evolving."
"Authoring tool is slow to use resulted in limitations on how quickly solutions can be built."
"We would like to see more reduced latency. We would like to make sure that the scale-out factor will be much more as workloads come in."
"Appian could be improved by making it a strict, no-code platform with free-built process packs."
"Occasionally, certain pre-made modules may not be necessary and customers may desire greater customization options. Instead of being limited to pre-designed features, they may prefer a more flexible version that allows for greater customization."
"Even though the company has made great improvements in online documentation, featuring rich material which includes case studies of real-life use cases, the material could definitely be better in quality and coverage of use cases."
"We'd like improved functionality for testing new devices."
"The interface is advanced and quite good, but it could improve."
"We are struggling a bit with integrations."
"I should be able to park the tasks that are within a process in a kind of container, and dynamically, a super admin should be able to connect these processes. This kind of feature might be helpful."
"Bonita can improve by offering more flexibility. The developer does not receive the code of the application to modify it. Most of the other solutions I have used allow the developers to change or improve the code that is generated."
"It is missing some important features that other products have."
"There could be an improvement in IoT connectivity."
"There is a need for more components in the library and additional customization options for these components."
"Installation could be made easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is calculated on a per-user basis. It might be expensive for small and mid-sized enterprises."
"The pricing can be a little confusing to customers."
"It is expensive, but powerful. I would recommend comparing against cheaper licensing products and open source."
"The cost is a bit higher than other low-code competitors, OutSystems and Mendix. The price needs to be more competitive."
"I'm sure it is cost-effective, but right now, we're just toying around with it. So, I don't have any hard numbers."
"We will have to have a dialogue or negotiate a price for future use. To start with, it is a reasonable price. As we go ahead, we will have to make sure the costs are inline with our expectations as we grow our user base and workloads."
"If you're doing an enterprise-wide digital transformation, Appian is worthwhile, but not for just one or two use cases because the license costs are higher."
"It's an enterprise tool and can be used by enterprise only. So it's a very expensive tool."
"The Community Edition comes free of charge."
"We are using the Community Version, which can be used free of charge."
"The Enterprise edition is very expensive."
"I am using the free version of Bonita."
"The product is not cheaper, not costlier; it is reasonable. Bonita’s license is very flexible, with options to meet the needs of different customers and clients. Previously, it was less flexible, but now, many different licensing options are available."
"I believe this is a very good financial choice."
"have installed the image of Bonita BPM on Amazon AWS and there is just one option to use and pay for."
"Licensing cost for the Enterprise edition comes out to be around 40,000 a year. There is also a Community edition, which is free. Some customers can go for the Community edition, but some of them require the Enterprise edition. Big companies go for the Enterprise edition, which comes with a lot of additional features such as a mobile app."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise41
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise11
 

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...
How does Bonita compare with Camunda Platform?
One of the things we like best about Bonita is that you can create without coding - it is a low-code platform. With Bonita, you can build the entire mechanism using the GUI, it’s that simple. You c...
What do you like most about Bonita?
The user interface is easy to use.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
Bonita 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
With more than 1000 customers in 75 countries, and its ecosystem of more than 120,000 members, Bonitasoft is the largest provider of open-source Business Process Management, Low-code and Digital Transformation software worldwide.
Find out what your peers are saying about Appian vs. Bonita and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.