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Appian vs Bonita 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Appian
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
7th
Ranking in Process Automation
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Rapid Application Development Software (5th), Low-Code Development Platforms (4th), Process Mining (6th)
Bonita
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
14th
Ranking in Process Automation
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (10th)
 

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 Bonita is 3.7%, up from 3.0% 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.
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

"Even with an on-premise implementation, the scalability is still high, so it is easy to scale up."
"Appian is easy to install and set up, and it does not come out with your audit. It has accessible process orchestration and process management. With Appian, the time to market is much faster."
"The product has a very good mobile app."
"It's a stable product."
"We appreciate the drag and drop functionality and the easy to access plug and play features."
"What I found most valuable in Appian is that it lets you drill down on multiple things through the structure of the reporting and UI side. It's also low-code, yet it results in quick deliverables."
"The solution has a lot of strong features for the financial industry, it is very easy to use."
"The most valuable features are the low coding and low code data."
"Development of forms and flows."
"It is a great product that is powerful in developing applications."
"The most valuable features of Bonita are the connectors, detailed documentation, and web applications. The documentation was useful because it is how I learned how to use it."
"Process automation with Bonita BPM is really easy."
"The user interface is better than all of the open-source BPMs that I have tried."
"The solution is easy to use."
"I really enjoy using the workflow management."
"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."
 

Cons

"The tool itself is pretty good, but the main area that we struggled with was the backend. The frontend development is really good, but the backend modeling can be streamlined a little bit. There are good integrations, but tying them through the data layer and then up into the frontend could be improved a little bit. It does read/write on the data source, and you can configure it to just write or just read, but there is a little bit of work involved."
"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."
"There are some restrictions with respect to using external components within Appian. So, for example, if we do not have a particular feature available, there's a long cycle of getting approvals and all of that. That does not offer flexibility, which definitely can be improved on."
"There could be a scope of enhancement for capturing the variety of use cases."
"While Appian is generally flexible, it's rigid in some ways. It takes longer to do something that isn't available out of the box."
"The solution needs more features. For example, a way to connect to our viewing database, to record, and more interface and component design."
"From a reseller's point of view, subscription licensing could be improved to be more cost-effective, especially for new prospects and smaller investments."
"Lacks integration with other products."
"The main issue with Bonita is that the workspace crashes sometimes."
"Bonita must add a rule engine. We are a 360-degree partner of Bonita. We can integrate with any kind of rule engine. We have a dashboard related to engine performance, but getting a configurable dashboard for the Buildium or transactional data will add value."
"We are struggling a bit with integrations."
"The interface is advanced and quite good, but it could improve."
"The dashboard has limited features."
"I have run into a lot of problems because there is not enough documentation."
"The community edition has limited module functionality. If they could release some of the functionality that's available in the enterprise edition that would be helpful to those learning to use the solution."
"It would be nice to have a wizard to help walk through the development process and create a backbone."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When it comes to pricing, it's definitely not affordable. However, it really depends on the requirements that you're seeking from the solution."
"The price of this solution is a little high here in Mongolia."
"It's good value for the price."
"BPM done right is a huge value proposition for almost any company, and with Appian's low code rapid development model, the ROI can be huge, while the break-even point should be accelerated tremendously."
"The license is a bit expensive and the pricing model is sometimes confusing for new users or business users. It is difficult for them to know what volume of usage they will have to be able to purchase the best-suited license at the beginning."
"Licensing of Appian is less expensive when compared to other BPMs in the market."
"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 price of the solution is reasonable."
"We are using the Community Version, which can be used free of charge."
"The product's pricing is acceptable. Pricing is yearly."
"You pay an annual fee and can have an unlimited number of processes and users."
"I am using the free version of Bonita."
"The Community Edition comes free of charge."
"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."
"The Enterprise edition is very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
28%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Educational Organization
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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...
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: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.