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Appian vs Hyland OnBase 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 Low-Code Development Platforms
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (6th), Rapid Application Development Software (5th), Process Mining (6th)
Hyland OnBase
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
19th
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (5th)
 

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 Hyland OnBase is 0.3%, down from 0.4% 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.
Phemy Lekalakala - PeerSpot reviewer
Stable content and workflow management solution with a valuable retention module
We use this solution for record management and digitization of records. We also use it for workflows and to build online forms The retention module is one of the most valuable features. Whatever we scan onto the system can be identified and we are notified when the records are due to be disposed.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The process models provide self-documenting systems."
"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 beneficial aspect of Appian is its data management capabilities and the process engine in general."
"The solution's most valuable features are the regular periodic and quarterly updates, they are very useful updates. They keep improving the solution more often, and that helps the platform or code always be up to date with the latest features."
"Process Modeling enables creation of business process workflows. You can create complex business workflows in a visual manner, and it is also easy to debug/monitor."
"Appian's most valuable feature is that we can create end-to-end process workflows with minimum turnaround."
"With low-code, we don't need a lot of coding, and then from the plumbing perspective, there is a complete CI/CD pipeline that exists within Appian that can be leveraged for open deployment."
"The solution is very developed and we are not taking full advantage of its functionalities."
"I like the cloud and its integrability."
"Hyland OnBase is valued for its security, especially for those in the finance domain who require data confidentiality."
"The most valuable features are that it's very secure and provides audit trails for our documents."
"The solution's most valuable features are integration and flexibility."
"The product's initial setup phase is not difficult."
"It provided data security features, allowing restrictions on sensitive documents, such as who could view or modify them."
"Integrating Hyland OnBase with our systems enabled us to automate document designs and templates, which was extremely helpful in the finance and banking industry."
 

Cons

"Appian could improve their customer-facing initiatives."
"Sometimes, clients expect us to implement ERP using Appian, which is very complicated. In such cases, I don't believe that Appian is a good tool for that."
"We would like to have more granular control for interface styling."
"One room for improvement is the ease of UI UX development, like in OutSystems and Mendix."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I would like to see more features for enterprises. They would also benefit from adding documentation and training on their site."
"The migration is a bit difficult in the tool."
"Software malfunctioning usually occurs when we receive documents from external sources."
"The dashboards do have some room for improvement as compared to the other vendors which are there in the market."
"The application could potentially be more open-source, allowing integration with more solutions."
"An area for improvement would be the training - getting our people up to speed on how to use it required more training than we expected due to the complexity of the solution."
"The look and feel could be better. The integration with the user could be better. It could also be more user-friendly."
"We are struggling with duplicates and would like to have OCR functionality when using this solution."
"The solution’s initial setup is a little difficult."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution offers a monthly subscription model. That's what we use. I recall it being about $90 a month. They do have different tiers."
"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."
"The price of this solution is a little high here in Mongolia."
"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."
"When it comes to pricing, it's definitely not affordable. However, it really depends on the requirements that you're seeking from the solution."
"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."
"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."
"There are a number of different types of licenses. There are concurrent licenses, individual licenses and imaging licenses."
"OnBase is reasonably priced."
"They can do better in terms of the pricing model. It is a really expensive tool in Latin America. They should have different prices for different regions."
"The solution costs around $6,000 per month."
"The tool's price is high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
29%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
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 Hyland OnBase?
The solution is very developed and we are not taking full advantage of its functionalities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hyland OnBase?
As we had an enterprise license, we were not limited in terms of user access. We also paid for workflow licenses, which allowed up to 250 concurrent users.
What needs improvement with Hyland OnBase?
We found the size of images to be a restriction, though this may have been due to the API used rather than the Hyland application. The application could potentially be more open-source, allowing in...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
OnBase
 

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
Honda France Industries, Hill County Texas, Hylant Group, ING Lease France, State of South Carolina, Syracuse University, Swindon College, Rhode Island Department of Human Services, Rochester Institute of Technology, Moen, Odense University Hospital
Find out what your peers are saying about Appian vs. Hyland OnBase and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.