Appian vs Mendix comparison

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.

Mendix is a low-code application development platform that helps your organization accelerate its application development lifecycle. The solution is designed to enable you to create software faster by abstracting and automating the development process for better business outcomes at speed and scale. Mendix has many key capabilities, including a tailored IDE for every developer, built-in collaboration tools for team development, feedback management, agile project management, the ability to build a truly responsive design across devices, and much more.

Mendix Features

Mendix has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

• App development
• Multi-experience
• Artificial intelligence
• Intelligent automation
• Data integration
• Atlas UI framework
• Cloud-native scaling
• Single-click deployment
• User-based security
• Version control
• Automated testing
• Comprehensive admin suite

Mendix Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Mendix. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

• Efficient and easy to learn: Mendix allows business users and developers to build and deploy sophisticated multi-channel apps with a model-driven development platform that is much more efficient and easier to learn than traditional technologies.

• Simple and responsive UI: Mendix allows business engineers to create an optimal user experience through predefined layouts for smartphone, tablet, and desktop user interfaces.

• Native device functions: Mendix offers out-of-the-box widgets for native device functions. Mendix developers who are building a hybrid app can easily drag and drop a widget as a building block into an app without any further coding.

• End-to-end mobile app dev flow: Mendix supports the end-to-end mobile app development flow, which makes it simple and intuitive for any developer to build mobile apps that can be part of larger multi-channel applications integrated with back-end apps and services.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the Mendix solution.

PeerSpot user Somnath G., Solution Architect and LowCode Practice Lead at a tech services company, says, "What I found most valuable in Mendix is that it's very much suitable for mobile apps such as native Android or IOS supported mobile apps. The multiple features of the platform are very, very attractive and very popular. Mendix has technical features such as microflows and nanoflows. You can also access data models in the platform. These are the features that are very, very strong in Mendix. I got my hands dirty on other low-code platforms, but I have not seen such strong features in them compared to the microflows, nanoflows, and data model access that are in Mendix, including creating and integration. The platform has out-of-the-box adapters or out-of-the-box-connectors that you can integrate with different interface applications such as SAP, Salesforce, Oracle EBS, etc."

Sameer V., Consulting Manager at Deloitte, mentions, “Their native mobile capability is very good. In general, the way they launch the product has been great. Their product launching strategy is far better than any other platform. I work in OutSystems and Mendix. They tend to be more on the legacy side, OutSystems. With this solution, the product launching strategy is very, very agile. I really like when they roll out their updates, which are very, very frequent.”

Robert B., Solutions Architect at a computer software company, explains, The solution is just very quick and responsive. The initial setup is very straightforward, and those implementing the product do not have to be very technologically advanced in order to manage the process.”