Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Appian vs Oracle Application Express (APEX) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 19, 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 Rapid Application Development Software
10th
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (9th), Process Automation (7th), Process Mining (7th)
Oracle Application Express ...
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
3rd
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Development Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Rapid Application Development Software category, the mindshare of Appian is 7.8%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Application Express (APEX) is 7.5%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rapid Application Development Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Oracle Application Express (APEX)7.5%
Appian7.8%
Other84.7%
Rapid Application Development Software
 

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.
Rodrigo-Mesquita - PeerSpot reviewer
Rapid application development empowers big projects in months
The ability to quickly develop applications without needing to code a lot is very valuable. It is very quick to create a page, and one can use AI to speed up software development. It is easy to learn. In my company, we could develop a very big application in a couple of months.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 solution has a lot of strong features for the financial industry, it is very easy to use."
"Even with an on-premise implementation, the scalability is still high, so it is easy to scale up."
"There is no need to worry about vulnerabilities in the system, because Appian built a secure system​."
"The valuable features include process automation, Appian Portal, and Appian RPA."
"The process models provide self-documenting systems."
"There is a version coming out every six months with performance improvements."
"Low code development: Code can be developed pretty quickly which leads to less turnaround time for automation of business processes."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"This is a good application for quickly creating public applications."
"A user interface is relatively simple to create."
"Personally, I would say that Oracle Application Express (APEX) is a powerful tool...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."
"I like that Oracle Application Express (APEX) is powerful and attractive, allowing my organization to modernize forms within two months. I also found its PWA feature very powerful because you can produce substantial mobile applications."
"The valuable features are charts, reports, and search engines."
"The product is easy to use."
"Oracle APEX is very easy to use and comes with a lot of ready-made components that speed up the process of creating reports and dashboards."
 

Cons

"It is also not easy to learn. Training tutorials could be improved."
"The performance is pretty good, but the distortions need to be optimized in order for it to work well."
"My only request is that they decrease the license costs."
"We have clients that want to use Office 365, Microsoft Analytics, and Power Apps. Appian just isn't the same as using something specifically designed to cater to the Microsoft Suite."
"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 should be more flexibility for the developers to choose the look and feel of the UI. They should have a better ability to design their widgets and customize them with different colors, shapes, and sizes. That is a limitation that could be improved upon."
"The solution could improve by being more responsive when dealing with large quantities of data. Additionally, they can make the decision or rules engine better. It cannot handle too many rules or too many decisions at once."
"One of the areas that Appian is working on is to improve its UI capabilities and give more flexibility to the UI."
"The grid reports contain a lot of bugs."
"The product's stability has certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Being able to only design with HTML and CSS can be limiting as to what can be accomplished."
"The solution does not support the Linux platform."
"The product must provide more triggers."
"In terms of improvement, there should be a greater focus on AI and machine learning tools in Oracle APEX."
"We would like to see tighter integration with the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure."
"The collaboration and the workflow engine could use some improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"You can't really test the software properly without actually buying the license first."
"When it comes to pricing, it's definitely not affordable. However, it really depends on the requirements that you're seeking from the solution."
"Licensing of Appian is less expensive when compared to other BPMs in the market."
"The cost is calculated on a per-user basis. It might be expensive for small and mid-sized enterprises."
"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 not very cheap. It's on the expensive side."
"I believe APEX comes bundled with the database, including autonomous database and other related database products, so the pricing is quite reasonable."
"I believe that the solution's pricing is high."
"We have a full Oracle E-Business Suite license, and we use that license to develop applications. There's no license required for developing Oracle applications."
"APEX itslelf is a free product, but you will need to license peripheral components."
"Apex is not priced separately; instead, it is associated with the Oracle database. A free option for Oracle database and Apex can be downloaded and installed on this complimentary database version. This aligns with our current approach."
"Oracle Application Express (APEX) is free, so this is another magic of the solution. You just get charged for the database license, which I don't need."
"The solution is cheap. It's a free solution. I rate the solution's pricing a six or seven out of ten."
"I rate the product's price as ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low price."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Rapid Application Development Software solutions are best for your needs.
870,701 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

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 Business28
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise28
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Application Express (APEX)?
I consider Oracle Application Express (APEX) to be good value for the money because it has infinite quality for money since it's included in any Oracle database license. It's free once you have the...
What needs improvement with Oracle Application Express (APEX)?
One of the things that could be done to improve Oracle Application Express (APEX) is if Oracle decided to open it up to other databases. It needs to be an enterprise database; therefore, it needs t...
 

Also Known As

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
Oracle APEX
 

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
Hepart AG, pharmasol, SATLOG, Collège Bois-de-Boulogne
Find out what your peers are saying about Appian vs. Oracle Application Express (APEX) and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
870,701 professionals have used our research since 2012.