We compared Appian and OutSystems based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
In summary, Appian is praised for its intuitive interface, customizable workflows, seamless integration, efficient task management, and robust reporting capabilities, with highly regarded customer support but improvements needed in UI, performance, scalability, and reporting features. On the other hand, OutSystems is valued for its ease of use, rapid application development, platform compatibility, scalability, built-in tools, and strong support, with positive feedback on pricing and ROI, although users desire increased speed in development, improved UI, more customization options, enhanced collaboration features, and smoother integration capabilities.
Features: Appian stands out for its intuitive interface, customizable workflows, seamless integration, task management, and powerful reporting capabilities. OutSystems, on the other hand, excels in ease of use, rapid app development, compatibility, scalability, tools, integration options, support system, time-saving, and cost-effectiveness.
Pricing and ROI: The setup cost for Appian product has been mentioned by users as requiring consideration. In contrast, OutSystems product has been described as having a straightforward and hassle-free setup cost., Appian users have expressed satisfaction with its efficiency in streamlining processes, decision-making capabilities, and ability to achieve business goals. They also find value in its automation features, resulting in time and cost savings. On the other hand, OutSystems users have reported increased efficiency, streamlined processes, improved productivity, and cost savings due to its ease of use, quick development time, and scalability.
Room for Improvement: Appian: Users have requested improvements in user interface, performance, scalability, and reporting features. OutSystems: Users seek increased performance, efficiency, and speed in development. They suggest intuitive UI, customization options, enhanced collaboration, and smoother integration capabilities.
Deployment and customer support: The reviews for Appian and OutSystems indicate that there may be differences in the time required for deployment, setup, and implementation. User feedback suggests that Appian users may mention different timeframes for deployment and setup, while OutSystems users mention specific timeframes for deployment and setup. It is important to carefully consider these differences when evaluating the products., Appian's customer service is highly regarded and praised by users. The support staff is knowledgeable, friendly, and willing to go the extra mile. OutSystems also has positive feedback, with customers appreciating prompt responses and helpful troubleshooting throughout the development process.
The summary above is based on 50 interviews we conducted recently with Appian and OutSystems users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"Even with an on-premise implementation, the scalability is still high, so it is easy to scale up."
"The agile manner that we require to create our workflows. This is probably the most critical part of our solution and the time it takes to start processing the solution."
"Form building capabilities and well thought out process modelling are key points to this product."
"The Application Designer is very user friendly. There are also lot of plug-ins that you can use and, for the most part, they are free."
"Appian's most valuable feature is that we can create end-to-end process workflows with minimum turnaround."
"Good workflow engines that bridge the gaps of processes."
"Technical support is quite responsive."
"The product's most valuable feature is the low code aspect of development. We can develop an end-to-end VPN solution using a single platform."
"There is literally a ton of stuff it can do. It's very flexible."
"For me, the most valuable feature is the flexibility the tools give us to change any customer requirements on the fly, when we are in a meeting. I also like how easy it is to deploy the code between environments and how easy it is to integrate OutSystems with other systems."
"Speed of delivery: We were able to reduce development time by 30%."
"It is much easier to develop applications with the product’s IDE."
"In terms of user support and community engagement, I rate the tool a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable features of OutSystems are the user interface, the flexibility to quickly integrate with almost anything in the system, and the ability to connect with databases."
"It provides for faster development and better software releases."
"The visual program of OutSystems is one of the major advantages of this solution."
"There is no UI customization possible."
"The UI of Appian is more internal. Recently, there has been an addition of an external user portal for the customer-facing stuff. It's still coming out."
"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."
"If that had more DevOps capabilities, it would be an excellent product."
"The solution needs more features. For example, a way to connect to our viewing database, to record, and more interface and component design."
"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."
"I would like to see more complete university tools. For example, with UiPath, I have had a good experience related to a free course in order to provide some users some different levels of knowledge. This extra training helps users not only use the solution but to develop further within the tool."
"Appian could include other applications that we could reuse for other customers, CRM for example."
"The technical features are good, but the actual commercialization is out of reach."
"When shared extensions are updated, all the applications are redeployed."
"The resource availability needs to be increased."
"The integration points need to be increased. People have also started to adopt this solution for their regular needs. That means it's not only the big enterprises that are adopting this solution. There are also small and medium enterprises that are adopting it. I've read that where you have large deployments, OutSystems starts to crumble a bit. That is the idea that no customer would know at the beginning and would also not like to hit the wall there. When it is on the client, there are a lot of applications already on low-code, and then suddenly you realize that you want to do some big applications, and you face hurdles. This is the general feedback for all such platforms."
"The initial setup is a little difficult."
"Writing custom code still needs to be done via Integration Studio. This might have been added to the IDE."
"The product could be improved if there was a shortcut, or predefined, predictable templates provided."
"I like the OutSystems platform. I am working on integrating it with another platform using APIs, however, it has proven to be difficult. The main issue I am facing is obtaining authorization tokens as well as access and refresh tokens. It may be due to my lack of knowledge of APIs as it is new to me."
Appian is ranked 5th in Low-Code Development Platforms with 58 reviews while OutSystems is ranked 3rd in Low-Code Development Platforms with 46 reviews. Appian is rated 8.4, while OutSystems is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Appian writes "Low resource consumption, easy setup, and stable". On the other hand, the top reviewer of OutSystems writes "The visual program provides the advantage of only requiring one skill set for both the front and backend ". Appian is most compared with Microsoft Power Apps, Camunda, ServiceNow, Pega BPM and Mendix, whereas OutSystems is most compared with Microsoft Power Apps, Mendix, ServiceNow, Oracle Application Express (APEX) and Pega BPM. See our Appian vs. OutSystems report.
See our list of best Low-Code Development Platforms vendors and best Rapid Application Development Software vendors.
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