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Appian vs SAP HCM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (7th), Process Automation (6th), Rapid Application Development Software (5th), Low-Code Development Platforms (4th), Process Mining (6th)
SAP HCM
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Benefits Administration (3rd), Talent Management (3rd), Cloud HCM (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Appian and SAP HCM aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Appian is designed for Business Process Management (BPM) and holds a mindshare of 6.1%, down 6.4% compared to last year.
SAP HCM, on the other hand, focuses on Cloud HCM, holds 13.1% mindshare, down 17.0% since last year.
Business Process Management (BPM)
Cloud HCM
 

Q&A Highlights

MK
Apr 17, 2023
 

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.
Renelia Villanueva - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient payroll processing with comprehensive attendance management
I am currently heading the payroll benefits and HRIS team here in Manila. We are using SAP HCM on-premises, and we implemented SuccessFactors focusing on Employee Central and GMPM SAP HCM has helped a lot due to the always changing government regulations pertaining to taxation, social security…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The low code functionality and being able to get applications faster to customers or to the market are valuable."
"It has very flexible adaptation and the ability to save and automate processes."
"The product has a very good mobile app."
"The most valuable feature is business automation."
"Compared to other code tools that I've seen, Appian has a more robust rules engine"
"The process models provide self-documenting systems."
"Write to Data Store Entity - Saving data in SQL databases is done easily using entities. Entities (CDTs in Appian terminology) define relationships and target schema tables via XSD files."
"The tech support is quite good."
"We have managed to consolidate our payroll for all India operations on this platform."
"The tool's best feature is SAP SuccessFactors."
"The platform is simple to use and has a user-friendly dashboard and integration features."
"We are satisfied with the reporting by SAP HCM."
"Scalability is excellent, and I would rate it ten out of ten."
"Recently, the localization versions for different countries were increased, and that added value to the solution."
"The integration provided by SAP between different modules is very good."
"We have features such as ABKRS based on the client's requirement, tariff and TMSTA, and so on."
 

Cons

"​Appian is easy to set up, but JBoss is complex. JBoss is the application server for running Appian."
"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."
"There are four areas I believe Appian could improve in. The first is a seamless contact center integration. Appian does not have a contact center feature. The second is advanced features in RPA. The third would be chatbot and email bot integration—while Appian comes with chatbot and email bot, it's not as mature as it should be, compared to the competition. The fourth area would be next best action, since there is not much of this sort of feature in Appian. These are all features which competitors' products have, and in a mature manner, whereas Appian lacks on these four areas. I see customers who are moving from Appian to Pega because these features are not in Appian."
"What could be improved is more on the front end perspective, like the user interface and the mobile application aspect."
"The ability of the interface to load automatic data is not great."
"I wouldn't say their response time is long, but it could be quicker."
"It has it's own built-in UI components and doesn't provide much flexibility to customize or extend those components."
"Form creation and SAIL proprietary language still basically require programming. The claim a BA type can do everything is hogwash."
"System usability is a challenge."
"Managing changes in applications can be challenging since it complicates testing and unit testing, resulting in longer testing phases. This time-consuming process often leaves little room for actual work."
"In my experience, SAP HCM and similar products are very good, but the focus now should be on providing features to encourage employee adoption. For example, accessing pay slips is a task that naturally drives adoption. However, AI tools that can prompt employees at the right time through the right application are needed for actions such as conducting surveys or gathering performance feedback."
"It takes a long time to apply an update patch to the system."
"SAP HCM cannot integrate with other third-party applications. One of the drawbacks we encounter with SAP HCM, specifically in payroll management, is the limitation regarding changing payroll areas within the same month. For instance, if an employee transitions from staff to non-staff status during the month, we face difficulties because the system doesn't allow us to change the payroll."
"I'm currently working for a state-owned government company, and we need to follow some standards and regulations. We also have a strategy to be followed. Sometimes the template and the format are not available in the SAP HCM, so we have to work around this limitation. The tax also sometimes changes in my country, and we have to redo everything to change the payroll calculations, benefits, and things like that. The talent management feature can be improved. It is currently very simple in SAP HCM. SAP is also very hard to integrate. In terms of monitoring, there are no monitoring tools, but as long as we take care of the disk capacity, there is no problem."
"It needs a lot of end user training as it is not intuitive at all."
"The product significantly improved our organization by automating many processes, which reduced paperwork and provided clearer, more accurate goals and competencies."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost depends on the number of users, although I recommend taking an unlimited license."
"It is fully managed, and I don't believe there are any additional expenses."
"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."
"We will have to have a dialogue or negotiate a price for future use. To start with, it is a reasonable price. As we go ahead, we will have to make sure the costs are inline with our expectations as we grow our user base and workloads."
"Licensing of Appian is less expensive when compared to other BPMs in the market."
"The license is not very cheap. It's on the expensive side."
"I think that if somebody is really serious at looking at business value, then by all means, the product is well worth the value. You get representative business value for the price that you pay for the product, and for the implementation of the product."
"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 terms on which you buy licenses might change due to the way they license in a particular product."
"We have an annual license for this solution, and the price depends on the number of users."
"The pricing is not reasonable at all."
"The pricing depends upon the specific model and number of user accounts included in a bundle."
"The cost of SAP HCM is high, the license should be reduced. SAP HCM has a lot of hidden costs."
"In my view, this product is a waste of money for SMB because there are much better products available and licensing is an issue."
"The product is expensive."
"The cost depends on the size of the organization. Compared to others, I'd say Oracle is number one, followed by Workday and SAP HCM."
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Answers from the Community

MK
Apr 17, 2023
Apr 17, 2023
Hi Michael, My top reasons to consider SAP SuccessFactors would be: 1. Robustness of the Core Employee Central. 2. GDPR Compliance and Audit tracking capability for transactions given the healthcare industry regulations. 3. Scalability of the solution, especially if your organization is spread over multiple geographical locations. 4. Vast support ecosystem and string tech capabilities. 5. La...
See 2 answers
Ashwin Bhadouria - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 27, 2023
Hi, is HCM the only requirement with the organization, or are other solutions also required? As far as HCM is concerned, SAP is comprehensive and can be tailored as per requirements. Thanks - Ashwin
Vasu Narasimha - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 17, 2023
Hi Michael, My top reasons to consider SAP SuccessFactors would be: 1. Robustness of the Core Employee Central. 2. GDPR Compliance and Audit tracking capability for transactions given the healthcare industry regulations. 3. Scalability of the solution, especially if your organization is spread over multiple geographical locations. 4. Vast support ecosystem and string tech capabilities. 5. Lastly, leverage SAP S/4HANA.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
30%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Retailer
6%
 

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 SAP HCM?
SAP HCM is the one of the best ERP for an organization with a small to large scale business. It has the most efficient payroll functionality. Regards : SAP HR classes in pune
What do you like most about SAP HCM?
HCM is a very important module that each organization should want to use. It will help any organization to calculate and control the cost of their human resources.
What is better, SAP HCM or SAP SuccessFactors?
When it comes to user experience, SuccessFactors is unquestionably superior, as it provides end users with a new experience and an advanced user interface. Additionally, the entire concept of SF is...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
SAP Human Capital Management
 

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
City of Cape Town, ADAMA Agricultural Solutions Ltd., TransAlta Corporation, Keolis, PT XL Axiata Tbk, National Football League (NFL), Plan International, Yoh, A Day & Zimmermann Company, China Talent Group (CTG TMO), Umicore S.A., Butterfield Bank, Skrill Group Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda, Apache, Automation Anywhere and others in Business Process Management (BPM). Updated: March 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.