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Appian vs TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 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)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (4th), Rapid Application Development Software (5th), Low-Code Development Platforms (4th), Process Mining (5th)
TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
32nd
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of Appian is 6.5%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM is 0.5%, down from 0.6% 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.
GouravSuri - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for case management and business process management, but needs to improve the documentation part
The product was implemented for process automation in our company since TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM serves as a complete integration suite that helps manage external integrations as well. TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks integrates with the downstream and upstream systems while giving an endpoint that could either be REST or SOAP. With the inbuilt functionalities of the product, you need not worry about the load-managing capabilities of the tool since everything in the product is taken care of by the integration suite. Depending on the use cases, the business process management area can be used as a predefined flow. If there are factors that are going to be dependent on user actions, the flow has to be kept open-ended, after which you can use a case manager. TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM can be implemented in two methods, and the product supports both ways. The business processes that got optimized from the use of the product are mostly banking processes and investment banking processes. Wherever there are a lot of processes, a lot of people, and a lot of approvals, there is a need to have quick management without much coding and case management for which rapid development tools are useful. The state management part of the product is the most valuable in the product. With the integration capabilities of the product, it is possible to integrate with any of the external SOAP services. You don't have to do anything to integrate the SOAP services since all the underlying serialization and everything else is taken care of by the tool itself. There is no need to get involved in any coding activities, meaning there is zero code integration required. In any kind of product, the database becomes the bottleneck because you can scale it, and the processing part can be scalable, but at the end of the day, there is a formation of a bottleneck wherever transactions or databases are involved. In most of the business process management cases, concurrent users are not that high. The number of nodes can be scaled up. When it comes to the tool, the processing nodes can be scaled up on individual servers and multiple boxes. Like any other Java system, the scalability of TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM is node-based. There is a bottleneck when it comes to the database. To what extent the databases can be scaled up to support concurrent transactions is the only bottleneck when it comes to the solution. In the decision-making and analytics part, the new version of the product supports REST. TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks manages SOAP-based integrations. The product has become simpler for new commerce to learn. The product now offers simplicity to users. The documentation and usability of the product need improvement. The solution's adoption rate can go up after the documentation gets improved and more sample-based scenarios are provided. I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product has a very good mobile app."
"SAIL (Self-Assembling Interface Layer), a scripting language provided by Appian. It is the equivalent of JS and CSS. It allows creation of complex UIs which are also responsive. With SAIL, we have a single language for both the UI logic and its appearance. UI components can be built as reusable components and used in multiple UI interfaces."
"The setup is easy."
"There is no need to worry about vulnerabilities in the system, because Appian built a secure system​."
"Technical support is quite responsive."
"It's heavy on business processing in terms of logic, process workflows, and primarily on the process design modeler. Appian is really great at that. In terms of the full stack set from a low-code platform perspective, it's definitely an eye opener since it can be deployed via mobile app and on the web as well."
"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."
"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 scheduling and the calendar are very useful."
"The capacity for distributing the jobs in a workflow is an important feature."
"For specific situations this can be a good solution and a simplified interface to work with."
"It is the best product because of its stability. ActiveMatrix 5.x is highly stable in production, and the downtime is very low. I have worked on a lot of service projects, and the engine is very stable, robust, and scalable. The development and change requests can be pushed quickly, and the mapper activity and SSLT kind of features are also good. It is easy to do changes, testing, and deployment. Its deployment is very easy, and we can automate a lot of scripts for our on-premises solution. I work for an investment bank, and we have automated a lot of processes for our customers. Previously, we used to develop scripts and tools. With version 6.x, everything is moved to Maven and other things. Environment handling is done mostly through DevOps tools. As compared to Mulesoft, the deployment and configuration are very easy in TIBCO."
"The product's initial setup phase is straightforward."
 

Cons

"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 biggest areas of improvement would be in facilitating team development, DevOps, and integration with typical tools used in enterprise development (Jenkins, Subversion, etc.)"
"It would be useful if they could create an academy or forum in the future to help active users answer questions they have about the solution."
"One of the areas that Appian is working on is to improve its UI capabilities and give more flexibility to the UI."
"Appian has a few areas for improvement, which my organization raised with the Appian team. One is the Excel output which is limited to fifty columns when it should be up to two hundred or three hundred columns."
"Form creation and SAIL proprietary language still basically require programming. The claim a BA type can do everything is hogwash."
"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."
"Occasionally, certain pre-made modules may not be necessary and customers may desire greater customization options. Instead of being limited to pre-designed features, they may prefer a more flexible version that allows for greater customization."
"Technical support needs to be streamlined."
"The scalability of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The maintenance of the package could be improved."
"ActiveMatrix is in the middle field. MuleDB is more on the engineering side with Java and other things. SnapLogic is there are on the higher side with very low coding. TIBCO stays in the middle like IBM or Oracle. TIBCO can move towards IBM's way of doing. IBM has a big market and many varieties of products and good integration, which TIBCO doesn't have. It can have better integration. TIBCO's transition to the cloud is a little slow. As compared to Dell, Boomi, and Mulesoft. TIBCO took the steps a little later. TIBCO's ID was far better and easier to work with previously. TIBCO's 5.x ID was very good, and the development environment and the transition were easy. Version 6.5 onwards, it is a stable product, but it would be good if they can do something similar to version 5.4 with version 6. They should concentrate on this API market. It will give them the strength and the ability to grab the market back."
"The product is missing some means of addressing more complex BPM constructs and should interface with more platforms easily."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 cost depends on the number of users, although I recommend taking an unlimited license."
"The price of the solution is reasonable and is paid annually. The price of the solution depends on how many users use the solution. It can range from $50,000 to $200,000. For example, for 20,000 users the price can be approximately $200,000."
"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."
"The price of this solution is a little high here in Mongolia."
"Product pricing compared to some of the earlier vendors, like IBM, CA, and Oracle, is quite well-priced. Although, we do feel that as we increase the number of users and the workload increases, we will have to spend more."
"It is fully managed, and I don't believe there are any additional expenses."
"You can't really test the software properly without actually buying the license first."
"TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM is an expensive tool compared to others."
"There are some discussions about perpetual licenses and conversions, but I'm not much familiar with them."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
30%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
45%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM?
The product's initial setup phase is straightforward.
What needs improvement with TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM?
The product fails to offer good integration with REST, making it an area where improvements are required. The scalability of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required. The d...
What is your primary use case for TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM?
I use the solution in my company for case management and business process management. In general, there are two kinds of use cases attached to the product. For case management, you need to have sol...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
No data available
 

Learn More

 

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
ADIS, Citi, Bank of Montreal, First Citizens Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Appian vs. TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.