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Oracle Application Express (APEX) vs OutSystems comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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

Oracle Application Express ...
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
3rd
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
Development Platforms (2nd)
OutSystems
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
4th
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (1st), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Low-Code Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Oracle Application Express (APEX) is 5.2%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OutSystems is 4.8%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Low-Code Development Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
OutSystems4.8%
Oracle Application Express (APEX)5.2%
Other90.0%
Low-Code Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Rodrigo-Mesquita - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software developer at QV Systems
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.
MA
Software Developer Advisor at NTT DATA Services
OutSystems facilitates rapid application development and effective project management
What I find valuable about OutSystems is that it has a very good learning curve for developers. Within two weeks, we can gain knowledge in OutSystems, and it is very easy to learn. With my background being .NET, OutSystems is straightforward to learn, which is beneficial. Developing applications in OutSystems is good, and the flexibility allowed by OutSystems for application development is excellent compared to my experiences with other low-code technologies, where I've faced some challenges. The clean separation of concerns in the architecture provided by OutSystems is a key benefit compared to other platforms. OutSystems integrates with our existing tech infrastructure and provides flexible integration. If we want to integrate with third-party services, OutSystems has SOAP and RESTful services that allow us to consume external services, integrate with external databases such as SQL or Oracle, and includes integration studio for writing custom .NET code. After developing a .NET component, we can reference it in service studio, creating a reference file that makes integration easy. OutSystems officially supports various integrations and also includes an API discovery tool for consuming and exposing services, providing a lot of information about incoming URLs, similar to how we use Postman.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The support is great; whenever I encounter an issue and raise an SR to Oracle, I receive a fast response from their side."
"I like how we can actively develop and customize APEX because it's on the same database."
"Oracle APEX improved our organization by making it possible for us to implement agile project development."
"It's fairly easy to make a user-friendly interface."
"If I have a database and therefore structured data, and I want to create an application to work with it, it's the quickest possible environment that I can do it in."
"By using Express, we are able to load the data and integrate it into our data map."
"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward."
"The valuable features are charts, reports, and search engines."
"The most important features of this tool are its visual modeling capabilities and drag and drop functionality. You can see what you are coding which makes it easy to understand and maintain. They have also created a big revolution in digital transformation by introducing native mobile app development under the same IDE."
"It provides for faster development and better software releases."
"It is a scalable solution...The initial setup of OutSystems is easy."
"The technical support is perfect."
"The most valuable features of OutSystems are the user-friendly platform. The drag-and-drop feature is great. I have used other rapid application development tools before, but they were not as advanced as OutSystems. With the previous tools, I had to manually build certain features, but OutSystems does it automatically."
"Integrations with external systems with SOAP and REST are easy to implement off-the-shelf, but a developer can always implement specific libraries for other integrations."
"The most valuable feature of OutSystems is the drag and drop and toolchains in the small AI developing environment. Additionally, the documentation is helpful."
"We have no complaints surrounding both the scalability and stability of this solution."
 

Cons

"The problem of sending emails arises when Oracle Application Express (APEX) is inside Oracle Cloud Infrastructure since it is a bit complicated or difficult to understand where to take care of the setup part to be able to just send out emails properly."
"The solution does not include a default or custom template like other products."
"Being able to only design with HTML and CSS can be limiting as to what can be accomplished."
"An area for improvement in Oracle Application Express (APEX) is the slow reporting because pulling the report for two months, one year, three years, etc., is very slow. It takes more than thirty minutes to download the report. There's also room for improvement in integrating Oracle Application Express (APEX) with other vendors, such as open-source solutions through API integration. I believe Oracle is working on this feature, or the issue could be because my organization is using an older version of Oracle Application Express (APEX). The Oracle database also has to be improved because it's still lacking in some packages, triggers, and indexes."
"It would be beneficial to include WebSockets so that you can see real-time updates."
"It would be highly beneficial if APEX were an all-in-one platform capable of handling all aspects of application development."
"The product must provide more triggers."
"The solution's layout could be improved for report generation to allow more configuration."
"OutSystems could improve by being more like GitHub. It would be more helpful for us for division management and version control for our application."
"We have performance issues while fetching bulk data."
"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."
"We had some lagging issues under high data loads, and the solution needed to be customized to improve this."
"The PDD framework can't be used for the behavioral-driven development way of working."
"The resource availability needs to be increased."
"The initial setup is a little difficult."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is cheap. It's a free solution. I rate the solution's pricing a six or seven out of ten."
"The solution is moderately priced, where it is neither cheap nor expensive."
"Oracle Application Express (APEX) comes with Oracle. The Oracle price itself. I do not know the exact cost. Oracle is flexible on its price. If you overspend on your hardware, then I don't think you will overpay. I heard that Oracle is more expensive than other databases, but when you consider Oracle is the best traditional relational database out there. You get what you pay for."
"It is expensive, but I don't know what the licensing cost is."
"I do not think this would be an ideal option for a small sized company or a startup when considering the salary requirements for Oracle DBA'a and developers."
"I believe that the solution's pricing is high."
"The tool is not expensive."
"To my understanding, my organization is using the free version of Oracle Application Express (APEX), but I'm unsure because I haven't checked the pricing or licensing cost for it."
"I think the pricing for OutSystems is comparable with similar solutions. I would place it somewhere in the middle. We pay for the bundle and don't pay anything extra in terms of licensing and other fees."
"You should contact OutSystems for more details but my opinion is that it is not for small business budgets."
"I believe they have two pricing options. One is approximately $4000 USD a year and the other is approximately $10,000 USD a year."
"There are no additional costs with the standard license."
"It is very high price."
"It is not an expensive product, especially if you have access to more features and deal with more projects."
"The solution is expensive. The platform is not suitable for all of my clients. I work with labor unions and other smaller organizations that would not be able to afford the platform's current pricing model. It would be beneficial if there were a scaled-down version or a tiered pricing option that would allow me to build an app or a web app that is more cost-effective for my clients. Currently, the platform's pricing is too high for many of my clients, who would not be able to afford something in the $50,000 to $100,000 range."
"OutSystems is a very expensive solution, and it has to be cheaper."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise28
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise31
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Oracle Application Express (APEX)?
I have only tried it with an Oracle database, not with other databases. For beginners, understanding the installation process can be challenging because documentation is limited. It is hard to unde...
Which solution is better for developing non-ITSM applications: OutSystems or Service Now?
The short answer is that OutSystems is far better for 2 main reasons. Firstly, with Service Now you are locked into that platform for good. The business model is to lock in and then keep pumping th...
What industries do you think OutSystems is most useful for?
I cannot really name an industry in which OutSystems cannot be beneficial. Who does not want to make top-notch applications that work in no time? And OutsyStems does exactly that. The low-code plat...
How did you decide which OutSystems edition was the best one for you?
We started using OutSystems fairly recently, so we are still on the free version of it. My company is still testing how we like the platform, but so far, we have been satisfied with it and will li...
 

Also Known As

Oracle APEX
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Hepart AG, pharmasol, SATLOG, Collège Bois-de-Boulogne
Randstad, Warner Brothers, HP, Intel, ING, Banco Popular, Thrivent Financial, Bacardi, Kent State University, Bacardi, FICO, ING, Vodafone, AbbVie, Estafeta, Siemens, Vopak
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle Application Express (APEX) vs. OutSystems and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.