OutSystems Reviews

One of our clients is a union, like a labor union, and therefore they're using it to develop an engagement-type app, for member engagement applications.

Overall, it's a very nice solution.

The fact that you can run it on a lot of platforms is great. The client's goal is to create a mobile application that a lot of platforms, a lot of the old enterprise type platforms cannot do. The client wants to create something that you can put in every member's hand to engage with that member. The platform they were using before, for sure, cannot do that. This solution is very versatile in that sense.

There is literally a ton of stuff it can do. It's very flexible.

The scalability is very good.

The stability is great.

They have very good technical support.

You can run it on their cloud platform or you can run it on your own cloud platform. It's your choice where you run it. If you don't like their cloud, then you can go to somebody else's cloud and run it there and they will install it on there for you.

The solution is costly.

The solution is still very new to me, and it's therefore hard for me to discuss missing features. I'm still learning and discovering.

I haven't been using the solution for that long. It's very new to me. It's likely been about two short months.

The stability is very good. I haven't run into any issues at all. The performance is reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's great.

The solution is much better suited to enterprise-level organizations.

The product is definitely scalable. You can go from, for example, 10 users to a million users. It's just a matter of how much hardware you put behind it. Everything runs on the cloud. Therefore, you just keep throwing more memory, more disc space, more processing power, et cetera. It's not a problem.

Tech support is very good. They have online support and they have a support number as well that you can call. You can initiate a support case and they usually get back to you probably within three to four hours, maximum. They are very, very helpful and responsive. We are quite satisfied with the level of service.

I didn't do the setup myself. That was actually done by OutSystems. I can't speak to how easy or difficult the process is, or how long the deployment takes. I don't have any insights in that sense.

We had OutSystems handle the installation for us. We did not handle the process on our own.

The cost of the product is very high and would price out smaller organizations.

My client pays for the solution. Therefore, I have no visibility of the cost. I can't speak to the licensing or the pricing, or the terms of use.

We've also looked at Mendix and Vinyl. We looked at Gartner and compared them with this product.

I'm an external consultant. I have a few different clients. I have no relationship OutSystems directly.

I played a little bit with OutSystems. I have one of my other clients on an OutSystems user. I'm in the process of just learning. I am trying it out. I have a computer consultant that is helping me. There are certain things that I'm looking at, in general. 

The OutSystems platform is really nice, however, it's very expensive for small to medium-sized businesses. I have one customer that's an enterprise-sized organization that can afford OutSystems, however, there are a lot of my other clients that are not that large. Vinyl might be a better solution for them.

I'd recommend the solution, however, I would suggest those considering the solution to do their homework first. Look at Gartner and other opinions. Understand what you are getting into, and then decide.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

We don't sell OutSystems as a separate solution. We sell it as a platform. And then you win a lot of solutions on top of it. So that can be a second process, it can be a middle phase, it can be a portal, it can be many things, but it is useful for small apps to complete ERP systems and everything in-between.

It supports implementing Agile at scale, as it enables working in an iterative way, and it is very fast. Time to value as a result has dropped significantly!

What I like most about this solution is that it does automatic dependency checking in enterprise environments, which means that the application will automatically test if it can work in the environment of the customer or not. Instead of only having to find it out when it is too late. Normally, if you build software, you test it and then you deploy it. In the real world, it sometimes happens that it does not work and then you quite often have to figure out why is it happening. So this step is completely taken away because OutSystems tests the functionality of the software against the existing systems in an automatic session and that is very valuable.

Something that can be improved is that I would like them to be a little more flexible in the area of containerization. They're currently running on Docker on Windows, but I think they should also support Docker on Linus too. Needs a little more effort.

I've worked with OutSystems for many years now - I've worked with it, I've implemented it, and we use it in our company too.

OutSystems is extremely stable. We are replacing complete back-end systems with it, and are in progress to go complete mainframe replacements with it.

You can go to huge back-ends with OutSystems - so it is definitely a scalable solution.

The technical support is quite good, although it could be better: it currently fluctuates a little depending on how busy they are. Also it depends on your contract (what level of support you have).

The initial setup is super simple and you can do it from your desktop. That is if you only want to implement the platform, but if you have a more complex enterprise setting, then it will be a little more complex and you will have to do some configuration, and up-front think about what functionality you expect to need (particularly if you chose to run on a native AWS or Azure environment so that you can make full use of all the functionality of those 2 CLoud environments. If you do not know exactly how the platform works and what it can do, you can implement certain things and redo a few things. But that's not a deficit. More power comes with more responsibility, l always say. 

That depends on the kind of solution you are building and at what speed: the more you build, the higher the ROI.

For a single application, it's too expensive, but that's also not what the OutSystems aims for. Personally I don't think that's the smart approach. Their model is really based on platform and not every customer is ready to adopt a platform at the start. So, as a result, they actually limit their own success and results at the moment. But that isn't a huge issue. If you look at the value of the platform, I think the pricing is fair.

We looked at multiple alternatives, including (but not limited to) Appian, Betty Blocks, Mendix, Kony , Pega etc. They all have their own stronger and weaker points, yet we chose OutSystems as it is the most suitable platform for an Enterprise environment. As we do end2end transformations, this is why we chose OutSystems.

I will rate OutSystems a nine out of ten because if you look at other solutions, they do not have the functionality, the scalability and the performance of OutSystems, even if their prices are lower. So if you need a platform for a large organization, OutSystems is the one. 

To make it the perfect solution, it needs improvement in the AI capability. I would say that it would be nice to augment the functionality for the citizen development even further and augment the cloud's platform controls so that you can more easily run in a hybrid cloud environment too. Next to better branching options.

A word of advice to others is that they should align the business and IT because many people look at it from a technical point of view. And that is another really smart thing to do because it is really about driving the value. Because I've seen customers that bought either mandates or OutSystems or any other platforms and a lot of them had difficulties in getting the value out of it. And the reason was because if the IT or individual departments don't know how to define the proper user requirements, and then it is too difficult to successfully deploy it. It is therefore very important for the business and IT team to work together because that is the most common mistake people make. 

The solution can be used to develop apps, websites, and core applications. We are working for an insurance company on an application to digitize hundreds of documents. We also work for a bank on an application to manage time and time sheets.

It is easy to develop things. It is much easier to develop applications with the product’s IDE.

OutSystems is creating a new platform on the cloud called ODC. The new version could be improved.

I have been using the solution for about five years.

The tool is quite stable. It depends on the way we use it.

Our clients are medium and large enterprises.

My team contacts support. The support responds quite well.

Positive

We have used some local platforms before.

The initial setup is straightforward. Normally, the solution is cloud-based, but it depends on the clients. For the setup of the platform, we must have a contract and license from OutSystems. The setup takes one to three weeks.

The return on investment is difficult to measure, but the time to market is much faster.

OutSystems has a lot of traction in Portugal. We are studying Mendix and Appian to see if they could be adequate in some cases. Some clients don't have the capacity to support OutSystems, or they might be using other tools. We want to adapt to other platforms and tools. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

I have used it for a company in Saudi Arabia. The application was mainly focused on transportation. The other application is a recent upgrade.

I love OutSystems because, as a manager and someone who has experience with various traditional development technologies (approximately 20 technologies), it provides a standard approach. Unlike other companies where there is no development standard, with OutSystems, we have our own standard. This makes it easier when transitioning between developers or onboarding new team members.

It's not easy to master OutSystems within the first month. Even if you have ten years of experience, like me, it will take about two to three months to explore everything. For example, customizing a header or integrating a video is not easy. 

Many people assume that mastering OutSystems is as simple as drag and drop, but for specific tasks, you need someone with development experience, preferably a senior or expert with over five years of experience. 

Sometimes it requires both skills, someone who knows how to develop and add script code or extensions to our system. However, there are also times when it is easy. Let's say around seventy percent of the time; it's easy. Customizing the user interface, aside from the header, is relatively straightforward, although I did encounter difficulties with the header. 

Another example is working with live video, which is also not easy.

I have been using OutSystems for one year.

It is very stable. I would rate the stability a nine out of ten. 

The scalability of OutSystems is not bad. I know someone who conducted a scalability test. They used SCC Solutions, a telecom company with a great team of developers. They encountered some issues compared to what OutSystems claimed. However, I believe you always need to have a package that can handle more users than OutSystems recommends. 

If they suggest an eight-gigahertz processor, you should go for a better specification. But overall, it's not a major problem. Just make sure to exceed the recommended specifications. OutSystems is widely used in many regions. It's extensively utilized in the UK and Australia, as I have experience working with these countries. However, in some countries, traffic and other factors can make it more challenging.

I did contact the customer service and support team, but they mostly provide general IT support.

I believe there is room for improvement in technical support. However, they are good and responsible in terms of providing documentation and guidance to help you.

I believe you would need someone who is already good in development or has a logical understanding of development. OutSystems has four layers: the timers and processes layer, the interface layer, the version layer, and the database layer. 

Sometimes, when you add a module from the first layer, it doesn't work because it needs to be compatible and supported by the OutSystems platform. Many components or modules from the first layer are often incomplete or non-functional when compared to the later layers. 

Therefore, you need to comprehend the logic and then integrate it. It's not always straightforward. There are challenges involved. 

If you don't have someone who is already skilled in development, most of the time, you won't succeed. I believe you need a certain level of intelligence to excel in OutSystems. You have to be intelligent, like in development. 

I've brought in many developers who weren't skilled in development and put them in our system. They excelled at all the traditional tasks but when I asked for any custom work, it took them around one month to finish.

The deployment process is very easy. It involves just one publish button. They call it the "one publish" button.

In our system, there are always many challenges in development. For example, you don't need an administrator or a developer because we have something called architecture AI. It can evaluate your application and determine if it follows the best practices or not. We already have a baseline of good practice cases or standards for our system, so we're not far from the best practices. There are certain things you can't do directly, like calling a server action. Instead, you need to use client actions. 

There are many perspectives like this that you need to consider. Otherwise, it won't work. For example, you can't simply drag and drop a client action inside a server action. 

I believe anyone would require about two to three months of training, and they would need to build their own application. The issue in our system is that sometimes developers are only skilled in either logic or UI. I think it's important to train people to be proficient in all aspects.

There is an annual cost of approximately 23k. So sometimes, you need to wait for a return on investment. It also requires skilled individuals who know how to utilize this technology and train others. Finding good developers isn't easy because most of the people who work with OutSystems come from Big Data or have multiple engineering backgrounds. We face difficulties in finding the right people, and I think this is a common issue across platforms. Nonetheless, I consider it a unique feature.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. I still believe in our system, despite some limitations in traditional development. There is always room for improvement. 

I think they are constantly making progress and adding new features. However, sometimes it's not easy to achieve customizations.

I am using OutSystems in internal workflow processes for approving expenses.

The solution has helped us, but it's no longer a strategic choice for us. We are not investing anymore in this platform. We realized the value of using OutSystems if you have an internal development capability. We've been using the solution mostly in outsourcing for development tasks, and it doesn't make much sense to us, to pay the amount for the solution for the capital gains to go to the external provider we use for the development.

If I have a large team of developers, eventually using the solution would make sense. That's not the case. In my business model for IT, I do not have any internal development capability. I'd rather do it without a rapid development platform because the savings go to the provider. It doesn't go to me. I have to pay for the ticket and then I have to pay additional costs for the development. It doesn't make any sense. It is a good solution and technology, it only does not fit our use case.

The most valuable feature of OutSystems with discipline and the development processes. Instead of each developer doing tasks on their own with their own approach, et cetera, the solution would help bring some organization to the development process. 

I have been using OutSystems for approximately five years.

We did not experience a time when the solution did not perform, the solution is stable.

I rate the stability of OutSystems an eight out of ten.

The solution can scale. However, the catch is the pricing has become more and more expensive in the last few years. Consumption is increasing, and the price has increased a lot.

We have approximately 200 users using this solution in my company.

The support is not provided by OutSystems themselves. It's the service vendors, the integrators. There is a shortage of skilled workers that are knowledgeable of the tweaks of the platform and the shortcuts that can increase the productivity of using it.

We are using ServiceNow and it's depicted as a container for OutSystems. It's not the same, but it has the capability of doing some type of rapid development, and we are using it more and more.

The largest obstacle currently associated with OutSystems is its high cost and limited availability of skilled personnel. Despite being a rapid application development platform, having a highly skilled individual familiar with the platform can be much more beneficial than an inexperienced individual. Because there is a shortage of people with the necessary OutSystems skills, utilizing the platform can become expensive. This makes little sense, considering that a rapid application development platform should be accessible to the average person. However, having a highly skilled individual can greatly increase productivity, making the cost worthwhile.

I rate the initial setup of OutSystems a four out of ten.

I have not seen a return on investment using OutSystems.

OutSystems is expensive, and they changed the pricing model in the last couple of years.  It's changing too much and it's becoming unstable. They are constantly shifting their prices based on users, courses, and other factors.

To ensure that we will be able to benefit from leveraging internal development capability, I would suggest using a tool, such as OutSystems. With this solution, it is possible to increase the average productivity of the existing team of developers. Even a small increase of two to three percent can lead to significant gains. However, if there is a limited number of developers, it may be difficult to realize substantial productivity gains from using OutSystems.

I rate OutSystems a seven out of ten.

Customer track and trace. We get information from SAP which is updated later by carriers (via EDI). The user interface is built in OutSystems.

Development timeframe and deliveries on sprints. Customers can check the progress on a weekly basis and provide adjustments and comments right away.

Agile development. I love that you save a lot of time on development and can focus on logic and business requirements.

Mobile apps need improvement.

No issues with stability.

No issues with scalability.

Technical support is a 10 out of 10.

We did not have a previous solution. We started the department using OutSystems with the goal of creating applications for our internal customers (departments and warehouse customers) to help their main businesses.

Setup was straightforward. I was not there at that time, but I know that it was very smooth. The developer at the time was trained by OutSystems and this helped with the first applications.

It is still very expensive, so small companies can’t generally afford it. We hope that this changes. Still, the time saving on development and delivery is worth the value.

Agile development is really worth it. Depending on the size of your department – and requirements – you don’t need a big development team. The same developer can take care of all steps: analysis, development, implementation, support.

We use OutSystems for the same purpose as Mendix, but we recommend Mendix for mobile applications and OutSystems for B2C or B2B web portals. OutSystems has strong features for creating web-based portals or eCommerce marketplaces.

Mendix supports Java, while OutSystems supports .NET. We are using the latest versions of OutSystems. We are partnered with Mendix and OutSystems. We have access to their partner portal, so we don't need to worry about developing applications, proofs of concept, or prototypes using OutSystems.

OutSystems has on-premise and cloud versions. It can be deployed on AWS, Azure, or GCP. OutSystems is available as a Platform-as-a-Service, as well. OutSystems can be hosted on Azure, GCP, or AWS, and you can deploy OutSystems components on OutSystems PaaS. 

The architecture of OutSystems is quite simple, and the features are similar to Mendix's. OutSystems has connectors for different enterprise apps and solid reporting capabilities. You can also integrate with any content management platform like SharePoint or Adobe Enterprise Manager, or something like that. You can also create and integrate workflows. 

We'd like OutSystems to add stronger workflow-based automation similar to what Appian offers. It needs more workflow modeling and RPA features.

I have been using OutSystems for the last three years.

Like Mendix, OutSystems has a highly scalable and flexible architecture. 

We are an OutSystems partner, so I have an excellent rapport with alliance managers and their technical architecture team and technical support. They're incredibly supportive. I rate OutSystems eight out of 10. 

Positive

We are using almost all the local solutions, including OutSystems, Mendix, Appian, etc.

Setting up OutSystems is straightforward. 

OutSystems isn't expensive. It's very similar to the cost of Mendix. If customers have a good relationship with OutSystems or Mendix, they can get a better price. The solutions have a similar pricing model, including licenses for single or multiple users.

I rate OutSystems nine out of 10. OutSystems is the market leader in the local area space on the Gartner Magic Quadrant. As a user, I can say OutSystems is on par with Mendix, and the features are similar, so now it depends on the use case. 

For example, some customers prefer Mendix because they have SAP ecosystems, so they will go with Mendix because it offers native SAP support. Mendix has SAP adapters that are all license-free. These are cost reasons people might choose Mendix. However, there are some cases where an SAP might go for OutSystems because the license is a bit cheaper.

Our use case is mainly for the manual control systems.

There are about 20 developers using this solution in my company.

The scratch coding is useful. The solution is easy to understand.

React is very easy to use for an experienced software developer.

It's difficult to do the component version control. I would like them to add more studying materials.

I have been using this solution for about six months.

Some systems have over 1,000 end users. It's very stable for heavy duty operation.

It's scalable.

Technical support is good.

For one developer to use, the cost is around $5,000.

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10.