OutSystems Reviews

We have used OutSystems to develop a simple portal in the cloud. This portal is mainly for internal use and not for actual customers or external users.

It's generally not for daily usage, so there's only a small team that uses OutSystems as their primary tool in their day-to-day work, but because it's open for any and all kinds of developers, there are probably hundreds of users throughout our organization.

I like the mobile features the most, and there are also various features around the portal we created that I enjoy.

We're still pretty new to OutSystems, though it has become apparent to us that, even though it's a so-called low-code platform, there are still some things that require a programmer. For example, you don't really need a lot of programming skill to work with OutSystems, but if you want to do something that's a bit more 'feature-ish', then you still need some programming experience.

Since we first started using OutSystems, they switched their language support from Java and .NET to .NET only, which was a bit of a surprise. Their language support could be better in this sense, although on our resource side it is now a bit more flexible.

On the whole, most of the features that we've required are all there. But there are some upcoming features that we are looking forward to. For example, the AI modules. They also have third-party vendors that produce different connectors, but I am hoping that OutSystems itself will start to create more innovative connectors or complementary solutions that we will find of use.

We have been using OutSystems in our organization for about one and a half years now.

So far there have been no major issues so I would say it's pretty stable. 

We haven't yet reached the level that we need to seriously consider scaling, but from my experience it isn't so easy to scale any kind of closed platform where you start without the source. They may offer you the source later when migrating, but it's generally not so easy to queue up onto another platform or move to another vendor, so I expect that the scalability in this respect might be lower than we would like.

So far, most of our support is coming from internal sectors of our organization. I think it's easy enough to resolve all the issues we come across within the company.

We do use another similar product which isn't very well-known. It's a product from Germany and we use it mainly for internal use in the same way that we use OutSystems.

Comparatively, as a low-code kind of platform, OutSystems is the most intuitive to use, but if you have an experienced programmer in Java and .NET like myself, then the other platform is probably a bit more flexible.

It's basically a simple portal that we developed in-house.

The implementation details really depend on the project and the type of organization. For example, because we are quite a sizeable organization, there are other processes that we need to fulfill in order to maintain compliance before we push our projects to go live. Thus, for us, the full implementation took about six months. Thankfully, the maintenance is pretty low.

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.

I recommend OutSystems, but I would also point out to others that they're not the only product out there that deserves attention.

I would rate OutSystems an eight out of ten.

It is kind of used for reactive and web applications. We're also working on the mobile applications as well. I use it in a banking environment. 

I've been onboarded there and then I'm just doing the activities for both internet banking as well as mobile banking, handling both servers as well as the front end.

Currently, this banking application can consist of both mobile as well as internet banking. We have it for eight different countries. For mobile, we have eight different applications, and for internet banking, it is a single application, however, it'll support eight entities in eight countries including Bahrain, the UK, Iraq, et cetera.

Normally we use it in a banking setup. Usually, transfer payment and then the benefits pay gateway, are those kinds of integrations we are doing currently for mobile. The onboarding process we do, the login for that process, et cetera, offer good features. 

We have one feature called multiple payments where we're able to select multiple beneficiaries and we're able to create ad hoc beneficiaries. Ad hoc beneficiaries mean there's no need to add the benefits directly. We can enter the beneficiary upon the number and we can do the payment. We can add multiple beneficiaries in a single go and then we will do the validation. 

We have a back office application as well where we can configure based upon the user as well as based upon the segment. We can configure per day.

We're able to do transformations. We can do the validation before calling the API. Once validation is done, we will show the set of validation. Either it can be the OTP validation or it can be a token validation. Once that is done, we can call the final API, which calls the code banking system for doing the payments.

We've acquired a new bank and would like to integrate e-services into the offering. We'd like to be able to have an option for doing an activation directly from the internet banking area so that there is no need to contact the bank directly. Having e-services capabilities would be ideal. 

There are a lot of enhancements and new features coming.

Currently, in mobile applications, we don't have push notifications. We're hoping that will come in the new release. 

I've been using the solution for 3.5 years. 

It's stable enough. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution is scalable. If I want to do any changes or anything, it has a one-click publish. There's no need to re-upload anything. We make changes, we expand, and it is a one-click deployment.

Currently, in Bahrain alone, there are 40,000 users on the app. We have the same for other countries as well. We have deployed more production for three entities - Bahrain, Egypt, and the UK. Currently, for the other three entities, it is in progress. We are planning to move those changes at the end of September.

We can add users as necessary. In LifeTime, we're able to handle user management. We're able to create a set of users and we can assign roles. It can be an admin role, like full control where it's able to do publishing, feedbacking, everything. We can receive a set of users and control access to certain areas. 

Technical support is very good. If there is any production issue or anything, we can raise the ticket and they're immediately helping. If there are any deployment changes that get affected, it means we have control of all directions also. Therefore, we can manage everything properly, without any effect, actually. Everything is completely handed down to OutSystems and it is more stable. If any deployment causes us an issue we can revert back to the older version and it'll work fine.

Before that, I used a server platform called Forti. It is similar to the OutSystems Platform. We were able to use mobile and web publications and able to create using that.

I worked on an AD platform as well. 

Comparatively, I'm able to see OutSystems is very easy to maintain and easily fulfills the business requirements. 

The deployment and process depends upon the model we are selecting. Normally consider if we are selecting big models, it'll take around 30 to 40 minutes for making a deployment to set up 15 applications. For example, if it is a mobile application, it means if we can select only the application, it will take a maximum of five to ten minutes for creating the solution and deploying in the UIT of production. For internet banking, we use Windows authentication, ID logins. For mobile banking, we used third-party APIs. We used common plugins for the camera location and everything. We integrated with Apple, Google, and Apple Wallet also.

Everything is completely handled in OutSystems, so we have a LifeTime available in OutSystems. Previously, we don't have LifeTime so we manually exported the solution and we deployed it in the UIT. With the help of LifeTime, we're able to see the versions and the differences. We can select the proper particular application and we can do the deployment. It is easy to maintain and easy to deploy as well.

For doing the deployments, any changes, are completely handled on our side.

I'm not sure how the licensing is set up. I don't handle that aspect.

However, I am able to see it s very costly as compared to other platforms. That said, we see the benefit of paying so much. They provide a lot of options. 

While we use version 11.10.20 for service, the service center for LifeTime is 11.0. Currently, we need to upgrade that. The upgrade plan is in progress. We have had to start recently.

I'd recommend the solution to others. 

I would rate it eight out of ten.

The solution helps to build mobile and web applications on SOAP and REST. You can integrate it with backend systems by submitting a code.

The tool needs to improve the efficiency of its widgets.

I have been working with the solution since 2017.

The tool is very stable due to its strong architecture. The solution’s downtime is also very less. We have hardly had any issues. The product is able to route the traffic to another place if there are any issues.

The tool is scalable. It can accommodate changes in business requirements. My company has around 1000 users for the tool.

The product’s deployment is simple. The tool is a cloud solution. You need to setup an account and access its packages. You just need to download and install it.

The tool’s licensing is based on the user’s usage.

I would rate the solution a ten out of ten.

OutSystems is easy to use. 

I have been using OutSystems for six months.

OutSystems support is okay. 

Setting up OutSystems is easy. It take one or two hours. 

The price is okay. OutSystems isn't expensive. It's a mid-range solution.

I rate OutSystems nine out of 10. I recommend evaluating it as a POC first. If everything is okay, you can start.

One thing I like about OutSystems is that there's no lock-in. You can keep running your applications because it's on .NET and hosted centrally. That's one of the advantages I see there in terms of not having an IT strategy that has a dependency on a particular platform.

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.

We have been there with OutSystems for two and a half years to three years now. 

Stability could be from multiple perspectives. From an enterprise perspective, it is the stability of the company. For example, most of the enterprise ERPs are SAP, so I don't have to check twice if a product is okay. 

It's the IT strategy a company is taking, which is effectively what they're going to do for the next five years. They're going to onboard a lot of applications onto this platform. So stability-wise, of course, the scale of the company is not so big, whereas large enterprises could say that it's stable as an organization.

Coming to the other part of the stability which is at the platform-stability level, I think that the features and the support that they provide are quite good, and because it is horizontally scalable, so it doesn't matter there.

It has good scalability in terms of the target platforms, multi-tenancy, or hosting on multiple clouds.

My team has been interacting with technical support and their feedback is good. Their training is good. I think OutSystems provides one of the best trainings out of all similar platforms.

The development environment is quite easy. You install it out of the box, and it works. It's a one-click install there. I have not been involved with Enterprise setup, so I do not have any comments on that.

We primarily suggest the IT and OutSystems work together for the setup.

If I talk about enterprise-level implementation, we work very closely with Siemens, which is where Mendix comes from. We are partners with Siemens, and that's where it helps us in developing applications on Mendix because we get good community support there. I'm not sure how things are otherwise. 

For OutSystems, it is more of community support and a kind of library they have, in terms of the reference implementation of libraries, which can be applied.

For the industrial and enterprise nature of work, that is, for B2B scenarios, Mendix fares well. OutSystems might have a slight advantage for B2C scenarios. I would say that they are equivalent in most of the aspects. There are certain features that Mendix provides which OutSystems does not provide. Similarly, there are areas where OutSystems fares good but Mendix does not. I would rate Mendix and OutSystems the same. 

The initial adoption of Microsoft PowerApps is a little bit of a hurdle. If that's overcome, then other things would be reliant. When we talk about PowerApps, we talk about the whole Microsoft ecosystem, that is, Microsoft Flow, Microsoft PowerApps, Microsoft Power Automate, which effectively brings a lot of power in terms of an ecosystem. 

If I have to go with applications related to Microsoft Office 365, I might go for PowerApps. If I need external integrations and things, where they provide premium APIs and things, it becomes a little bit of a challenge. 

Development-wise, PowerApps could provide a free version. They always have but it's quite restricted. If you download OutSystems or Mendix, you could do anything with the free version. That's where, in terms of acceptance, PowerApps gets a little restrictive because you need a license to evaluate it. If it is not restricted, there'll be more adoption. Of course, you can restrict deployment, the size, and all that, but development capabilities should not be restricted.

The value proposition is not clearly visible out of these platforms as yet. Your penetration level will be decided based on if you are able to reach small and medium enterprises. If I compare something like Zoho with OutSystems, Zoho is getting good traction by purely focusing on the small and medium enterprises. These kinds of things could be game-changers in the future. 

That's where the licensing model becomes a little cryptic. Of course, for enterprise, it makes sense at certain times, and it does not at certain times. The licensing models are one of the things that could be improved there and changed in terms of adaptability.

OutSystems is quite a mature platform. OutSystems provides a lot of capabilities as such. However, it's not a one-size-fits-all kind of solution. Based on the needs, the platform that would be the most suitable one should be decided. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I use OutSystems' platform to build mobile apps for our customers as well as good old-fashioned web applications.

Before using Outsystems to develop a client's reporting systems, the process would take six months to complete a report. After using Outsystems, and building a custom application, report-building is one click away - and it only took us three months to build the custom application using OutSystems.

For me, the most valuable feature is the flexibility the tools give us to change as customer requirements change, 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.

The latest version of the app generation tools could be more user-friendly.

You can have your solution on the cloud or on-premise, it all depends how you develop your code. But from my 11 years experience, well-developed solutions don't have stability issues.

All platforms and languages have their limitations. If the solution is designed, from the beginning, to scale properly, there will be no problem at all with OutSystems. The way OutSytems works, it is not too hard to scale.

Technical support is good, always able to help.

Setup is not complex at all.

You should contact OutSystems for more details but my opinion is that it is not for small business budgets.

The conventional coding rules don't apply here. You need to have an open mind and let the platform take control from you at times.

We are a reseller and OutSystems is one of the products that we provide to our customers.

OutSystems allows you to do things really quickly.

This product requires very little maintenance, and it is easy to do as compared to traditional programming solutions.

The prices should be lower. It is a little bit too high for a small market.

I began working with OutSystems in 2014.

The stability of this product has been incredible. I would rate it a ten out of ten in this aspect.

We are in a small country and although this is a scalable product, that is not usually an issue for us.

The technical support is perfect.

I would rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

The pricing is an area that needs to be improved.

The subscription is billed on a yearly basis.

This is a product that I recommend for anybody who is digitalizing things. It's an incredible tool and you can do things very quickly. Certainly, you should look into it if you are going to implement any kind of application. Whether it is field service, internal applications, external websites, or something else that is related to the digitalization of processes, and where you have to interact with many systems for integration purposes, this is a good tool.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

The solution has helped our organization with the timely delivery of projects. We have seen more than a 100% increase in productivity across all the teams.

The solution's most valuable feature is its ability to organize the entire project view on one platform, including data, development, and processes.

The solution's ability to create and run automated tasks could be better. They should include data extracting and handling tools in the next release.

We have been using the solution for six years.

I rate the solution's stability a nine out of ten.

I rate the solution's scalability a ten out of ten.

The solution's initial setup process is easy for the cloud version. However, it is complicated for the on-premises version.

Our clients have seen a return on investment for the solution.

The solution is too expensive for small companies. Whereas, for large companies, it is worth the investment.

I advise others to ensure they have a long-term strategy for multiple projects while opting for the solution. Otherwise, it would be challenging to receive a return on investment.

The solution is good. I rate it a nine out of ten.