Appian vs. Island vs. OutSystems

Appian works great for automating manual processes and integrating multiple systems through its toolset. It gives great flexibility for establishing rules for approvals, routings, escalations, and the like. Because of the low code toolset, it's very easy to deploy and make changes as needed as processes evolve and as the organization learns to utilize the system better. Minimal maintenance is required to support the applications build on the platform. Some of the automated testing integration with tools like Jenkins is limited so that may be an issue for some.

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The only reason I didn't gave the maximum rating is because it's not cheap, if you have a smaller company you can use some plugins instead depending on what you need. But I completely understand it's not safer than the Island browser. However, it would be great to have a simpler version for small companies too, that wouldn't require much testing to setup. Besides that, Island is my first choice when thinking about safety for remote workers.

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Well suited for internal exposure of business processes (invoicing, API layer to other systems, customer maintenance etc), whether a UI is required or not. Not so well suited for full fledged web design. An OutSystems application must serve one particular business need, if gets too much functionalities and responsibilities it tends to get chaotic and complex.

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• Allows at a glance workflow documentation which assists in the need we have for information readiation.
• Drag and drop interface for workflow development greatly speeds our apps time to market.
• Using the advanced features of Appian, we are able to create working sites in a fraction of the time it would take to do so using "traditional" development.

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• The agent can still see the customer's data that they need to help the customers, but without the ability to screenshot, copy and download outside the Island browser, that also prevent data leaks
• The organization also saves money without the need of hiring only local employees, people can download it on their personal desktops
• Can replace setups with VPN that are expensive or virtual desktops
• Blocks unsafe websites that can also copy the client and customer data

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• Developing end user interfaces with ease and speed with a modern look and feel.
• First class low code development to reduce time to market with visual programming
• Their technical support team is fast and responsive. We've yet to have any issues they could not resolve.

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• Search issues when type ahead and database search are used in the same field.
• Buttons implementation where user is require[d] to click on the button description - if clicks on the button outside that text - button will not work.
• Problems with using certain off-the-shelf performance tools like WebLoad or Neoload. That is because of different dynamic variables being used internally in Appian - which these tools are unable to correlate. We are still investigating using other tools like Jmeter to overcome dynamic correlation problem for performance testing.

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• Sometimes the advisors may experience some glitches to copy and paste the information they need even if they're still inside the Island browser
• Sometimes some apps don't behave exactly the same and they would in other browsers
• It takes some time to setup it accordingly with what the company needs and it requires some tests

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• Price – The licensing model of OutSystems is very expensive and not suitable for small scale developments. This is offset by the time to develop and stability for larger scale developments
• Flexibility on PaaS version – The PaaS hosted version of OutSystems limits your flexibility to access the front end and backend database systems which can significantly restrict your options on high data volume developments or where anything requiring slightly out of the ordinary access is required
• Same price for PaaS and self-hosted system. Licensing model dictates that you pay the same price even when you host the system on your own hardware which effectively means you pay more to manage the infrastructure yourself

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We recently renewed our license with Appian. We are convinced that its flexibility, relative ease of use, the support they provide, there mobile advancements and their general willingness and desire to see us succeed all contributed to our reason to renew our agreement with Appian

We are very happy with OutSystems and our developers deliver good work. OutSystems lets us build new software on a regulare (2 weekly) basis, which is highly flexible and adjustable. Even without very much experience, our developers manage to build usefull software, which is working a lot better than our previous (legacy) software.

Appian is a low code environment, because of this, a very good visual interface is required. Appian is providing a feature-rich dashboard [that] we can use for building the dashboards and other interfaces. Appian also provides patches and releases to enhance these features. A developer can start off development just by going through a basic course from the Appian learning community.

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It requires some training but it's very easy to use, as it's much like other famous browsers and it behave just as them. Even if it needs to be set up, you can set different policies for different users, that can be quite useful for bigger companies. However, some employees can feel a bit restricted as it has it's limitations to download or copy and paste

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OutSystems has a feature in which we can develop a functionality in a application and can use that functionality in another application without developing it again. That is main plus point for the development team so they can work with different functionalities rather focusing on the same thing again and again. if we want to make any change on the user side then we can make it live with just the deployment using the service center.

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Appian is one of the leading low code business automation platforms that support RPA, decision rules, case management, workflow automation, and machine learning all in a single bundle. But it is also harder to implement and replace the traditional business process.

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The tech support is very reachable. Usually by [email] from but also by phone if needed. We had some difficulties at the start with understanding "what our machine was doing" under high performance load. After some good sessions understanding our needs they delivered good solutions for our problems we had in the beginning.

As analyst I participated in a developer boot camp. At times it was hard to keep up but most of the time it made sense. Trainer took the time to explain and slowed pace down to answer questions etc.

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Excellent material full of hands on that improve the understanding of the platform.

Very boring; hard to get through quickly, but rather effective in demonstrating the use of the platform.

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The online training material is well designed and explanations are step by step, helping trainees to understand and follow each exercise and new concept.

It was really seamless. SaaS in the true definition of the word. We logged on and started using the product. Very easy.

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In a large company, patiently and consistently work the behind the scenes politics with business and IT partners across the firm.
This is transformational - you will need a solid set of key business partners to lock arms together to move forward.

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Appian has enormously transformed and keeps on updating the product every quarter to meet the latest needs of the world with new innovations & technologies being integrated within the platform. What gives more pleasure than a product that keeps on continuous[ly] improv[ing]?

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Chrome Remote Desktop is a good option to access the company desktop remotely, but it doesn't reduce the costs of the company since you'll still need to have two machines for it to work, you'll also need the same amount of IT staff and mantain a physical address. It can be a good option to companies that have only few agents remote but it's not good for hybrid or remote only employees

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I tried to use WordPress with some success. Also looked at Joomla. But when I saw OutSystems I knew I had been wasting my time there. It takes you longer to get going with OutSystems - but even I as a novice realized immediately that Outsystems is simply in another league. Outsystems is powerful. (Can you compare WordPress and Joomla to Outsystems - I don't think so).

• I believe it has negatively impacted our release dates. There may have been a misunderstanding as to the learning curve, even though it is "low code."
• The look and feel of the applications created using Appian have uniformity and it's easier to have "reuse" between applications.
• There is less developer control when it comes to features. I think this mainly has to do with the amount of plugins available. I would think there should be many more available plugins. But again, our use case is probably different than most others.

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• There is some costs to training people to use Island, and also to test and setup the browser, if you're initiating a business, this should be considered
• Some advisors may not have a compatible hardware, this can add to the migration costs
• No need to have a physical address or servers, since everything is managed from the clould it can significantly lower the costs
• You can reduce the IT staff and maintenance costs too

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• The ease of use of the OutSystems development process has been the biggest ROI for us. We have developed our Framework product and maintained/enhanced it with only 4 workers.
• OutSystems has enhanced their product very significantly over the last 4 years. They have gone from a simple to use tool to a very simple to use sophisticated tool that covers the standard mainframe-based computing apps and the apps used on handheld mobile devices all using the same basic set of development tools.

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