Appian vs. Oracle APEX vs. Oracle Java SE

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.

Incentivized

If you need to develop an application very quickly, without unnecessary lengthy specifications or business requirements, something you need right away, while utilizing all the capabilities of the Oracle database, APEX is the right choice. Thanks to the many components you use from the vast Oracle APEX library, working with this tool is exceptionally pleasant, fast, and effective.

Oracle Java SE is well suited to long-running applications (e.g. servers). Java Swing (UI toolkit) is now rather outdated, lacking support for modern UI features. JavaFX, the potential replacement for Swing, has now been separated out of Java core. Ideally, there would be a path to migrate a large application incrementally from Swing to JavaFX, but due to different threading models and other aspects, it is difficult. At this point, it is probably better to use an embedded web browser (e.g. JxBrowser) to provide a modern UI in HTML/Javascript and keep just the business logic in Java.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Easy upgrade path from Forms, allowing reuse of code and a low learning curve for Forms developers.
• Very quick to develop in. Ideal for prototyping or iterative development which is how we usually work.
• Comes with cross browser and mobile compatibility out of the box.
• Easy to incorporate other web technologies.
• Development environment runs straight from a browser. This has proved to be a life saver when issues crop up on a weekend.

Incentivized

• Plenty support built into the tool and IDE like Maven, Ant, Eclipse, IntelliJ.
• Strong object-orientation language and clear project structure.
• Wrapper underlines hardware and memory management so the developers can focus on business and implementation.
• It offers a huge library and framework support from third-parties and the community.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Can't think of any - the Application Express development team does a fantastic job adopting and supporting emerging trends with each new release.
• Requires Oracle RDBMS; i.e., is not portable to other RDBMS platforms. On the surface this may seem like a con but it is as it should be - Oracle database is best RDBMS available and tight integration with Oracle RDBMS promotes creation of reliable performant apps.

Incentivized

• Commercial Licensing in 2019. Oracle will charge commercial organizations using Java SE for upgrading to the latest bug fixes and updates. Organizations will now need to either limit their implementation of Java SE or may need to drop it altogether.
• Slow Performance. Due to the all of the abstraction of the JVM, Java SE programs take much more resources to compile and run compared to Python.
• Poor UI appearance on all of the major GUI libraries (Swing, SWT, etc.). Through Android Studio, it is easy to get a native look/feel for Java apps, but when it comes to desktops, the UI is far from acceptable (does not mimic the native OS's look/feel at all).

Incentivized

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

I felt very comfortable using Oracle Application Express from the start. I designed my data model and quickly developed the basic CRUD pages for master tables. Then I designed the main functionality and was able to test and deploy it in a couple of days work. I will probably share the app with other members of the team and continue adding some features in the short term.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Oracle APEX is an ultra flexible, low code platform having a great easy of use, superior customization capabilities, scalable and provides a very good application and data security. It also has lot of AI capabilities as well as modern features such as GeoLocation maps, Automation capabilities, Workflow approval features and Mobile application capabilities using PWA like features.

Oracle Java SE provides the new features along with timely security patches. New features like Record patterns and pattern matching for switches are very useful. With every new release of Java, it is getting better. Sequenced collections are also an interesting feature added to Java. With all these new features, backward compatibility is also maintained.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Very active and knowledgeable community support includes quick and helpful responses from the Oracle employees on the product development team. I've never had to raise an official support request - everything is dealt with via forums and user groups - or via direct emails. The supposrt commuinty is one of the great things about Apex.

Incentivized

Java is such a mature product at this point that there is little support from the vendor that is needed. Various sources on the internet, and especially StackOverflow, provide a wealth of knowledge and advice. Areas that may benefit from support is when dealing with complex multithreading issues and security libraries.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

Using it on the cloud is really simple, the entire process of configuring and provisioning an Oracle Database takes only a few minutes (less than 10) and then Oracle APEX is already deployed on the database, so you just have to start using it. I would strongly recommend using APEX on Oracle Cloud Free Tier.

Incentivized

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]?

Incentivized

If you are expert in SQL and PLSQL and use Oracle Database, then the best choice is Oracle Application Express. The functionality is already complete and very easy to use, so it's useless to find another tool if you are using Oracle. You don't use Oracle APEX only if: (1) you are using other database than Oracle, and (2) your application load is unpredictable.

Incentivized

Chose to go with Java instead of Python or C++ due to the expertise on the ground with the technology, for its ease of integration with our heterogeneous setup of production servers, and for the third party library support which we've found was able to address some challenging aspects of our business problem.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• In the mid-size organization, we had a BI tool that had a significant license cost involved. With Oracle back-end we were able to switch to APEX and move all reporting at literally zero cost.
• For Oracle PL/SQL users the learning curve is very quick and easy, there are ready templates that you can start with and eventually create complex reports.
• You can track authorization and authentication on data editing and usage. High performance as it is native oracle sql codes.
• Centralized data capturing, makes your datawarehouse writable for lookup tables or reference tables.

Incentivized

• The different versions make it harder to work with other companies where some use newer versions while some use older versions, costing time to make them compatible.
• Licenses are getting to be costly, forcing us to consider OpenJDK as an alternative.
• New features take time to learn. When someone starts using them, everyone has to take time to learn.

Incentivized