Appian vs. OutSystems vs. Salesforce Lightning Components & Developer Experience

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Appian
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Appian is a low-code development and business process management platform. It features drag-and-drop design for app building, automated work processes, unified data management, and cloud-based deployment.
$0
OutSystems
Score 6.7 out of 10
N/A
The OutSystems Platform is a Platform-as-a-Service solution for rapid delivery of responsive web and mobile applications. It includes functionalities required to develop, deploy, manage and change web and mobile applications. It is targeted at the delivery of enterprise applications that require integration with backend systems, complex business rules and logic, usable interfaces and flexibility to change. It can be deployed in the cloud, on-premises or in hybrid environments.
$4,000
per month
Salesforce Lightning Components & Developer Experience
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
The Salesforce Platform is designed for building and deploying scalable cloud applications with managed hardware provisioning and app stacks. Lightning Web Components are used by developers to build reusable UI components.
$25
Per User Per Month
Pricing
AppianOutSystemsSalesforce Lightning Components & Developer Experience
Editions & Modules
Appian Community Edition
$0
Application - Input-Only
$2
per month per user
Application - Infrequent
$9
per month per user
Application - Standard
$75
per month per user
Platform
Custom Quote Priced per user with unlimited apps.
minimum 100 users, no maximum
Unlimited
Custom Quote Priced per development with unlimited apps.
unlimited
Platform
Custom Quote Priced per user with unlimited apps.
Minimum 100, no maximum
Unlimited
Custom Quote Priced per development with unlimited apps.
Unlimited
Basic
$4,000.00
per month
Pro
$10,000.00
per month
Starter
$25.00
Per User Per Month
Plus
$100.00
Per User Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AppianOutSystemsSalesforce Lightning Components & Developer Experience
Free Trial
YesYesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AppianOutSystemsSalesforce Lightning Components & Developer Experience
Considered Multiple Products
Appian
Chose Appian
Appian presented us that the software will allow EDPR to develop better solutions than OutSystems because our developments need to be very closed to the business needs, and we are in a really changing work environment, then we need to be able to adapt our development as fast as …
Chose Appian
Appian stands out when it comes to low code development and easy to use and develop platform. It helps developers and business to meet the users requirements within no time with equal efficiency.
Chose Appian
The biggest pros of Salesforce are:
- the ability to create sandboxes
- refresh data from prod to sandbox
Chose Appian
Appian is leaner and provides a quicker deployment. Pega has "off-the-shelf" solutions and is more invested in AI and robotics.
OutSystems
Chose OutSystems
The vision and strategy of OutSystems (developer oriented) fits our company. Also the technology stack and scalabilty options outperform the competition. We have now also learned that the platform keeps developing, releasing new relevant features frequently. Another advantage …
Chose OutSystems
The biggest benefit is that it helps avert vendor lock-in (you can take the code and leave if you need to/want to)! Also, OutSystems supports multi-tenancy and directly incorporates containers and DevOps concepts/tools. OutSystems is on top of analyst charts for two …
Chose OutSystems

Most complete solution. Beyond the super fast ability to create high-quality web and native mobile apps, the built-in analytics have proven to almost eliminate the need for added overhead of analytics tags.

I've been following OutSystems for 3 years and the pace of innovation …

Salesforce Lightning Components & Developer Experience

No answer on this topic

Features
AppianOutSystemsSalesforce Lightning Components & Developer Experience
Low-Code Development
Comparison of Low-Code Development features of Product A and Product B
Appian
9.1
75 Ratings
8% above category average
OutSystems
7.9
54 Ratings
6% below category average
Salesforce Lightning Components & Developer Experience
-
Ratings
Visual Modeling8.873 Ratings5.351 Ratings00 Ratings
Drag-and-drop Interfaces8.972 Ratings8.052 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform Security9.271 Ratings6.351 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform User Management8.872 Ratings8.149 Ratings00 Ratings
Reusability9.575 Ratings9.954 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform Scalability9.573 Ratings10.051 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform-as-a-Service
Comparison of Platform-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
Appian
-
Ratings
OutSystems
-
Ratings
Salesforce Lightning Components & Developer Experience
7.2
30 Ratings
8% below category average
Ease of building user interfaces00 Ratings00 Ratings7.030 Ratings
Scalability00 Ratings00 Ratings8.028 Ratings
Platform management overhead00 Ratings00 Ratings8.024 Ratings
Workflow engine capability00 Ratings00 Ratings8.027 Ratings
Platform access control00 Ratings00 Ratings7.028 Ratings
Services-enabled integration00 Ratings00 Ratings7.028 Ratings
Development environment creation00 Ratings00 Ratings7.025 Ratings
Development environment replication00 Ratings00 Ratings6.023 Ratings
Issue monitoring and notification00 Ratings00 Ratings7.026 Ratings
Issue recovery00 Ratings00 Ratings6.025 Ratings
Upgrades and platform fixes00 Ratings00 Ratings8.028 Ratings
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User Ratings
AppianOutSystemsSalesforce Lightning Components & Developer Experience
Likelihood to Recommend
9.4
(139 ratings)
7.1
(130 ratings)
8.8
(36 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.5
(19 ratings)
8.2
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(95 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
8.2
(9 ratings)
Support Rating
8.4
(118 ratings)
7.5
(44 ratings)
8.1
(15 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
6.0
(2 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
1.0
(5 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
AppianOutSystemsSalesforce Lightning Components & Developer Experience
Likelihood to Recommend
Appian
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.
Read full review
OutSystems
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.
Read full review
Salesforce
If you have a large customer base and a large amount of data on each of your customers, it is really strong in creating personalized content that your salespeople can use in their pitch meetings—and then setting up workflows for automated for lifecycle journey creations to automatically go out to customers.
Read full review
Pros
Appian
  • 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.
Read full review
OutSystems
  • 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.
Read full review
Salesforce
  • It has a very smooth integration with Salesforce and third-party tools, ensuring easy tracking of policies and assets.
  • It also has impressive security features like used-based permissions and encrypted data.
  • Everything can be managed from a centralized place which saves a lot of time.
Read full review
Cons
Appian
  • 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.
Read full review
OutSystems
  • 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
Read full review
Salesforce
  • It takes a while before it recognizes bounced emails.
  • We get so many notifications from a single action. Not sure if this can be modified in the settings though.
  • Error messages are sometimes unclear which makes it hard for us to identify the problem.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Appian
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
Read full review
OutSystems
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.
Read full review
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Usability
Appian
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.
Read full review
OutSystems
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.
Read full review
Salesforce
It's very good, but it's still living in a little bit in an older design aspect, but I think a lot of it is about to come out, just hasn't quite gotten there yet. Still a little clunky from a you have to know it to know it or you know it to use it. It takes a little bit of training to get into it. It's not quite the, anybody can come in and start using it immediately, type feel.
Read full review
Support Rating
Appian
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.
Read full review
OutSystems
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.
Read full review
Salesforce
I am not an administrator so there may very well be outstanding Support and I am just not privy to it. On a user level it's hard to gauge the effectiveness and responsiveness of Support because nearly everything has to go through an administrator
Read full review
In-Person Training
Appian
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.
Read full review
OutSystems
Excellent material full of hands on that improve the understanding of the platform.
Read full review
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Appian
Very boring; hard to get through quickly, but rather effective in demonstrating the use of the platform.
Read full review
OutSystems
The online training material is well designed and explanations are step by step, helping trainees to understand and follow each exercise and new concept.
Read full review
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Appian
It was really seamless. SaaS in the true definition of the word. We logged on and started using the product. Very easy.
Read full review
OutSystems
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.
Read full review
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Appian
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]?
Read full review
OutSystems
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).
Read full review
Salesforce
We were previously using an older version prior to it becoming Salesforce Lightning Platform so we were well adverse on the advantages of using a CRM, to begin with. It made sense to convert to Salesforce Lightning Platform after we were given a free trial of the platform. Certain reps were chosen to experiment with it and from there a decision was made to move forward. We've been customers ever since.
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Return on Investment
Appian
  • 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.
Read full review
OutSystems
  • 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.
Read full review
Salesforce
  • Better visibility of Accounts and Contacts interactions makes it easier to maintain during employee transitions.
  • Tracking of current jobs and relating them to past jobs is very useful.
  • More efficient use of Sales Reps time.
  • Sales Managers have good visibility into how their people are working.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Appian Screenshots

Screenshot of Low-Code DevelopmentScreenshot of Business Process Management SuiteScreenshot of Dynamic Case ManagementScreenshot of Mobile App DevelopmentScreenshot of Appian RPA with Blue Prism