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
Power Apps
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
PowerApps is a low code / rapid application development product from Microsoft that allows users to quickly build apps.
OutSystems and PowerApps are both low-code development platforms designed to allow developers to quickly build applications without writing lengthy sections of code. Outsystems provides a feature rich platform that includes one-step deployment and rapid application development. OutSystems is most popular with mid-sized businesses and large enterprises, likely due to its advanced feature set and higher price point compared to competitors. PowerApps is Microsoft’s low-code development tool and is built to integrate seamlessly with other Microsoft applications. PowerApps is most popular with businesses that make heavy use of Microsoft software in their infrastructure.
Features
OutSystems and PowerApps are both built to help developers create applications quickly and with minimal code, but they also have some limitations that are important to consider.
OutSystems provides an easy to use interface that developers will be able to become comfortable with quickly. Businesses using OutSystems find that the ease of development provided by OutSystems speeds up development while still allowing for complex applications. In addition to speeding up development time, OutSystems also helps developers deploy their applications with a single click, so pushing applications to production is very quick.
One of the biggest benefits of PowerApps is that it integrates easily with Microsoft technologies such as Azure. For businesses that heavily use Microsoft technology, PowerApps makes it very easy to deploy applications across an entire organization. PowerApps also provides a variety of pre-built forms and views that can be inserted into projects, or edited to save a developer from having to start from scratch. All in all, PowerApps is a strong choice for developers building internal applications to be deployed on Windows servers.
Limitations
Though OutSystems and PowerApps both allow for creating applications with minimal code, they also have some limitations that are important to consider.
OutSystems is a strong choice for developers that aren’t working with Windows infrastructures, but it also has limited support for MacOS. As a result, there are relatively few infrastructures that can’t take advantage of PowerApp’s Windows integrations, but can take advantage of OutSystems. Businesses using Windows servers may prefer the easy implementation of PowerApps over OutSystems, and Mac users may prefer a tool with a stronger Mac solution.
PowerApps integrates well with Windows technology, but it doesn’t offer any support for MacOS. For Windows users, PowerApps is a strong choice, but it may be ineffective, or unusable for other users. Additionally, the user interface for PowerApps is clunky compared to OutSystems, so businesses should expect developers to need either training, or significant time with the documentation before they can be as efficient as possible with it. Additionally, many users state that PowerApps is most appropriate for internal applications, while OutSystems can be better used for consumer applications.
Pricing
OutSystems offers a free version with support for one environment and up to 100 end users, which is a good choice for businesses looking to try before they buy. The basic package supports up to 1,000 users and starts at $4,000 per month. The standard package supports any number of end users for $10,000 per month. Businesses that need more features or support can reach out to the vendor for an enterprise quote.
PowerApps starts at $10 per user per month for single apps, or $40 per user per month for unlimited applications.
Features
OutSystems
Power Apps
Low-Code Development
Comparison of Low-Code Development features of Product A and Product B
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.
PowerApps is well suited for "quick-wins" and fast prototypes of business solutions. It also is beneficial for situations where business partners and developers work together - it allows the business folks to provide a "quick-and-dirty" prototype which is then fleshed-out by developers that are trained experts on the platform. The interactive and easy to understand representation of the solution allows business partners to "see" the solution and add, remove, or correct aspects of it themselves. It provides a common view and understanding of the actual solution across business units and tech teams. PowerApps, being a low-code\no-code platform is not well suited for business processes that require many complex computations or large amounts of custom code - such as solutions that are better architected as Web Site or "full-blown" desktop solutions. There are solutions that are just not easy or quick to accomplish in a low-code\no-code platform. Enterprise Architects should know the difference, however business partners often try to create a solution and only when stuck because it becomes too complex do they engage a tech team for assistance - at which point there are sunk-costs involved and hinderences to re-platforming the solution
Power Apps has formats that are pre-built that don't require any coding which makes it easier to achieve your vision. This does become a challenge if your App needs don't fit into that format.
We deal with a ton of data so the fact that you can connect to any data source in addition to their pre-stablished data connections makes the process a breeze.
The online learning resources and tutorials are helpful as well for those who are tech savvy.
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
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.
I am really happy using OutSystems in my work. It gives me the opportunity to create good working software without having had very much IT-experience before. It also made me more interested in the background of IT and learning different languages.
PowerApps is a great solution and I have spent the last year familiarizing myself with the platform and building custom applications to complete a whole range of tasks such as asset management, custom invoice generation, and item restriction tracking. We as a company have barely begun to scratch the surface of what can be achieved with PowerApps.
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.
The community forums are extremely responsive to questions asked, there is a good body of online documentation and many community posts to draw from. Although the platform has changed, which means some of the posts are out of date and the solutions provided aren't relevant. Of relevance, I read over 400 articles plus documentation to get this first app built in SharePoint, move it to SQL and make it work exactly the way it should.
The online training material is well designed and explanations are step by step, helping trainees to understand and follow each exercise and new concept.
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.
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).
Much cheaper, much more customizable, and easier to use. There is not much of a learning curve and the licensing cost is much cheaper. PowerApps does one thing very well, whereas other platforms are mediocre. There is much more customization possible for your in-house workflows that you can build yourself vs using NetSuite engineers to build it for you.
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.
It has given us a focal point for development. We now have the possibility of connecting to mobile and the default SharePoint online interface isn't always easy to manipulate. PowerApps has given us an opportunity to improve our user experience.
An improved user experience has given us a better shot at compliance. When users don't fight the environment, they don't gravitate towards workarounds or non-compliance.
As lists and libraries change, the platform scales pretty well.
Having users with the capability to create their own forms and tools has dialed back the app dev need (there is a balance though) and distributed power to the process architects and people who actually need the solutions in the first place—much more efficient model of service delivery: self-service.
