SharePoint Designer (discontinued)

I haven't used anything else like this. I use different products for workflows and forms, but they aren't listed in the listings for this page. Instead of using it for workflows or forms (deprecated 2 years ago), I use Nintex. For everything else, I have what I need in the Modern version of SharePoint online.

In order to simplify our internal workflows, we have installed additionnal tool for our SharePoint platforms : Nintex Workflow and forms.

Compared to Nintex, SharePoint Designer is very far away. I am only talking here for 2 main features of SharePoint Designer :
- Workflows
- Forms

But for these 2 features, Nintex is way above SharePoint Designer

SharePoint Designer is a free tool. We use it where ever possible.

These products are very good alternatives to SharePoint Designer but SharePoint Designer stacks up when you are using it for on-premise SharePoint environment.

I prefer InfoPath for designing forms for use in SharePoint over SharePoint Designer. I have not used SharePoint Designer for designing pages in SharePoint. I have found it easier to work directly in SharePoint. Granted I have only had the product for a little over a year.

I'd say that Nintex is a lot easier to configure and identifying errors is less complex than SharePoint Designer. In addition, an alternative that developers may prefer using is Adobe Dreamweaver which is also a web development tool. A third option is Coda, a text editor that gives previews and allows management of local and remote files. Bluefish Editor is another tool, different from SharePoint Designer, that writes websites, scripts, and programming code.

SharePoint Designer is somewhat inferior when compared to a purpose-built third-party tool like Nintex. Even though Nintex leverages built-in workflow engines (SP2010 and SP2013 depending on platform), it builds on top of that and adds many useful features.

Nintex Forms and Workflow are both very robust tools, but cost for some clients can be prohibitive. Nintex does not provide tools to manage SharePoint sites, lists and libraries.

Both K2 and Nintex provide a powerful platform to build and run business applications that integrate seamlessly with SharePoint; business apps typically consist of workflow, forms, data and reports. The type of business apps range from simple document approval workflows to powerful business applications with complex forms that incorporates data from multiple systems with workflows that deliver the correct information to the right people to make the most effective business decisions, reducing cost, complexity and enabling a more agile business environment. SharePoint Designer from a workflow standpoint simply does not have these capabilities and is somewhat limited.

Both Nintex and K2 Blackpearl are great products in their own way, but they are expensive. The pricing models for the SharePoint Online environment is very expensive for how Holiday uses workflows. Nintex's pricing model is by the number of workflows in your tenant, and I have well over 200 workflows in my environment, and the cost would be thousands of dollars per year, compared to SharePoint Designer's price of Free. K2 Blackpearl would not fit our business model directly. It would take a good bit of customization to integrate, and the price for it did not compare to the price of SharePoint Designer, Free. Since Microsoft has stated they are not coming out with a new version of SharePoint Designer, and have not stated what the replacement is, I am currently speechless as the direction. Microsoft Flow is, in my opinion, a very sad attempt to replace SharePoint Designer Workflows. Flow is open to anyone with a Microsoft Live ID, without any security trimming from Office 365 Admins. Flow is going to cause more trouble than solve problems. Currently it is free, but will more than likely follow a similar pricing model to Nintex.

There really isn't a holistic, complete SharePoint Designer replacement currently. You can utilize several different tools and piece together the functionality of Designer. No one really "selects" SharePoint Designer, it is just a necessary evil. For O365 subscribers, Flow is worth investigating for replacing the workflow function of SharePoint Designer, however, it doesn't have all of the features that Designer does. If you need a large scale workflow solution, there are third party tools such as Nintex. As far as the HTML editing capabilities, there are several tools such as Visual Studio, Sublime, TextMate, etc.

I have not used any other products. SharePoint Designer is what I use on a daily basis.

SharePoint Designer should be used for SharePoint it was made for this purpose. Trying to use Dreamweaver with SharePoint just doesn't work.

SharePoint Designer is the only tool of its kind that I feel 100% comfortable using. Compared to the Nintex workflows/forms, SharePoint Designer has much more increased functionality and ease for an IT-type user like myself. I think it has a much better and easier to navigate user interface, because the user interface is more similar to the intended product, SharePoint.