Appian Reviews

Our organization uses Appian for content management for our documentation. We are also using the solution for endpoint authentication in our clinic for clinical trials. In terms of banking, we use Appian for contract and access management.

Over the past 13 years, we have implemented Appian for 53 customers.

Appian is easy to install and set up, and it does not come out with your audit. It has accessible process orchestration and process management. With Appian, the time to market is much faster.

We are anticipating a few improvements from Appian. The product competes well with peer platforms, however, when you compare past that scale, there is room for improvement.

I would like to see more features for enterprises. They would also benefit from adding documentation and training on their site. 

I have been working with Appian for 13 years.

Appian is stable because it is on the cloud and it has options, actions, and latency. 

The solution is scalable when compared with the support of the infrastructure. It has proven to be scalable as far as the authentication time has been procured.

Technical support with Appian is good, however there is room for improvement.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. When compared with other solutions, Appian is much faster. It is easy to install. It is simple to transfer from the cloud, allowing you to get started immediately with the solution.

The process took us two days. If someone were implementing on-premises, it may take longer.

The licensing of Appian is less expensive when compared to other BPMs in the market. 

Appian is a good solution if you are going to implement BPM or automation into your organization. It can work on a small scale and scale larger afterward. 

I would rate Appian an eight and a half out of ten overall.

The use cases are for complex business-process oriented applications. This is the main use for large customers.

We're not using it ourselves. We're selling it and we are implementing services and projects for other customers. 

The low-code capabilities and, of course, the business process management features are the most valuable aspects of the solution. 

It has a very easy setup.

The technical support is excellent.

It's scalable.

The stability is good.

I cannot speak to any missing features. 

The UI of Appian is more internal. Recently, there has been an addition of an external user portal for the customer-facing stuff. It's still coming out. There will be more features for external users.

I have been using Appian for about a year and a half.

Appian is very, very stable. Thousands of organizations use it. It's got 99.99% uptime in AWS. It's very robust. I didn't encounter any problems with it.

It's scalable. It can scale horizontally and vertically. Some features like the portals can be implemented on Kubernetes, which means that they are scalable to implement.

Technical support is great. Every service request is answered within the hour. It's very, very exceptional.

Positive

I was an integrator for IBM BAW, Business Automation Workflow. And afterward, Pega, and then Appian. My experience with the other platforms was somehow not very good. With IBM, it's very complex. The product is very, very complex, and you need a lot of higher-skilled people to do a lot of stuff. Also, maintenance and management are very difficult. When you can go into Pega, the low-code stuff of Pega is a bit trickier to acquire. It is more complex to develop solutions with it. Also, the business part of Pega is less advanced and is more limited. You can't do everything you want there.

The initial implementation is very straightforward and simple. It's not overly complex or difficult. It's a five out of five in terms of the ease of setup.

The implementation strategy is the Appian standard implementation strategy, as it is a SaaS.

The time it takes to set up varies. For small features, it can take up to two weeks, and larger ones can take months. Usually, it's a fifth or tenth of that time if a company is doing a standard setup. 

The amount of maintenance depends on what your strategy is for deployment. If you're going into transformation and you're going to migrate a lot of business processes in the organization, you need to do it in parallel so, you'll have to employ enough personnel to do it. For a simple solution, two, three, or four people will suffice.

In one case it has been known to reduce process time by about 85%.

It's a SaaS solution. The solution is moderately priced. I'd rate it a three out of five in terms of affordability.

Appian being a complete automation platform, the initial amount covers everything. You then have to pay for specific capabilities separately.

We are using the latest version of the solution. 

I'm a business partner with Appian. I'm an integrator. 

If a potential new user is going to evaluate it, they should look at the whole picture, not at the specific features. All in all, Appian gives the best coverage of all the features needed for an automation platform. It comes bundled with RPA and VPN and low-code and process-mining discovery and document intelligence and portal for external users and the data capabilities, data visualization capabilities, which no other tool gives, gives them in one package. 

They should look for and interview users of Appian to understand the product as well. There are a lot of different ideas in the market. The reason I chose to go with the Appian is the reason that it best suits businesses that wants to jump to the next era to perform the digital transformation in the smoothest way, in the most complete way. This is the benefit of Appian.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

It is mostly for our API, BPM, workflows, web services, and enterprise integration.

We have been focusing on building all of our digital and mobile applications with a lot of earlier code, as the platforms were legacy. We had to write code from scratch, because it was not possible to use the existing code. For most of our digital applications, like payment systems or digital payments, the use case was for our mobile apps.

The agile manner that we require to create our workflows. This is probably the most critical part of our solution and the time it takes to start processing the solution. This is also quite fast. It is important for us to develop the solution in an agile manner.

Newer features, especially in terms scalability. It has to become more scalable than what it is today. It is not a issue today. However, going forward, due to the growth in the number of users and the workloads, it will have to be more scalable.

It needs better integration with our existing application ecosystem.

I would like more connectors for calls and integration features. Typically in enterprise banks, we have 200 to 300 plus applications. Training and documentation on how to integrate this would help.

We would like to see more reduced latency. We would like to make sure that the scale-out factor will be much more as workloads come in. The scale-out should be improved as we grapple with more workloads and users.

We feel the latency could further be reduced, but the access time for the throughput time or the general access time could be further reduced. 

We do not see any issues with overall scalability right now.

The tech support is quite good. Maybe it is not as good as large enterprise vendors, especially when it comes to more technical troubleshooting. Overall, the response is okay, since most problems are solved. Though, if there are major issues, then break times possibly increase. If they could focus on that, it would be helpful.

We have been using tools from IBM, Oracle, CA (formerly known as Computer Associates), so mostly these enterprise tools at the same time are very complex and not very agile. The learning curve is much more than we found with the learning curve for Appian, so it is a trade-off between the agility of using a tool versus the complexity. To a large extent, more functions can be serviced through the tools previously mentioned from a enterprise perspective. However, most of the functions that we have are requirements for our services that we run through Appian, therefore we see this coverage as okay

It was between straightforward and complex. There were a few issues in terms of configurations, but overall, getting the system started was quite fast. There were a few configuration parameters that we had to change, for which, it took us a couple of days more than expected. The way to start this tool is quite quick, so we did not face any issues with it.

Product pricing compared to some of the earlier vendors, like IBM, CA, and Oracle, is quite well-priced. Although, we do feel that as we increase the number of users and the workload increases, we will have to spend more. 

We will have to have a dialogue or negotiate a price for future use. To start with, it is a reasonable price. As we go ahead, we will have to make sure the costs are inline with our expectations as we grow our user base and workloads.

In terms of licensing, instead of user-based, you should go more on a workload basis. It could be helpful, since we feel that we will be growing the workload part of it more than the user part of it. I think they give us a good price on workload characteristics and it would be a better option.

We already had IBM. We evaluated Oracle and CA. We found this product to be good price-wise as well as quick implementation-wise. From IBM, at that time, we evaluated WebSphere, APM Manager, and Workflow Manager. So, it was centered around their WebSphere, Lombardi product. 

How to integrate with their application ecosystem is probably a priority. Once you get a product like this, it is important to have that integration upfront rather than later on to work on. Otherwise, you will grapple with a very complex application ecosystem for large enterprises. These features must be provided for, understood, and the expectations of the enterprise integration bus, service, or whatever you do should be well covered by the solution, so you do not face problems down the road.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: We make sure it is a recognized and credible name/vendor. We typically look at the top four or five vendors on independent research ratings, then we form a committee so we do not take personal decisions. We have a committee, we arrive at a consensus, then we put up our selection criteria. This revolves around the technical aspects, the credibility of the vendor, the coverage of the vendor, and the cost as well as where do we see the future roadmap of the vendor.

Normally, we are building platforms. At the moment, we are running 19 big projects, and we had never used Appian before. One of our customers is a big consulting company, and one of their customers wanted a project with Appian.

They don't have Appian developers, but we have a very good team. They reached out to us and they had some projects in 2022 with Appian, and they asked for our support. I gave my BAs and PMs an introductory level Appian course, and now some of the developers are doing the associate and lead developer part for Appian.

The application life cycle is very clear. I started learning it and giving some workshops to my team. Creating the users and the building is very structured. Documentation is nice and it's easy to learn.

There's a nice fundamentals course that I can ask my project managers to easily learn, while the other local, no-code platforms don't have that option.

The certification is pretty expensive, and it doesn't allow for a tailored UI. I'm a little bit disappointed with the exam. It's different from the preparation, training, and sample exam.

One of my lead developers failed to pass this morning. I'm a bit sad because it's $200. If I ask 10 of my developers to get a certificate, it's $2,000. It's a scaleup company, so we have more than 60 people at the moment, but I can't ask most of my developers to get the certificate.

From a developer point of view, I can't try this in the free version because you can't buy one or two subscriptions. You need to get the minimum package for premium, which is about one hundred seats.

From the first day, I wanted to see the capability of reaching other functions, Google Cloud services, and cognitive services. There is already an OCR, intelligent document that comes in the My Cloud and which Appian gave me as a sample. I can't build it because it uses the Google cognitive services as a backend, and this is the thing that we couldn't try. 

You can't really test the software properly without actually buying the license first.

Something I would like to see improved is an SQL database connection.

We have been using Appian for over a month. We are still on the trial license instead of the full license.

I'm happy about the stability. It looks promising for me.

I can't predict how many developers it requires. It really depends on the type and size of the app and the capability of the developers.

We run a one-hour workshop from scratch. My developer can create the users' data, custom data types, a small UI, and a nice flow and read right from the databases easily. In one hour, he can complete as many tasks that normally take many days.

The scalability is a bit limited for the SQL databases because for some of my cognitive services, I'm using no SQL databases in the cloud. Appian doesn't support it. Appian only supports relational databases. There is no database for the unstructured data.

We are building platforms, but normally we are fully in Azure and the whole platform is in Azure, but because some of our customers and potential customers want to use Appian, I'm preparing my team for such opportunities.

You can't really test the software properly without actually buying the license first. Certification is expensive.

Appian is like a butter knife, not a Swiss Army knife. It will serve the business user's solution. It'll create a very good thing and the application is clear.

I really enjoy it because the PowerApps from Microsoft mature and are internally connected to other platforms inside Microsoft.

However, it doesn't explain the learning part very well non-technical people. There is a separation, but in the Appian fundamentals, this course is just for the BAs and the PMs. If they want to lead a project with Appian, this is the minimum standard that they need to know. At that point, it's easy for me to train project managers and business analysts. I think that's the advantage of Appian.

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10. 

My humble advice to someone who is looking to implement this solution is that they need to replicate. It's a so-called no-code platform, but it's not no-code because it has its own coding site. That's why they need to build one of their own solutions with Appian first to understand the how-to-dos first and become more confident. Luckily, the learning curve is not that steep.

Appian is basically for workflows and workflow approval.

In a banking scenario, suppose as a customer, I apply for a loan. That loan needs approval from a manager. In addition, I will need to provide documents like my Social Security, personal details, company details. There are levels of information that can be maintained in the back-end. If you are the manager you can check that I provided all this information and, based on the criteria, you can approve a loan of 300 or a loan of 400, all within the back-end.

An advantage of this tool is the area of workflows, mainly for back-end users. It is not for end-users.

Another advantage of this tool is its reports and records. You can maintain dashboards, layouts. If you with a Java solution, it takes six months time. If you use this tool, you can finish in one or one and a half months' time. It took us six and a half months time to develop a small application in Java, but within this tool, we developed it in one and a half months, including the records and reports.

Also, there is a version coming out every six months with performance improvements.

You can develop a back-end UI and back-end reports using this tool.

It needs a better UI. There has been a lot of development in version 18.1 but we still need more for it to compete with other BPM tools.

Stability depends on the development. If you do proper development the stability is okay. Whenever you are getting data from the database, you have to write more code rules, more views. It will take a long time. Going forward, you can have performance issues. Initially, it works fine, but going forward, you are hitting performance issues whenever you create the views to get the data from the database. That's what I found in my previous project.

I used Oracle BPM. I switched because, as a developer, the market was becoming completely saturated and I was not getting any jobs.

The setup is straightforward. No complaints, no issues.

I hear the price was hiked a little recently. Initially, it was low. But it's okay compared to Pega.

IBM has Business Process Manager, Oracle has its BPM as well.

If you are looking for back-end solutions, this tool is 100 percent a fit. So Appian BPM for the back-end and, if you want a front-end, I don't suggest using Appian BPM. The Appian back-end is only for internal users, not for end-users. For end-users, you can use Java.

Appian is really helpful in automating different processes. Our clients use it for process automation and leveraging updated features like Appian Portal and Appian RPA. The main use case revolves around external application building in nature, making it comparable to other mobile app general interfaces, particularly those heavy in user interface and user exchange. Also, Appian Records integrates all systems, providing a consolidated view, dashboard, monitoring, and report.

Appian helps in consolidating systems within the client's network, correlating data points, and offering visual dashboards to get a real-time view of various factors. Clients can check the functional state of their current infrastructure and monitor it in real-time, which also relates to the financial side of operations with business reports and similar functionalities.

The valuable features include process automation, Appian Portal, and Appian RPA. Appian allows easy integration with other systems, offers a visual dashboard, provides real-time analytics, and is flexible to be used by non-technical users for automating simple process flows. Additionally, Appian's data fabric now helps in correlating data across various systems for consolidated monitoring.

From a reseller's point of view, subscription licensing could be improved to be more cost-effective, especially for new prospects and smaller investments. Appian has new subscription models, but they might not always be feasible for smaller customers. Competitive pricing on the external user side is good, but internal user pricing needs to be adjusted for better market reach.

I have been working with Appian for nearly six years.

In terms of stability, Appian is quite reliable. I have not encountered any major downtime in customer environments. Their support team has been effective, making the solution stable overall.

Technical scalability is generally good, maybe an eight out of ten, however, some clients encounter issues due to high costs, affecting their ability to scale effectively.

Customer service in the Philippines is rated around a seven due to response times and the lack of a direct support line.

Neutral

The initial setup is generally simple and well-supported by the platform's flexibility and ease of use. My technical colleagues find Appian easy to learn, though they need to continuously adapt to new features.

Appian is promising yet the cost can be a barrier. The subscription cost is higher compared to competitors, which can hinder potential market expansion, especially for new prospects.

The main competitors for Appian are Pega and OutSystems. Appian is set apart by its RPA capabilities, though it is still catching up with the likes of UiPath.

Appian is a promising platform with significant functionalities, but it would benefit from more cost-effective pricing for smaller clients. The technical support could also be improved, especially in providing direct and faster response options.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We use the solution internally. It is for internal front ends for capturing transactions and then managing the workflows and sending them to back-end systems. 

The rapid deployment of solutions is excellent. 

It's cloud-based, and it was a smooth transition from the cloud to on-premises. We've really enjoyed the automatic updates. We never have to manually upgrade to the latest platform. It saves us some work. The cloud setup is simple.

The solution is very stable.

It can scale well.

Technical support is quite responsive. 

We have a growing need for more DevOps for deploying branching strategies, and Appian is not great at that. If that had more DevOps capabilities, it would be an excellent product.

On-premises setup can take a while. 

We've used the solution for the last five years. 

We've only had one 15-minute downtime incident that was related to an AWS hardware issue in their 1AZ. That wasn't Appian's fault. That was it. It's been pretty stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. I'd rate the solution's stability nine out of ten. 

The solution can scale. 

They've promised they will bring out Kubernetes, which we currently don't have. Right now, it vertically scales. There is no horizontal scaling yet.

So far, we've scaled from 4XL to 8XL without issue. I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. 

We have 400 users on the solution right now. 

We do plan to increase usage. The solution is mission-critical. 

Pi and P2 issues get responses within a couple of minutes. Support is very responsive. 

Positive

We did try to shoehorn Cibo into doing everything. We unbundled it into different domains. 

If you do the setup, there is a bit of a learning curve you have during the initial setup. On the cloud, the deployment is much easier. They spin it up for you and manage it for you. It's less work. For the on-premises deployment, I'd rate the ease of setup six out of ten. It took a few months to deploy. Cloud deployment, of course, is much easier since there really is nothing to do. We deployed over a weekend.

We deploy every month. It takes a couple of minutes to deploy the latest features. 

We run a lean show and only have about five people dealing with the solution. There's an architect, two engineers, and a few QAs.

We have an integrator helping us from India. 

I don't deal with licensing. However, my understanding is that it's not the most expensive. It is moderate. I'd rate the pricing seven out of ten in terms of how expensive it is. 

We're a financial institution, and we're customers. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

I'd advise users to choose their implementation partner very carefully. Do the due diligence on the implementation partner for the best results. 

My organization only has a few use cases for Appian, but one of the use cases I'm working with is for a corporate real estate project.

Appian has benefited my organization because of its low-code feature, so my team only has to do minimal coding, resulting in quick deliverables.

What I found most valuable in Appian is its latest feature, which lets you drill down on multiple things through the structure of the reporting and UI side of the solution.

Appian has a few areas for improvement, which my organization raised with the Appian team. One is the Excel output which is limited to fifty columns when it should be up to two hundred or three hundred columns. Fixing this limitation will make the solution better.

What I want to see in the next release of Appian is on the interface side, where the current square-shaped buttons should be round. Having available buttons for the different functions of Appian will also help enrich the UI.

I'd been using Appian for two years now.

Appian is a stable solution, so I'm giving it a nine out of ten.

I experienced a few issues in Appian scalability, particularly in the data or records area, so it's an eight out of ten.

I don't personally have experience contacting Appian technical support, but my peer used to get in touch with Appian, and from what I heard, the support team had been helpful.

My organization only used Appian.

My experience with the initial setup for Appian is nine out of ten.

Appian was quick to deploy. It took a very short time because my organization has the SaaS version.

An in-house team deployed Appian in my organization.

There's ROI from Appian, but I cannot give data about it.

A different team handles the pricing side of Appian.

I'm using Appian right now.

My organization uses the 22.3 and 22.4 versions of Appian in production and the sandbox environment.

In the organization, Appian is deployed on a SaaS environment.

Deploying the solution requires two people.

Appian is a good solution, so I'm giving it nine out of ten.

My organization is an Appian partner.