No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Forms vs Appian comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Adobe Experience Manager (A...
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Customer Communications Management (CCM) (6th)
Appian
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (7th), Process Automation (9th), Rapid Application Development Software (13th), Low-Code Development Platforms (8th), Process Mining (6th), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Forms and Appian aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Forms is designed for Customer Communications Management (CCM) and holds a mindshare of 4.9%, down 6.3% compared to last year.
Appian, on the other hand, focuses on Business Process Management (BPM), holds 3.4% mindshare, down 5.6% since last year.
Customer Communications Management (CCM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Forms4.9%
Quadient Inspire18.5%
OpenText Communications17.7%
Other58.900000000000006%
Customer Communications Management (CCM)
Business Process Management (BPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Appian3.4%
Camunda7.1%
IBM BPM4.2%
Other85.3%
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

Q&A Highlights

AS
Community Manager at PeerSpot (formerly IT Central Station)
Aug 29, 2014
 

Featured Reviews

it_user692313 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Partner and AEM Architect at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Its flexibility and customization ability. Ease of initial setup and complete set of features to support digital marketing initiatives.
Start small and plan your first set of objectives clearly, leaving all the “nice-to-haves” for a later phase. Starting this way will help companies get a sample of the benefits, and get familiar with the tool in general. After the first phase, they may find things that they thought they wanted are not really required or can be achieved in a better, more efficient way in the AEM world. Another useful suggestion is to avoid trying to recreate your current solution using AEM; rather, try to look for new and different ways to achieve the same results that take advantage of AEM’s features.
SB
Finance Specialist at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees
Automated remittance workflows have boosted speed and accuracy but still need geo-tagging improvements
Remittance is a crucial part of my integral operation, so any disruption would majorly impact our clients. After switching to Appian, we never faced any disruption as it is reliable and we can generate data at any point in time, quite faster than other tools in my personal opinion. Regulators can ask for data from us at any time, and with Appian, we download data from our Appian tools to share it with them whenever they ask. I would share a real-life example: a customer's transaction processed more than a year ago. Suddenly the customer came back asking for all the details. In our previous tool, it was quite difficult to generate transaction details from over a year ago; however, while using Appian, we can pull up data using different key search fields, such as a customer's cell phone number, remittance tracking number, or MT103 reference number. We shared it with the customer instantly, and the customer was surprised we could provide all the details in such a short time. It added reputational value for our organization, thanks to Appian.You have pointed out two major things: time-saving and reduction of error, which are key points while processing remittance. Previously, while using another tool, it was quite time-consuming to process remittance, but after switching to Appian, it can extract data from MT103, eliminating the need for manual data entry. The process has become fully automated. Previously we could process only five to ten transactions within an hour, but now, after switching to Appian, we can process about 100 transactions in an hour, making it 10 times faster. In terms of error detection, since Appian extracts data from MT103, the extraction rate is quite good, and the error rate is negligible, lower than 0.001%. We can share accurate, error-free data with the regulator, which is essential for us. Appian benefits us significantly. After receiving an MT103, we check what the remitter is, the amount, if it is under threshold for processing, and if it is from a high-priority remitter or client. Since Appian extracts data from MT103 messages and identifies top-level clients from the database, it can notify us to process their transactions with priority. Due to automated data extraction, there are fewer instances of error. In our previous tool, we reported regulatory data to the central bank manually and often received complaints about invalid purpose codes due to manual data entry. Appian handles this automatically, and after switching, our error rate has dropped significantly, resulting in positive feedback from the Central Bank of Bangladesh regarding our reduced error rates. This has greatly enhanced our organization's reputation. Appian is fully on-premises, and we have our own system.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"All these features help companies create powerful web applications that can then be customized and maintained by marketers with little involvement from IT."
"LiveCycle has a good user interface and has developed an easy way to create fillable .pdf forms."
"The most valuable feature is business automation."
"We use this solution because End-to-End Process Automation in Appian is robust and scalable."
"There is no need to worry about vulnerabilities in the system, because Appian built a secure system​."
"Rapid development with low-code makes it easier to quickly get apps implemented and the time to break-even and ROI is much faster."
"If you are looking for a fast, rapid rollout of applications and you have multiple medium-scale and small-scale processes that you want to roll out at a faster pace, with ease of maintenance, then Appian is a good product to go with."
"Good workflow engines that bridge the gaps of processes."
"The tool is very flexible."
"What stands out are the speed of the product, the quick, easy development, and visual diagramming."
 

Cons

"Help menu is a bit difficult to navigate."
"We have found occasional issues with stability but those were, in general, caused either by custom developed code or issues in the implemented architecture."
"The solution could improve robotic process automation."
"One of the areas that Appian is working on is to improve its UI capabilities and give more flexibility to the UI."
"While Appian is generally flexible, it's rigid in some ways. It takes longer to do something that isn't available out of the box."
"It is very expensive. It is also not easy to learn."
"There are four areas I believe Appian could improve in. The first is a seamless contact center integration. Appian does not have a contact center feature. The second is advanced features in RPA. The third would be chatbot and email bot integration—while Appian comes with chatbot and email bot, it's not as mature as it should be, compared to the competition. The fourth area would be next best action, since there is not much of this sort of feature in Appian. These are all features which competitors' products have, and in a mature manner, whereas Appian lacks on these four areas. I see customers who are moving from Appian to Pega because these features are not in Appian."
"Architecture of product and scalabiility issues."
"Appian's technical support could improve, especially their response turnaround."
"A point of improvement would be the SAIL forms. The built-in tool used to generate forms does not have debugging support (to view local variables as they change on live preview, and step-by-step valuation) which is a big drawback for form development. Moreover, the script language used to build SAIL forms does not support inheritance or lambda expressions (functions as arguments of other functions), which makes the code base more verbose."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"When it comes to pricing, it's definitely not affordable. However, it really depends on the requirements that you're seeking from the solution."
"The cost depends on the number of users, although I recommend taking an unlimited license."
"More flexibility in the licensing model is still needed because initially there were customers who are looking at only one or two use cases of business areas, but now the business areas are changing and there is a larger scope. One license model may not fit everyone. They need to be a little more flexible on the licensing model."
"The price is high."
"The pricing can be a little confusing to customers."
"The cost is calculated on a per-user basis. It might be expensive for small and mid-sized enterprises."
"It's an enterprise tool and can be used by enterprise only. So it's a very expensive tool."
"BPM done right is a huge value proposition for almost any company, and with Appian's low code rapid development model, the ROI can be huge, while the break-even point should be accelerated tremendously."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Customer Communications Management (CCM) solutions are best for your needs.
907,816 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise46
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
Which do you prefer - Appian or Camunda Platform?
Appian is fast when building simple to medium solutions. This solution offers simple drag-and-drop functionality with easy plug-and-play options. The initial setup was seamless and very easy to imp...
Is Appian a suitable solution for beginners who have no additional preparation?
Appian is actually pretty big on educating its users, including with courses that reward you with certifications. There is a whole section on their company’s website where you can check out the edu...
Is it easy to set up Appian or did you have to resort to professional help?
We had some issues when we were setting up Appian. It was quite surprising, since this is a low-code tool which, in its essence, means it is meant for business users and inexperienced beginners. So...
 

Also Known As

Adobe LiveCycle
Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

State of Illinois, Department of Human Services
Hansard Global plc, Punch Taverns, Pirelli, Crawford & Company, EDP Renewables, Queensland Government Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning (, Bank of Tennessee
Find out what your peers are saying about Quadient, Gupshup, OpenText and others in Customer Communications Management (CCM). Updated: July 2026.
907,816 professionals have used our research since 2012.