Appian and AWS Step Functions compete in the application development space with Appian having an advantage in flexibility and development speed, while AWS Step Functions specializes in seamless AWS integration and task parallelization.
Features: Appian is distinguished by its extensive low-code development capabilities allowing rapid deployment and ease of use. It excels in creating complex workflows, mobile readiness, and cross-platform integration. AWS Step Functions stands out with seamless integration across the AWS ecosystem, graphical workflow creation, and execution monitoring, which is ideal for AWS-heavy infrastructures.
Room for Improvement: Appian users call for enhanced customization options, particularly around the user interface and mobile capabilities, as well as better integration with team development and DevOps tools. AWS Step Functions faces criticism regarding pricing complexity, limited integration options outside AWS, and a payload size cap that can restrict functionality.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Appian offers flexible deployment options across public, private, and hybrid clouds, with strong technical support noted for high-severity issues. Smaller companies find its customer service a competitive advantage. AWS Step Functions operates primarily within the AWS public cloud, and feedback suggests room for improved integration assistance despite strong technical support from AWS.
Pricing and ROI: Appian's pricing, based on deployment type and scale, is perceived as more affordable relative to its features, offering significant ROI due to rapid deployment times and cost-effective scaling. AWS Step Functions offers flexible usage-based pricing, though some users find it confusing and leading to unforeseen high costs. Appian's pricing might appeal more to businesses seeking upfront clarity and long-term value, while AWS Step Functions might suit those integrated into AWS services.
Appian is very efficient, allowing us to build a lot of applications within a financial year, making it cost-effective.
Their customer service is responsive, and the team is very prompt for support.
The technical support is generally good.
Appian has a community where I can put my questions.
The speed of reply and the content of their responses usually solve the problems that arise.
I use enterprise support, which is excellent, providing responses within fifteen minutes.
Appian is scalable, but it depends on how you build your applications.
Initially, without much coding, I can easily handle five thousand records.
Starting separate Step Functions for each request, making it highly scalable.
It depends on how it has been designed and how it has been configured.
If one zone fails, others handle the demand, ensuring high availability.
I would like to see more enhancement in the user interface to allow more freedom in designing the sites and pages.
If there is a very complex process that includes a lot of data transitioning and memory-centric processes, it consumes a lot of memory.
It would benefit from more integration with different applications or services.
On the pricier side, both Appian and Pega are enterprise-level solutions, placing them on the slightly higher side.
The pricing of Appian is based on the number of users and generally ranges from 70 to 100 USD per user per month.
Pricing for Step Functions is very cheap.
The cost is average, provided it is configured correctly.
The zero-code integration feature is remarkable, allowing for ease of data transfer and workflow enhancement.
I can create tables, perform database-related activities, and create multiple tables.
It is easy for me to define the process and create configurable workflows.
Step Functions provide seamless integration with AWS services, which enhances the speed of application development.
AWS Step Functions offers advanced workflows that save time and enhance efficiency by reducing delays and ensuring consistent orchestration among various services.
It was particularly valuable for its integration capabilities, allowing for execution of scripts and data migration.
Appian is a unified low-code platform and solution used by businesses to build enterprise applications and workflows. This product adapts to the needs of clients and the technologies they are already using to combine their data in a single workflow and maximize resources. The platform has four main components through which it transforms the work process for companies of various sizes. They are:
Appian is utilized across a diverse set of industries, including automotive and manufacturing, energy and utilities, education, financial services, telecom and media, transportation, retail, insurance, healthcare, and life sciences. The most frequent use cases of Appian are customer journey, governance, risk and compliance, operational efficiency, supply chain, distributed order management, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) management.
Appian Features
Appian has various features that allow users to create solutions for their businesses. These features can be separated into a few groups according to function, including automation, low-code application development, and integrations and data. Some of the most frequently used features of Appian include:
Appian Benefits
The benefits of using Appian include:
Reviews from Real Users
A practice leader - digital process automation at a computer software company values Appian highly because the product is easy to develop, low-code, and has a good user interface.
Alan G., an advisory board member at Codecon VR, Appian offers a clear application life cycle, easy to learn documentation, and comes with a fundamentals course.
AWS Step Functions enables orchestration of complex workflows, parallel task execution, and seamless integration with AWS services, simplifying ETL automation and data pipeline management.
With AWS Step Functions, developers streamline task automation and ensure smooth microservices orchestration. It simplifies development and manages interdependencies, validates data, and integrates AWS services for cost-effective workflows. It offers a user-friendly graphical interface for creating pipelines, scalable parallelization via the "map" state, control over historical events, and visualization with JSON. Enhanced by a dashboard-like view, it aids in visual workflows and debugging.
What are the most valuable features?
What are the benefits and ROI to look for?
In specific industries such as finance, healthcare, and e-commerce, enterprises implement AWS Step Functions to manage data pipelines, orchestrate microservices, and automate complex ETL jobs. They benefit from seamless integration with AWS services, enhanced data validation, and streamlined development, resulting in efficient and cost-effective workflows tailored to their operational needs.
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