AWS Step Functions vs Appian comparison

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:

• Complete automation: Through complete automation, companies are able to coordinate and manage employees, existing systems, bots, data, and artificial intelligence (AI) in a single workflow. The solution offers a way to centrally manage all third-party automation vendors as well.
  
  
• Low-code applications: Appian offers the ability to build applications faster with visual development and low-code tools. All applications are ready-made to be suitable for mobile.
  
  
• Low-code data: Appian lets companies source data from multiple types of sources, eliminating the need for data migration. Through no-code and low-code solutions and industry-standard connectors, the platform also eliminates the need for data silos.
  
  
• Enterprise ready: The platform offers options for companies to scale their businesses to an enterprise level without complications.

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:

• Robotic process automation (RPA): Users of Appian can assign software bots to perform rules-based tasks that need to be repeated over a set course of time. This can improve efficiency and performance within an organization while saving human resources.
  
  
• Intelligent document processing: The tool offers a feature for quick and accurate extraction and structuring of data. This can reduce time and costs for organizations because it eliminates the need for outsourcing such services.
  
  
• AI: Appian utilizes artificial intelligence to enhance applications, workflows, and automation. AI is also used to address complex processes and unique situations.
  
  
• Business rules: Organizations can automate and simplify work processes while adhering to their operating procedures.
  
  
• Application development: Appian provides a low-code development feature that allows users to deploy applications over ten times faster than through conventional approaches. This feature not only allows for quick application building, but also applications that run on multiple types of platforms, seamless data integration, and business scalability.
  
  
• Integrations and data: Appian allows for data integration from a wide array of sources without the need for migration. This contributes to easy access to data across systems, real-time data insights, improved user experience, and accelerated development.

Appian Benefits

The benefits of using Appian include:

• The solution ensures seamless organization growth, as it supports various UX patterns, common data schemes, and upgrades, used to facilitate application development on a bigger scale.
  
  
• Appian can increase process speed and deliver applications considerably faster compared to conventional development.
  
  
• The platform is easy to use and suitable for complete beginners to build applications and workflows.
  
  
• Appian offers a variety of design tools that facilitate development and deployment.
  
  
• Appian offers detailed real-time data insight which allows organizations to access relevant information about their processes as they are developing.
  
  
• The solution offers clients the ability to move data between the cloud, on-premise, and hybrid configurations.
  
  
• The platform is easy to optimize, which allows businesses to utilize it according to their personal needs.
  
  
• Appian offers connectivity across web, mobile, email, voice, and chat, providing a multi-channel experience for companies and their clients.

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 integrate seamlessly with other AWS services to offer efficient pipeline and workflow management. Its intuitive design allows for streamlined orchestration, easily handling complex tasks.

AWS Step Functions provide robust orchestration and automation capabilities, simplifying the creation of workflows with graphical and JSON-based designs. It excels in managing tasks through advanced parallelization and error handling features. Automatic scaling further enhances performance, ensuring reliability in varied environments. However, improvements are needed in IDE integration, larger data handling, and fault tolerance. Users find value in its capacity for microservice orchestration and data integration, although dependency on the Amazon ecosystem and limited third-party integrations pose challenges.

• Integration with AWS Services: Facilitates seamless coordination with AWS offerings like Lambda and Glue.
• Graphical and JSON-Based Design: User-friendly interfaces simplify workflow design and management.
• Advanced Orchestration: Efficiently manages task execution with parallelization and error handling.
• Automatic Scaling: Ensures optimal performance by adjusting resources as needed.
• Microservice Integration: Supports smooth microservice communication and operation.

• Enhanced Efficiency: Automates and streamlines task execution across platforms.
• Scalability: Adapts to workloads, providing flexibility in resource management.
• Improved Workflow Management: Facilitates reliable and error-free operations.
• Visualization and Automation: Simplifies complex processes with visual tools.
• Data Validation and Script Execution: Integrates data operations smoothly within data lakes.

In industries managing data pipelines, AWS Step Functions orchestrate workflows, execute parallel ETL jobs, and integrate various AWS services, enabling smoother operations and efficient data migration. Companies benefit from streamlined processes and robust handling of interdependent tasks.