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Appian vs CA Process Automation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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

Appian
Ranking in Process Automation
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (12th), Rapid Application Development Software (8th), Low-Code Development Platforms (5th), Process Mining (8th)
CA Process Automation
Ranking in Process Automation
36th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of Appian is 6.2%, down from 10.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CA Process Automation is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Nitin-Agarwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamless integration enhances workflows while memory optimization can improve complex processes
I am working with all of these products: Pega, Appian, and OutSystems. I use Appian as a process orchestrator for workflow and rule-based routing, and it is preferred when I am developing an enterprise-wide application. The application is mobile-friendly, allowing me to use it across any device…
SJ
Added value to the delivery of services and the customer experience
We design end-to-end automation solutions for repetitive tasks performed by IT support teams This tool is used in my organization for automating IT infrastructure related incidents or service requests.  Built-in operators available for most integrations. Easy to manage. Attended/unattended…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Appian's most valuable features are the quick time it takes to develop for the market. It's easy and faster than other BPM solutions."
"This is the most complete solution of its kind."
"Form building capabilities and well thought out process modelling are key points to this product."
"The product has a very good mobile app."
"It's heavy on business processing in terms of logic, process workflows, and primarily on the process design modeler. Appian is really great at that. In terms of the full stack set from a low-code platform perspective, it's definitely an eye opener since it can be deployed via mobile app and on the web as well."
"The most valuable features are the low coding and low code data."
"The application is mobile-friendly, allowing me to use it across any device, whether mobile, laptop, or desktop."
"The tech support is quite good."
"This tool is used in my organization for automating IT infrastructure related incidents or service requests."
"It is easy to debug and troubleshoot."
 

Cons

"Something I would like to see improved is an SQL database connection."
"Authoring tool is slow to use resulted in limitations on how quickly solutions can be built."
"Appian could include other applications that we could reuse for other customers, CRM for example."
"It would be useful if they could create an academy or forum in the future to help active users answer questions they have about the solution."
"One room for improvement is the ease of UI UX development, like in OutSystems and Mendix."
"From a reseller's point of view, subscription licensing could be improved to be more cost-effective, especially for new prospects and smaller investments."
"I would like to see more enhancement in the user interface to allow more freedom in designing the sites and pages."
"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."
"Somehow the product group within CA left the product dry from some regular expression functionality."
"OCR capability should be added as a feature."
"It needs auto-triggering of workflows based on machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI)."
"Make some of the features more open source that way developers can have more flexibility."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Licensing of Appian is less expensive when compared to other BPMs in the market."
"The solution offers a monthly subscription model. That's what we use. I recall it being about $90 a month. They do have different tiers."
"It's good value for the price."
"The license is a bit expensive and the pricing model is sometimes confusing for new users or business users. It is difficult for them to know what volume of usage they will have to be able to purchase the best-suited license at the beginning."
"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."
"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."
"It has provided ROI by auto resolving incidents or requests in the ITSM queue, improved MTTR and SLA adherence, and added value to the delivery of services and the customer experience."
"There are a lot of automation savings from any process which is repeatable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Educational Organization
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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Also Known As

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
CA IT Process Automation Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Hansard Global plc, Punch Taverns, Pirelli, Crawford & Company, EDP Renewables, Queensland Government Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning (, Bank of Tennessee
Unum, HCL Technologies, Logicalis
Find out what your peers are saying about Appian vs. CA Process Automation and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.