Appian and GitLab are competitors in the business automation and development automation categories, respectively. Appian appears to have an edge in rapid development due to its low-code platform and integration options, while GitLab is strong in CI/CD pipeline management and integration ease with development tools.
Features: Appian excels in its low-code platform, rapid application development, and integration options across numerous business use cases. It allows businesses to quickly implement robust process modeling. GitLab is highly regarded for its DevOps capabilities, especially CI/CD pipelines, and its seamless integration with various development tools, providing comprehensive control over code management.
Room for Improvement: Appian could improve its customization and flexibility in UI design, enhance offline and mobile capabilities, and offer better integration with enterprise development tools. GitLab needs improved integration with third-party tools, enhanced support for complex deployments, and more robust security features. Additionally, GitLab's user experience could be refined for non-technical users.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Appian provides versatile deployment options, including public, private, and hybrid cloud or on-premises solutions, often praised for its customer service and technical support, though response times can vary. GitLab also offers multiple deployment choices and is noted for ease of deployment, especially in public and hybrid cloud settings. Their customer service is considered satisfactory yet could improve on integration support.
Pricing and ROI: Appian's pricing can be high, based on users or workloads, yet it's seen as cost-effective compared to rivals like Pega, offering significant ROI via efficient application and process management. GitLab has various pricing tiers, including a free version, though some features are costly. It provides value for larger teams with flexible subscription and open-source options, promising substantial ROI upon effective application.
They see return on investment in terms of cost savings, time savings, more efficient processes, and more efficient employees.
Appian is very efficient, allowing us to build a lot of applications within a financial year, making it cost-effective.
Migrating to GitLab is bringing time-saving benefits, and everything is easier to automate.
We have saved time significantly, reducing deployment time from four hours to five minutes per deployment.
Their customer service is responsive, and the team is very prompt for support.
The technical support for Appian rates as 10 out of 10 because they have a great support team.
The technical support is generally good.
We have rarely needed to escalate issues to technical support since GitLab usually runs seamlessly.
I have interacted with architects for some advice during the implementation, and they were prompt in their response.
I have had meetings where they taught me, explained things, and provided guidance for starting from scratch.
On a scale of one to 10, Appian rates as a nine for scalability.
Initially, without much coding, I can easily handle five thousand records.
Appian is scalable, but it depends on how you build your applications.
It has all the features required for our coding and deployment needs, which makes it scalable to our changing requirements.
We're transitioning to OpenShift for future scalability with increased user numbers.
For scaling, other deployment options from GitLab's side need to be adopted.
It depends on how it has been designed and how it has been configured.
The stability of Appian would rate as nine, as it's a stable environment.
I have not encountered any performance or stability issues with GitLab so far.
The updates are frequent and demanding, happening at least once a week due to security reasons.
It has room to improve for use cases where the users are public facing, where anonymous users could come to a site and run a business workflow or interact with some data.
If there is a very complex process that includes a lot of data transitioning and memory-centric processes, it consumes a lot of memory.
I would like to see more enhancement in the user interface to allow more freedom in designing the sites and pages.
It would be beneficial to have a user-friendly interface for setting up these configurations, instead of just writing YAML files.
It is essential to conduct proper testing, such as unit tests and code coverage, within the SDLC pipelines.
GitLab can improve its user interface to make conflict resolution more user-friendly.
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.
The price of Appian, on a competitive landscape, is a little bit on the higher side for companies, rating maybe a 6.5.
Even when working in other small organizations, we opted for GitLab as it was cost-efficient.
The pricing of GitLab is reasonable, aligning with what I consider to be average compared to competitors.
The price is high, and it limits user accessibility.
The zero-code integration feature is remarkable, allowing for ease of data transfer and workflow enhancement.
Appian is aiding in leveraging AI technologies in multiple ways: one way is for developers, as they make development efficient and quick by enabling developer co-pilots across various phases of the application, which helps design Appian quickly and provides suggestions along the way.
It is easy for me to define the process and create configurable workflows.
As we implement automated testing and DevSecOps, it speeds up the process by forty to sixty percent.
The Ultimate version offers enhanced features for security scanning through DAST and SAST analysis, which have greatly benefitted our project workflow.
By integrating GitLab as a DevOps platform, we have enhanced agility, improved our time to market, and different teams can work collaboratively on various projects.
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.
GitLab is a complete DevOps platform that enables teams to collaborate and deliver software faster.
It provides a single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle, from planning and development to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
With GitLab, teams can streamline their workflows, automate processes, and improve productivity.
We monitor all Rapid Application Development Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
