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Appian vs HCL Domino comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.3
Appian enhances ROI for companies by improving efficiency, reducing costs, and achieving break-even within the first year.
Sentiment score
5.0
Opinions on HCL Domino ROI vary, with some reporting positive returns and operational benefits, despite initial deployment challenges.
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.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.5
Appian's customer service is excellent but faces capacity challenges; proactive support is valuable despite complex issue delays and high costs.
Sentiment score
7.0
HCL Domino customer support is generally positive, praised for promptness and helpfulness, yet some find it complex and unfriendly.
The technical support for Appian rates as 10 out of 10 because they have a great support team.
Their customer service is responsive, and the team is very prompt for support.
The technical support is generally good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Appian is scalable and flexible, but may encounter performance issues with complex processes and large data volumes.
Sentiment score
7.2
HCL Domino offers effective scalability for many, but faces challenges with large databases affecting reliability for some users.
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.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Appian is praised for stability and reliability, with high uptime, seamless updates, and occasional minor database issues.
Sentiment score
8.1
HCL Domino is praised for its stability and reliability, though some report performance declines with larger databases.
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.
 

Room For Improvement

Appian needs improvements in flexibility, integration, scalability, team collaboration, mobile features, documentation, licensing, and handling complex processes.
HCL Domino requires improved integration, updated interface, better performance, enhanced scalability, security, and support for modern technologies.
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.
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.
In-line editing of documents and a document viewer are functionalities that would be beneficial.
 

Setup Cost

Appian offers flexible pricing with cloud and on-premise options, but costs can rise with usage and require negotiation.
HCL Domino pricing is seen as high, $100/user annually, affecting smaller enterprises' decisions against competitors like Microsoft Exchange.
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.
The Notes client is very expensive, costing around $105 per client.
 

Valuable Features

Appian provides low-code development, easy integration, scalability, and strong AI-enhanced features with a user-friendly interface and robust support.
HCL Domino offers strong security, seamless integration, cross-platform versatility, robust encryption, and efficient storage with DAOS for comprehensive application support.
The zero-code integration feature is remarkable, allowing for ease of data transfer and workflow enhancement.
Appian also utilizes AI for business users, providing a feature called process each view, enabling business users to create their own dashboards, reports, and gain insights from their data and processes using artificial intelligence.
I can create tables, perform database-related activities, and create multiple tables.
Its hybrid nature allows the use of both web-based applications and Notes client-based applications.
 

Categories and Ranking

Appian
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (10th), Process Automation (8th), Low-Code Development Platforms (5th), Process Mining (8th)
HCL Domino
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
17th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Rapid Application Development Software category, the mindshare of Appian is 8.2%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HCL Domino is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rapid Application Development Software
 

Featured Reviews

Kunal Sharda - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience enables seamless automation and elevates process efficiency while embracing innovative technologies
The features of Appian that have proven to be the most beneficial are its capability to create processes and integrate with external systems while ensuring data consistency across all the systems. The latest features of Appian are quite useful around the UI/UX design and the artificial intelligence integrations. 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. Another way is through AI Skills, which can be integrated anywhere in the process model to leverage artificial intelligence for tasks such as extracting data from documents, summarizing information from documents or long paragraphs, and building custom prompts with Appian. Appian also utilizes AI for business users, providing a feature called process each view, enabling business users to create their own dashboards, reports, and gain insights from their data and processes using artificial intelligence. It's multi-fold and always growing.
FrederickLim - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides mobile email systems with solid stability and easy deployment
The initial setup is easy. You need to sign up. It depends on the scope. It will take longer if there are more than one or more applications. The project usually includes infrastructure and deployment may take anywhere from one month to six months. I rate the initial setup an eight out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

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...
What do you like most about HCL Domino?
The most valuable features of the solution are security and integration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HCL Domino?
The Notes client is very expensive, costing around $105 per client. Overall, HCL Domino is a costly product.
What needs improvement with HCL Domino?
One challenge I faced with HCL Domino was fully understanding its capabilities because initial use may lead to misconceptions based on simpler platforms. Exploring and comprehending what is possibl...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
IBM Lotus Domino, Lotus Domino
 

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
A1 Telekom, Acubiz, Afrisam, E. A. Juffali & Brothers, Fiducia & GAD, and Pakistan State Oil
Find out what your peers are saying about Appian vs. HCL Domino and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.