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Appian vs Hyland OnBase comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 19, 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 Business Process Management (BPM)
9th
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (7th), Rapid Application Development Software (10th), Process Mining (7th)
Hyland OnBase
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
16th
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
13th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of Appian is 5.3%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hyland OnBase is 1.1%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Appian5.3%
Hyland OnBase1.1%
Other93.6%
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

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.
Srinivas Rao Kagitha - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good dashboards and reports but fails to offer better migration features
The migration is a bit difficult in the tool. Whenever we make certain changes to workflow or other stuff, migrating the code from one environment to another is a bit tedious. The tool has an option for export and import, which is not robust. Most of the time, we need to do things stuff manually. For example, if we make any changes in the existing life cycle or any queues, we have to move those changes manually. There is no robust way to migrate code from one environment to a lower environment, like prod. When it comes to the product's technical support, the turnaround time is a bit longer than expected. The issue may be because there are a number of issues or a large number of customers who are reaching out to the support team for help. I believe that the solution's technical team can provide a solution more quickly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The technical support is excellent."
"The product has a very good mobile app."
"It is easy for me to define the process and create configurable workflows."
"Process culture is making noise inside the organization because now, everybody knows that their time is being monitored."
"The low code functionality and being able to get applications faster to customers or to the market are valuable."
"The initial setup was seamless. We didn't run into any hardships at all."
"What stands out are the speed of the product, the quick, easy development, and visual diagramming."
"Low code development: Code can be developed pretty quickly which leads to less turnaround time for automation of business processes."
"Integrating Hyland OnBase with our systems enabled us to automate document designs and templates, which was extremely helpful in the finance and banking industry."
"The most valuable features are that it's very secure and provides audit trails for our documents."
"The product's initial setup phase is not difficult."
"The solution's most valuable features are integration and flexibility."
"We found the setup process to be okay since they do offer a troubleshooting guide."
"OnBase is a remarkable tool. It is a well-done product. Hyland has a lot of experience in building it and looking for new things for clients in terms of functionalities. It has amazing stability, and it can grow horizontally and vertically. It is built for growth. Their technical support is also quite good and available throughout the year."
"I like the cloud and its integrability."
"The solution is very developed and we are not taking full advantage of its functionalities."
 

Cons

"The tool itself is pretty good, but the main area that we struggled with was the backend. The frontend development is really good, but the backend modeling can be streamlined a little bit. There are good integrations, but tying them through the data layer and then up into the frontend could be improved a little bit. It does read/write on the data source, and you can configure it to just write or just read, but there is a little bit of work involved."
"There should be more flexibility for the developers to choose the look and feel of the UI. They should have a better ability to design their widgets and customize them with different colors, shapes, and sizes. That is a limitation that could be improved upon."
"Appian could be improved by making it a strict, no-code platform with free-built process packs."
"There could be a scope of enhancement for capturing the variety of use cases."
"I wouldn't say their response time is long, but it could be quicker."
"What could be improved is more on the front end perspective, like the user interface and the mobile application aspect."
"Appian could include other applications that we could reuse for other customers, CRM for example."
"A point of improvement would be the SAIL forms. The built-in tool used to generate forms does not have debugging support (to view local variables as they change on live preview, and step-by-step valuation) which is a big drawback for form development. Moreover, the script language used to build SAIL forms does not support inheritance or lambda expressions (functions as arguments of other functions), which makes the code base more verbose."
"Software malfunctioning usually occurs when we receive documents from external sources."
"For user experience, they would have to do more with the interface. It is not easy to work with and is a little messy. It is getting better, but it is not yet good enough. Other products are comparatively doing better in terms of the user interface. I have been hearing about Box, which is very easy to use and learn for the users. OnBase has to work on this aspect. It should have BPM capabilities. We compete with tools that provide the BPM feature and support those standards. They can do better in terms of the pricing model. It is a really expensive tool in Latin America. They should have different prices for different regions."
"I find OnBase's monolithic architecture to be expensive, and adopting microservices could be beneficial."
"The migration is a bit difficult in the tool."
"An area for improvement would be the training - getting our people up to speed on how to use it required more training than we expected due to the complexity of the solution."
"The solution’s initial setup is a little difficult."
"We need to troubleshoot why our reports didn't get downloaded in a day. There is a workflow feature which powerful but also complicated."
"We found the size of images to be a restriction, though this may have been due to the API used rather than the Hyland application."
 

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."
"It is expensive, but powerful. I would recommend comparing against cheaper licensing products and open source."
"The price is high."
"You can't really test the software properly without actually buying the license first."
"Product pricing compared to some of the earlier vendors, like IBM, CA, and Oracle, is quite well-priced. Although, we do feel that as we increase the number of users and the workload increases, we will have to spend more."
"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."
"The cost is calculated on a per-user basis. It might be expensive for small and mid-sized enterprises."
"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."
"OnBase is reasonably priced."
"The tool's price is high."
"There are a number of different types of licenses. There are concurrent licenses, individual licenses and imaging licenses."
"They can do better in terms of the pricing model. It is a really expensive tool in Latin America. They should have different prices for different regions."
"The solution costs around $6,000 per month."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise41
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hyland OnBase?
I find pricing to be on the higher side due to its monolithic architecture. I would rate it six out of ten. Transitioning to microservices, allowing users to pay for only what they use, could reduc...
What needs improvement with Hyland OnBase?
I believe the reporting features need improvement, as other competitors in the market provide better analytics. Hyland is working on a new platform (HXP) to integrate features from all products, ad...
What is your primary use case for Hyland OnBase?
I was a vendor managing Hyland OnBase ( /products/hyland-onbase-reviews ) for Hyland, not as a direct user but as a business partner. We managed the solution and were a partner with Hyland.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
OnBase
 

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
Honda France Industries, Hill County Texas, Hylant Group, ING Lease France, State of South Carolina, Syracuse University, Swindon College, Rhode Island Department of Human Services, Rochester Institute of Technology, Moen, Odense University Hospital
Find out what your peers are saying about Appian vs. Hyland OnBase and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,655 professionals have used our research since 2012.