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Appian vs n8n comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2026

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
7.5
Appian enhances digital transformation with quick ROI, boosting efficiency, profits, and resource optimization, achieving tangible benefits within a year.
Sentiment score
4.4
n8n offers a strong ROI with quick returns, enhancing productivity and reducing costs by streamlining workforce and automation tasks.
Using Appian is saving us five full-time employees, which is significant since we currently have only four team members.
Finance Specialist at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees
They see return on investment in terms of cost savings, time savings, more efficient processes, and more efficient employees.
Director & Key Managerial Personnel at Newlight Technology Solutions Private Limited
Appian is very efficient, allowing us to build a lot of applications within a financial year, making it cost-effective.
Technology Leader of Appian at a retailer with 11-50 employees
n8n provides a strong return on investment and is very helpful and cost-optimized.
Cloud Engineering and Automation Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
They can save costs because they can reduce the hiring process for external developers for this type of automation that they can do themselves.
ERP recommendation specialist at a non-tech company with 1-10 employees
I believe the return on investment from using n8n is good because employees who previously worked on the specific problems I've automated can now focus on other, more interesting tasks.
AI and Automation Engineer at PeerSpot
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.5
Appian's customer service is praised for responsiveness and expertise, though complex issues occasionally face delays and costs concern some users.
Sentiment score
4.1
Users have mixed experiences with n8n support, often relying on online resources and community interactions for assistance.
I would give Appian's customer support 10 out of 10 due to their next-level support.
Finance Specialist at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees
Their customer service is responsive, and the team is very prompt for support.
Delivery Manager (Intelligent Business Automation) - Pega at Persistent Systems
The technical support for Appian rates as 10 out of 10 because they have a great support team.
Director & Key Managerial Personnel at Newlight Technology Solutions Private Limited
I describe the support team as knowledgeable, helpful, and responsive.
ERP recommendation specialist at a non-tech company with 1-10 employees
I can rate the customer support a nine.
Sde-1 at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees
I can reach out to members of the community, ask questions, and usually within a week, they're answered.
Solutions Architect at Bear Systems
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Appian effectively scales for large operations, praised for adaptability and integration, though requires careful architecture and cloud deployment caution.
Sentiment score
6.7
n8n is scalable, handling simultaneous workflows effectively with proper configuration, design, and version management despite occasional limitations.
On a scale of one to 10, Appian rates as a nine for scalability.
Director & Key Managerial Personnel at Newlight Technology Solutions Private Limited
Our volume has increased by 20% in the two years since using Appian, and it can handle the increased volume effectively.
Finance Specialist at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees
Initially, without much coding, I can easily handle five thousand records.
Associate Consultant at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
n8n's scalability is good, and it maintains a version history of each and every edit and each and every workflow it ran.
Sde-1 at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees
The standard solution allows for about five workflows at the same time, and it is scalable since I can upgrade my plan for more executions and workflows if needed.
AI and Automation Engineer at PeerSpot
One approach might take a day to go through all of it and another approach might take fifteen minutes to go through all of it.
Solutions Architect at Bear Systems
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Appian is stable and reliable, with minor latency issues often tied to external factors or poor design.
Sentiment score
6.8
n8n is stable and cost-effective but can be CPU-heavy, with some API connection issues requiring restarts.
We have tested Appian during peak usage and off-peak times, and we have not experienced any issues such as lagging or system disruptions.
Finance Specialist at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees
It depends on how it has been designed and how it has been configured.
Delivery Manager (Intelligent Business Automation) - Pega at Persistent Systems
The stability of Appian would rate as nine, as it's a stable environment.
Director & Key Managerial Personnel at Newlight Technology Solutions Private Limited
n8n deployments are some of the cheapest that I've come across; the monthly cost for n8n deployment self-hosted rarely exceeds five dollars.
Solutions Architect at Bear Systems
n8n is generally a CPU-heavy tool.
Sde-1 at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees
I have not had any downtime with n8n.
Business automation Expert at INSTRUTECH LIMITED
 

Room For Improvement

Appian users seek enhanced UI flexibility, seamless DevOps integration, better mobile features, improved error handling, and cost-effective pricing.
Users seek improvements in scalability, integration, user interface, documentation, and AI features for better n8n usability and resource efficiency.
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.
Director & Key Managerial Personnel at Newlight Technology Solutions Private Limited
Appian can be improved by adding a geo-location tagging feature, which would be really helpful for identifying remitter addresses.
Finance Specialist at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees
If there is a very complex process that includes a lot of data transitioning and memory-centric processes, it consumes a lot of memory.
Delivery Manager (Intelligent Business Automation) - Pega at Persistent Systems
Documentation is really good.
Automations Engineer at Ad Up
n8n's UI is great and the documentation is also pretty good; there are various YouTube resources available for that.
Sde-1 at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees
Even though I can connect to different platforms with the HTTP node, it would be easier for people who are not technically advanced to connect with the internal integrations.
Business automation Expert at INSTRUTECH LIMITED
 

Setup Cost

Appian offers flexible pricing with valuable solutions, costing up to $200,000 annually, yet users seek more competitive rates.
n8n offers cost-effective pricing for small licenses with higher infrastructure costs cheaper than competitors for large volumes.
Appian provides value for money, is easy to use, has a straightforward setup procedure, and offers great support from the Appian team.
Finance Specialist at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees
On the pricier side, both Appian and Pega are enterprise-level solutions, placing them on the slightly higher side.
Delivery Manager (Intelligent Business Automation) - Pega at Persistent Systems
The pricing of Appian is based on the number of users and generally ranges from 70 to 100 USD per user per month.
Technology Leader of Appian at a retailer with 11-50 employees
The open source version is free.
Business automation Expert at INSTRUTECH LIMITED
I feel that the price is right as I'm using the standard version, which allows for about one thousand five hundred executions per month, which is sufficient for me and my organization.
AI and Automation Engineer at PeerSpot
For cloud environments, I noticed that depending on the number of nodes used and the number of executions, the basic plan might not be enough.
ERP recommendation specialist at a non-tech company with 1-10 employees
 

Valuable Features

Appian excels in rapid, low-code development, fostering collaboration, agile workflows, and AI-driven innovation with robust support and scalability.
n8n enhances productivity with its flexible, easy-to-configure platform, supporting 200+ integrations and improving efficiency in diverse applications.
The zero-code integration feature is remarkable, allowing for ease of data transfer and workflow enhancement.
Technology Leader of Appian at a retailer with 11-50 employees
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.
Director & Key Managerial Personnel at Newlight Technology Solutions Private Limited
After switching to Appian, it can extract data from MT103, eliminating the need for manual data entry.
Finance Specialist at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees
Things are now fast enough, and people's productivity is generally improved because tedious and repetitive tasks are automated, allowing us to spend our energy and time on productive tasks.
Sde-1 at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees
My clients know that the information is not leaking or being sold to anybody.
Business automation Expert at INSTRUTECH LIMITED
You can use expressions anywhere. Expressions are basic JavaScript functions or JavaScript code that you can put in any node to pass data dynamically.
Automations Engineer at Ad Up
 

Categories and Ranking

Appian
Ranking in Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (8th), Process Automation (7th), Rapid Application Development Software (10th), Low-Code Development Platforms (5th), Process Mining (6th)
n8n
Ranking in Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies
15th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Workload Automation (11th), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (15th), AI-Agent Builders (2nd), AI Scheduling & Coordination (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

Shad Bhowmik - PeerSpot reviewer
Finance Specialist at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees
Automated remittance workflows have boosted speed and accuracy but still need geo-tagging improvements
Remittance is a crucial part of my integral operation, so any disruption would majorly impact our clients. After switching to Appian, we never faced any disruption as it is reliable and we can generate data at any point in time, quite faster than other tools in my personal opinion. Regulators can ask for data from us at any time, and with Appian, we download data from our Appian tools to share it with them whenever they ask. I would share a real-life example: a customer's transaction processed more than a year ago. Suddenly the customer came back asking for all the details. In our previous tool, it was quite difficult to generate transaction details from over a year ago; however, while using Appian, we can pull up data using different key search fields, such as a customer's cell phone number, remittance tracking number, or MT103 reference number. We shared it with the customer instantly, and the customer was surprised we could provide all the details in such a short time. It added reputational value for our organization, thanks to Appian.You have pointed out two major things: time-saving and reduction of error, which are key points while processing remittance. Previously, while using another tool, it was quite time-consuming to process remittance, but after switching to Appian, it can extract data from MT103, eliminating the need for manual data entry. The process has become fully automated. Previously we could process only five to ten transactions within an hour, but now, after switching to Appian, we can process about 100 transactions in an hour, making it 10 times faster. In terms of error detection, since Appian extracts data from MT103, the extraction rate is quite good, and the error rate is negligible, lower than 0.001%. We can share accurate, error-free data with the regulator, which is essential for us. Appian benefits us significantly. After receiving an MT103, we check what the remitter is, the amount, if it is under threshold for processing, and if it is from a high-priority remitter or client. Since Appian extracts data from MT103 messages and identifies top-level clients from the database, it can notify us to process their transactions with priority. Due to automated data extraction, there are fewer instances of error. In our previous tool, we reported regulatory data to the central bank manually and often received complaints about invalid purpose codes due to manual data entry. Appian handles this automatically, and after switching, our error rate has dropped significantly, resulting in positive feedback from the Central Bank of Bangladesh regarding our reduced error rates. This has greatly enhanced our organization's reputation. Appian is fully on-premises, and we have our own system.
NR
ERP recommendation specialist at a non-tech company with 1-10 employees
Automation has transformed complex workflows and has empowered non‑technical teams to build flows
Regarding improvements for n8n, I would highlight two areas. First, while there is a growing community, the ecosystem of pre-built nodes for niche or proprietary systems still lags behind some commercial competitors. I often have to build custom HTTP request nodes or create my own node packages, which is doable but adds to project timelines. Second, features for team collaboration and lifecycle management are still evolving. Moving workflows from development to staging to production can be a manual export-import process, and native Git integration and more robust user roles for larger client teams would be a game-changer. Regarding needed improvements, I believe much of the existing documentation is not peer-reviewed. There is definitely a big community, but if the documentation or tutorials were approved or at least had a badge from n8n, customers would feel that this meets the standards of n8n editors themselves, which would give more confidence in the flows.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise42
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise2
 

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 n8n?
My experience with pricing and setup costs has been good. I feel that the price is right as I'm using the standard version, which allows for about one thousand five hundred executions per month, wh...
What needs improvement with n8n?
n8n can be improved in the way that the UI could be better. There is a version two of n8n that I saw demonstrations of. It is a little better, but I think the UI could use a more futuristic approac...
What is your primary use case for n8n?
A main use case for n8n is connecting different platforms and using workflows to optimize day-to-day operations. One of the main examples is our sign-up flow. Whenever someone signs up, we create a...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
n8n.io n8n
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Appian vs. n8n and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
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