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Appian vs Oracle Application Express (APEX) 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Appian
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
10th
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (9th), Process Automation (7th), Process Mining (7th)
Oracle Application Express ...
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
3rd
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Development Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Rapid Application Development Software category, the mindshare of Appian is 7.9%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Application Express (APEX) is 7.5%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rapid Application Development Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Oracle Application Express (APEX)7.5%
Appian7.9%
Other84.6%
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.
Rodrigo-Mesquita - PeerSpot reviewer
Rapid application development empowers big projects in months
The ability to quickly develop applications without needing to code a lot is very valuable. It is very quick to create a page, and one can use AI to speed up software development. It is easy to learn. In my company, we could develop a very big application in a couple of months.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Compared to other code tools that I've seen, Appian has a more robust rules engine"
"It's a stable product."
"Appian also has very flexible local integration."
"Appian helps you do a lot of things. It's easy to configure and build an application platform, and it offers a lot of features that you find in an RPA solution. It's flexible so you can reuse it for a variety of use cases."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The solution's most valuable features are the regular periodic and quarterly updates, they are very useful updates. They keep improving the solution more often, and that helps the platform or code always be up to date with the latest features."
"Process Modeling enables creation of business process workflows. You can create complex business workflows in a visual manner, and it is also easy to debug/monitor."
"Technical support is quite responsive."
"What I like best about Oracle Application Express (APEX) is that it doesn't require hard coding for reporting and building applications. It's a GUI-based application builder that even end-users with little development and language knowledge can develop applications on Oracle Application Express (APEX). The software is also very user-friendly, which I find valuable."
"Oracle APEX improved our organization by making it possible for us to implement agile project development."
"I like that Oracle Application Express (APEX) is powerful and attractive, allowing my organization to modernize forms within two months. I also found its PWA feature very powerful because you can produce substantial mobile applications."
"This product will speed up development time with helpful production aids."
"The database is super easy to use for creating tables."
"This is a good application for quickly creating public applications."
"I like how we can actively develop and customize APEX because it's on the same database."
"It's stable and reliable for the most part."
 

Cons

"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."
"The graphical user interface could be easier to use. It should be simplified."
"The solution could improve robotic process automation."
"Native mobile capabilities or hybrid mobile app capabilities are very limited. Things like offline sync, offline storage, access to smartphone device features, etc. are not supported by the Appian platform yet."
"We would like to see more reduced latency. We would like to make sure that the scale-out factor will be much more as workloads come in."
"It needs better integration with our existing application ecosystem."
"What could be improved is more on the front end perspective, like the user interface and the mobile application aspect."
"It has it's own built-in UI components and doesn't provide much flexibility to customize or extend those components."
"It can only be deployed on Oracle Database."
"It would be highly beneficial if APEX were an all-in-one platform capable of handling all aspects of application development."
"I would like to see easier integration into active directory authentication. Also, maybe integration of JavaScript frameworks would resolve some issues."
"There is a bit of a learning curve involved when first using the solution."
"In terms of improvement, there should be a greater focus on AI and machine learning tools in Oracle APEX."
"The user interface needs to be improved. It should be more user-friendly."
"The solution has some stability problems that need to be resolved."
"Connecting with Oracle and the relation with Oracle at the database as a procedure needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is a bit higher than other low-code competitors, OutSystems and Mendix. The price needs to be more competitive."
"The cost depends on the number of users, although I recommend taking an unlimited license."
"More flexibility in the licensing model is still needed because initially there were customers who are looking at only one or two use cases of business areas, but now the business areas are changing and there is a larger scope. One license model may not fit everyone. They need to be a little more flexible on the licensing model."
"It is expensive, but powerful. I would recommend comparing against cheaper licensing products and open source."
"It is fully managed, and I don't believe there are any additional expenses."
"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."
"I think that if somebody is really serious at looking at business value, then by all means, the product is well worth the value. You get representative business value for the price that you pay for the product, and for the implementation of the product."
"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."
"Oracle Express comes with the Oracle license, it is a bundle."
"I do not think this would be an ideal option for a small sized company or a startup when considering the salary requirements for Oracle DBA'a and developers."
"The solution is free if you are using on Oracle database."
"To my understanding, my organization is using the free version of Oracle Application Express (APEX), but I'm unsure because I haven't checked the pricing or licensing cost for it."
"When you have a licensed database in an Oracle environment, APEX is free."
"It is expensive, but I don't know what the licensing cost is."
"It is expensive in comparison to other products."
"Pricing is expensive, overall on an enterprise system but we consider that it gives corresponding value in the product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

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 Business28
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise28
 

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 Oracle Application Express (APEX)?
I consider Oracle Application Express (APEX) to be good value for the money because it has infinite quality for money since it's included in any Oracle database license. It's free once you have the...
What needs improvement with Oracle Application Express (APEX)?
One of the things that could be done to improve Oracle Application Express (APEX) is if Oracle decided to open it up to other databases. It needs to be an enterprise database; therefore, it needs t...
 

Also Known As

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
Oracle APEX
 

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
Hepart AG, pharmasol, SATLOG, Collège Bois-de-Boulogne
Find out what your peers are saying about Appian vs. Oracle Application Express (APEX) and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.