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Appian vs Pega Platform vs ServiceNow comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.1
Pega Platform boosts efficiency with quicker solutions, yielding significant ROI through cost savings, revenue increase, and improved customer satisfaction.
Sentiment score
6.6
ServiceNow enhances efficiency and cost savings, providing ROI within a year, despite initial costs and adoption 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.
They have removed the costs associated with on-prem infrastructure, including data center costs, power costs, and physical server costs.
The return on investment is good when implementing for ourselves and for other clients.
Manually, there are huge numbers that come up because these integrated tools help organizations make the right decisions with all the information in one place, while manual methods lack visibility.
 

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
6.7
Pega Platform's support is mixed, offering knowledgeable help but facing issues with delays and responsiveness; premium support is costly.
Sentiment score
6.9
ServiceNow support is praised for responsiveness and resources but experiences mixed reviews due to delays and inconsistencies.
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.
I never needed support from the platform standpoint, but if additional features are required, we have regular meetings with the product team for feedback.
The technical support from Pega is very low, rating a one or two out of ten.
Pega's technical support team is very helpful.
The support is exemplary and deserves a perfect rating.
Obtaining support for maintenance is the current challenge because they don't have a presence in the local market.
I have contacted them four to five times over the past two years, and they have been quite helpful.
 

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
7.6
Pega Platform offers scalable solutions for complex applications, though optimization and infrastructure are crucial for handling high loads.
Sentiment score
7.4
ServiceNow is scalable and effective for global operations, though performance issues and pricing concerns exist 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.
Currently, big banking providers and insurance providers, even the members for healthcare payers, are using more than millions of operations on a daily or weekly basis.
There are no limitations or performance issues with ServiceNow; it is cloud-based, so it is highly scalable and performs well.
It is capable of vertical scaling with no issues.
I rate the scalability of ServiceNow as an eight on a scale of one to ten.
 

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
7.6
Pega Platform is stable and resilient for complex tasks, though technical proficiency is needed for optimal performance.
Sentiment score
7.7
ServiceNow is widely praised for its stability and reliability, with efficient support and minimal downtime, making it dependable.
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.
It is cloud-based, so it is highly scalable and performs well.
I haven't faced any issues with stability; I've rarely seen any downtime.
ServiceNow is stable enough.
 

Room For Improvement

Appian needs improvements in flexibility, integration, scalability, team collaboration, mobile features, documentation, licensing, and handling complex processes.
Pega Platform needs improved UI, better integration, scalable performance, cost-effective licensing, comprehensive docs, and simpler upgrades.
ServiceNow needs to enhance user interface, licensing, support, integration, and analytics to improve user experience and satisfaction.
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.
Pega introduced Constellation, which allows a user to build a more engaging visual experience.
For customer interactions, while the Pega Platform's AI-based decisioning and predictive analytics are great, the Process AI is not very popular yet, as it works on process data rather than customer data.
My learning curve in robotics has been challenging.
It makes no sense in my opinion, and they should offer the team at the front to help customize the product to fit each company's needs, as every company has different demands and forms of submitting a request that need adjustment over time.
There is a need for bug or error tracking in ServiceNow.
Their customer support could make it a great solution, not just product support but also their relationship with partners and training initiatives in different regions.
 

Setup Cost

Appian offers flexible pricing with cloud and on-premise options, but costs can rise with usage and require negotiation.
Pega Platform is costly but offers ROI and value for large industries despite complex licensing and high fees.
ServiceNow is costly with complex licensing, requiring negotiation and flexibility, especially burdensome for small and regional businesses.
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.
Pega is priced higher than open-source options like Flowable but is suitable for large-scale industries like banking and insurance.
The pricing is expensive, and this is an issue.
From a licensing perspective, it is higher than the competition.
ServiceNow's pricing can be justified if more functionality is required.
ServiceNow does come with a price.
ServiceNow is expensive for all regions.
 

Valuable Features

Appian provides low-code development, easy integration, scalability, and strong AI-enhanced features with a user-friendly interface and robust support.
Pega Platform offers robust, scalable low-code solutions for seamless integration and digital transformation across diverse industries and frameworks.
ServiceNow offers flexible customization, fast development, and strong integration, enhancing efficiency across IT, HR, and finance with robust reporting.
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.
Management capabilities such as dashboards.
Pega Platform is excellent for enterprise-level solutions with integrations to entire systems, including case management, service orchestration, CRM, decision-making capabilities, digital process automation, and AI-driven functionalities.
ServiceNow provides a wide range of functionality, covering all the necessary modules, unlike Jira which is primarily for IT.
Automation capabilities are impressive, bolstered by a vast repository of out-of-the-box connectors and plugins that facilitate integration with various applications worldwide.
The features of ServiceNow that I find most valuable include its ability to easily access ticket details if you know the ticket number, monitor the timeline of when the ticket was created, and see the current status.
 

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 Pega Platform is 6.6%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow is 9.9%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rapid Application Development Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ServiceNow9.9%
Pega Platform6.6%
Appian7.9%
Other75.6%
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.
reviewer4848291 - PeerSpot reviewer
Pega is a low-code platform that enables organizations to build, automate, and optimize business processes and customer experiences through AI-powered decisioning and workflow automation.
Here are the key areas where Pega Platform could be improved: 1. User Interface (UI) & User Experience (UX) Customization Limitations: The UI layer is tightly coupled with the platform, limiting flexibility for custom front-end development. Constellation Architecture: While it improves consistency, it restricts advanced UI customizations compared to older section-based designs. Learning Curve: Non-technical users find the UI unintuitive despite the low-code promise. 2. Integration & Extensibility Limited Out-of-the-Box Integrations: Users report challenges integrating with non-relational databases and legacy systems. Robotics Integration: Pega RPA (formerly OpenSpan) is not seamlessly integrated with BPM, creating silos in automation. 3. AI & Decisioning AI Capabilities Need Maturity: Users expect more advanced, native AI features without relying on external tools. CDH & Decision Hub: While powerful, these components require deep expertise to configure effectively. 4. Cost & Licensing High Licensing Costs: Pega is often seen as expensive, especially for small and mid-sized enterprises. Lack of Flexible Pricing Models: Calls for subscription-based or usage-based pricing to improve accessibility. 5. Performance & Scalability Scalability Concerns: Some users report performance degradation with large user bases or complex workflows. Upgrade Complexity: Platform upgrades can be time-consuming and disruptive if not planned well. 6. Documentation & Community Support Insufficient Learning Resources: Especially for advanced features, documentation is limited and community support is not as strong as competitors. Talent Availability: Finding skilled Pega professionals remains a challenge in many regions. 7. Low-Code/No-Code Experience Not Fully No-Code: Despite branding, some tasks still require technical intervention, and the drag-and-drop interface can be restrictive 2. Conflict Management: Simultaneous development by multiple users can lead to rule conflicts.
Nikhil Gohil - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables effective incident management and seamless workflow automation with valuable mobile accessibility
I haven't thought deeply about improvements for ServiceNow or what might be missing right now. There are so many modules and features in ServiceNow that I haven't explored them all, so it's hard to say what might be missing or should be improved. I suggest making the cost more affordable for smaller companies.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

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 Business9
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise68
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business54
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise163
 

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...
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. The...
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 i...
Is Pega BPM easy to work with and can beginners utilize this software?
You do need some preparation to be able to use all functions of Pega BPM. However, all users of this platform are in ...
Have you encountered any issues while using Pega BPM and were you assisted by the company?
My company has been using this tool for years and the only issue we have had, if you can call it that, was while sett...
When you consider the features and benefits of Pega BPM, would you say this product is fairly priced?
Pega BPM can be considered overpriced for some; it all depends on the size of your company and the requirements of y...
Which solution is better for developing non-ITSM applications: OutSystems or Service Now?
The short answer is that OutSystems is far better for 2 main reasons. Firstly, with Service Now you are locked into t...
Would you choose ServiceNow over Microsoft PowerApps?
Hi Netanya, I will choose ServiceNow because ServiceNow is a very good tool compared to Microsoft PowerApp. Because ...
What do you like most about ServiceNow?
The solution has a user-friendly interface.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
Pega BPM, Pegasystems, SmartBPM, PegaRULES
No data available
 

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
The State of Maine, ANZ, Coca-Cola, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), ME, New South Wales, OptumRx, Texas Department of Transportation, UnitedHealthcare Medicare & Retirement
AAA, AstraZeneca, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Broadcom, Christus Health, Epicor, Equinix, GE Capital, Intuit, KPMG, Loyola Marymount University, OshKosh, Quantas, RedHat, Royal Bank of Scotland, Swiss Re, U.S. Department of Energy, Safeway, Yale University, and Zillow    
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, ServiceNow, Oracle and others in Rapid Application Development Software. Updated: August 2025.
866,755 professionals have used our research since 2012.