

Appian and Retool are competitors in the low-code development platform market. Appian seems to have the upper hand with its comprehensive integration abilities and enterprise-grade solutions, making it more suitable for large-scale businesses.
Features: Appian facilitates rapid application development with low-code capabilities and robust process design, featuring records and related actions for case management and swift automation of workflows. It provides extensive integration capabilities, allowing significant customization and automation. Retool offers straightforward setup with drag-and-drop functionality, ideal for quickly building internal applications with easy API integration. Retool is valued for the flexibility it provides in crafting customized dashboards effortlessly.
Room for Improvement: Appian could improve in team collaboration, complex integrations, and offering more customizable UI components. The architecture could also be more flexible, with a steep learning curve for beginners. Retool could expand its front-end toolset and offer better support for third-party JavaScript libraries. Enhanced customization in data visualization is desirable to accommodate broader use cases.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Appian supports diverse deployment options, including on-premises and hybrid cloud, ensuring versatility for enterprise needs. While customer service is generally satisfactory, complex issues may see delays. Retool's primary focus on public and hybrid cloud enables easy connectivity and scalability, with straightforward support services, though they experience occasional delays due to growing demand.
Pricing and ROI: Appian has a higher price tag than some competitors, but it promises strong ROI through effective process improvements and cost savings over time. Although its flexible licensing models offer some scalability, they can become complex. Retool is more affordable for smaller setups, offering considerable cost advantages. Both solutions demonstrate substantial ROI, with Appian favored for high-volume enterprise use and Retool suited for agile, budget-conscious development environments.
Using Appian is saving us five full-time employees, which is significant since we currently have only four team members.
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.
We had fewer front-end resources, and while developing with Retool, we did not need many front-end team members, which saved on salaries.
I think we can see time saved to start the proof of concept and maybe money saved because I was able to develop the mobile app alone without needing additional resources.
I would give Appian's customer support 10 out of 10 due to their next-level support.
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 customer support is amazing; overall, AWS customer support is very professional and fast.
Technical support team is available, but I haven't needed to contact them.
On a scale of one to 10, Appian rates as a nine for scalability.
Our volume has increased by 20% in the two years since using Appian, and it can handle the increased volume effectively.
Initially, without much coding, I can easily handle five thousand records.
It's scalable and doesn't experience any slowdown when handling increasing data volumes.
Retool is more suited for startups, but it can get messy at scale.
We have tested Appian during peak usage and off-peak times, and we have not experienced any issues such as lagging or system disruptions.
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.
Retool is stable in my experience.
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.
Appian can be improved by adding a geo-location tagging feature, which would be really helpful for identifying remitter addresses.
If there is a very complex process that includes a lot of data transitioning and memory-centric processes, it consumes a lot of memory.
Retool needs more customization options, as it should not be limited to a few customization features; it should be broader, with more features available for users to utilize.
AI tools, features, and machine learning capabilities should be added as they would be helpful in the future.
There should be better documentation or support for non-technical users, providing a platform to learn and implement Retool effectively.
Appian provides value for money, is easy to use, has a straightforward setup procedure, and offers great support from the Appian team.
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 pricing, setup cost, and licensing experience were good as the free plan was enough for us.
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.
After switching to Appian, it can extract data from MT103, eliminating the need for manual data entry.
Retool positively impacts our organization by saving costs compared to using other data repositories, and teams prefer Retool for daily tasks that perform customizations to showcase web pages or link their data backend, making it more efficient and cost-effective than other software available in the market.
Retool provides built-in features with all processing happening within the platform, which is a significant advantage.
The best features Retool offers include the ability to quickly create a mobile app and use this mobile app in a native mobile app for Android.
| Product | Mindshare (%) |
|---|---|
| Appian | 5.0% |
| Retool | 1.3% |
| Other | 93.7% |

| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 20 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 9 |
| Large Enterprise | 44 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 5 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 3 |
| Large Enterprise | 4 |
Appian is a unified low-code platform and solution used by businesses to build enterprise applications and workflows. This product adapts to the needs of clients and the technologies they are already using to combine their data in a single workflow and maximize resources. The platform has four main components through which it transforms the work process for companies of various sizes. They are:
Appian is utilized across a diverse set of industries, including automotive and manufacturing, energy and utilities, education, financial services, telecom and media, transportation, retail, insurance, healthcare, and life sciences. The most frequent use cases of Appian are customer journey, governance, risk and compliance, operational efficiency, supply chain, distributed order management, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) management.
Appian Features
Appian has various features that allow users to create solutions for their businesses. These features can be separated into a few groups according to function, including automation, low-code application development, and integrations and data. Some of the most frequently used features of Appian include:
Appian Benefits
The benefits of using Appian include:
Reviews from Real Users
A practice leader - digital process automation at a computer software company values Appian highly because the product is easy to develop, low-code, and has a good user interface.
Alan G., an advisory board member at Codecon VR, Appian offers a clear application life cycle, easy to learn documentation, and comes with a fundamentals course.
Retool enables rapid construction of internal tools with minimal coding, streamlining workflows across HR, customer support, and compliance. Praised for its drag-and-drop interface, extensive component library, and SQL support, it boosts organizational efficiency by automating tasks and enhancing data management.
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