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Appian vs Retool 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
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (9th), Process Automation (7th), Low-Code Development Platforms (3rd), Process Mining (7th)
Retool
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
16th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Rapid Application Development Software category, the mindshare of Appian is 7.8%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Retool is 0.9%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rapid Application Development Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Appian7.8%
Retool0.9%
Other91.3%
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.
Anees Shoukat - PeerSpot reviewer
Built-in features streamline data processing and integration
Retool provides built-in features with all processing happening within the platform, which is a significant advantage. The platform is easy to use without requiring the installation of different libraries. Various features are available through drag and drop and UI-based interactions. The tool allows data retrieval through queries and displays information directly. It offers data tools that grab information based on specified queries and draws everything on screen. If a table is needed, it efficiently lists down the table data. Data manipulation happens through queries. We simply specify the table and required query, and the results are displayed immediately. Permissions are required for access. When we grant access from AWS, Retool can access the data. Without proper permissions, access is restricted. We can provide view-only access in Retool while maintaining view, edit, and delete capabilities in the main system. This allows us to control access for sales personnel and external data viewing. The platform provides an extensive range of graphs and visualization options.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Even with an on-premise implementation, the scalability is still high, so it is easy to scale up."
"The process models provide self-documenting systems."
"Good workflow engines that bridge the gaps of processes."
"Since implementing we have had a faster time to solution, with fewer resources needed."
"It's heavy on business processing in terms of logic, process workflows, and primarily on the process design modeler. Appian is really great at that. In terms of the full stack set from a low-code platform perspective, it's definitely an eye opener since it can be deployed via mobile app and on the web as well."
"In terms of interface, it's very good. In terms of infrastructure, it's amazing and already using multiple tools behind the scenes. It's a low-code platform, so it's very easy to implement."
"The tool is very flexible."
"What I found most valuable in Appian is that it lets you drill down on multiple things through the structure of the reporting and UI side. It's also low-code, yet it results in quick deliverables."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is connectivity with APIs and other databases."
"There are several key aspects to Retool that make it stand out. Firstly, its extensive range of components makes integration straightforward. Secondly, its support for SQL and JavaScript allows for the implementation of complex logic, which is particularly beneficial for developers like yourself with experience in .NET development."
"The stability is okay."
"We can create the dashboards quickly."
"Retool provides us with the opportunity to save time and be more efficient."
"The most valuable feature of Retool is the workflow because I can integrate multiple features, such as RESTful API, JavaScript API, or different databases on the same dashboard."
"Retool provides built-in features with all processing happening within the platform, which is a significant advantage."
"Retool can be used with many applications as it is language independent; anyone can use it easily and create various visualizations regardless of their programming knowledge—this is the main reason I recommend it."
 

Cons

"From a reseller's point of view, subscription licensing could be improved to be more cost-effective, especially for new prospects and smaller investments."
"Lacks business rules management as part of the solution."
"Offline capabilities and responsive capabilities could be better. The mobility features of Appian platform are still evolving."
"Appian is a great tool for internal use cases where the users are company employees, but 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."
"Sometimes, clients expect us to implement ERP using Appian, which is very complicated. In such cases, I don't believe that Appian is a good tool for that."
"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."
"Lacks integration with other products."
"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."
"The part where we can add some custom logic or custom plugins could be better."
"AI tools, features, and machine learning capabilities should be added as they would be helpful in the future."
"Retool should add more resource integration."
"There are restrictions on the front-end side."
"One area for improvement in Retool is expanding its library support to include a broader range of third-party JavaScript libraries."
"Retool could enhance support, including efforts to establish support centers in Europe, which was lacking previously. However, the community is still in the growth phase, leading to potential delays in receiving responses to queries."
"The solution lacks inbuilt customization to customize bar charts."
"AI tools, features, and machine learning capabilities should be added as they would be helpful in the future."
 

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 licensing will be on a monthly basis. We are estimating that cost to be around $2000 to maybe $3,000 per month. We don't foresee any costs above that."
"The price of the solution is reasonable and is paid annually. The price of the solution depends on how many users use the solution. It can range from $50,000 to $200,000. For example, for 20,000 users the price can be approximately $200,000."
"It's an enterprise tool and can be used by enterprise only. So it's a very expensive tool."
"The tool is quite costly."
"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."
"Licensing of Appian is less expensive when compared to other BPMs in the market."
"The price of this solution is a little high here in Mongolia."
"The pricing is very expensive. It costs for each user, for automated users, open-end users, et cetera."
"For new users, evaluate the scale of their administrative needs as Retool provides excellent free services for smaller setups, but larger deployments might require transitioning to a paid plan."
"The tool is a little bit expensive."
"I don't know Retool's current pricing, but it cost around $12 per month earlier."
"For me, I'm in India right now, and we have Retool's subscription for one team member for $10 per month."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Outsourcing Company
10%
University
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 Business4
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 Retool?
For new users, evaluate the scale of their administrative needs as Retool provides excellent free services for smaller setups, but larger deployments might require transitioning to a paid plan.
What needs improvement with Retool?
The platform already provides many features, and additional features aren't necessary for medium-level usage. Only very high-level requirements might necessitate more features. AI tools, features, ...
What is your primary use case for Retool?
In Retool, I have designed graphs and data tools to implement rules-based functionality. Instead of implementing these features in our platform, we created them through Retool because we only provi...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Appian vs. Retool and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.