Appian vs ServiceNow Orchestration comparison

Appian and ServiceNow are both solutions in the Process Automation category. Appian is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.0, while ServiceNow is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.0. Appian holds a 5.8% mindshare in PA, compared to ServiceNow’s 3.7% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Appian users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of ServiceNow users who would recommend it.

Appian

Read 63 Appian reviews

10,368 Views
3,214 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

ServiceNow Orchestration

Read 15 ServiceNow Orchestration reviews

1,896 Views
1,858 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Appian

ServiceNow Orchestration

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

Appian and ServiceNow Orchestration compete in the business process management industry. ServiceNow Orchestration appears to have the upper hand due to its extensive feature set, despite Appian's competitive pricing and strong support.

Features: Appian allows rapid development with its low-code platform, offering robust process design, deployment capabilities, and easy integration with existing systems. ServiceNow Orchestration excels in integration capabilities meant for large-scale enterprise requirements, making its orchestration features effective for IT processes.

Room for Improvement: Appian could benefit from better flexibility in architecture, reusable asset design, and improved integration with DevOps tools. ServiceNow Orchestration needs enhanced integration capabilities, a more flexible interface, and less rigidity in workflow steps.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Appian supports Public, Hybrid, and Private Cloud, as well as On-premises setups, with highly praised technical support. ServiceNow's customer service is robust, though perceived as costly, offering slightly less flexible deployment options.

Pricing and ROI: Appian is cost-effective with a flexible licensing model, offering a faster break-even point. ServiceNow Orchestration is seen as expensive but powerful, with a rich feature set that justifies the cost. Both solutions contribute to positive ROI through quick deployments.

To learn more, read our detailed Appian vs. ServiceNow Orchestration Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Appian vs. ServiceNow Orchestration

September 2025

Download the complete report

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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 Process Automation

7th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Management (BPM) (9th), Rapid Application Development Software (10th), Low-Code Development Platforms (3rd), Process Mining (7th)

ServiceNow Orchestration

Ranking in Process Automation

12th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of Appian is 5.8%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow Orchestration is 3.7%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Process Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Appian	5.8%
ServiceNow Orchestration	3.7%
Other	90.5%

Process Automation

Featured Reviews

Kunal Sharda

Director & Key Managerial Personnel at Newlight Technology Solutions Private Limited

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.

Read full review

Dinesh Kumar Raghu

Senior Software Engineer at NewRocket

Fastest upgrading technology in the market currently

In each upgrade, ServiceNow is enhancing its product across various areas. They continuously improve different aspects one by one, ensuring that their service evolves with the changing needs. However, frequent upgrades may negatively impact the performance of instances. Therefore, for now, I don't recommend any additional upgrades. The current version fulfills everyone's requirements, and ServiceNow automatically updates annually, keeping pace with industry standards. They've been performing well, so I see no need for further upgrades, especially considering their consistent updates.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most productive aspect of Appian lies in its ability to develop interfaces, particularly user interfaces. Creating user interfaces is highly productive, when these interfaces are integrated with the original database. In such cases, using record types proves to be a very efficient method of handling data. The synergy between interfaces and record types enhances productivity."

"Since implementing we have had a faster time to solution, with fewer resources needed."

"I find the BPM the most valuable feature."

"The process models provide self-documenting systems."

"SAIL (Self-Assembling Interface Layer), a scripting language provided by Appian. It is the equivalent of JS and CSS. It allows creation of complex UIs which are also responsive. With SAIL, we have a single language for both the UI logic and its appearance. UI components can be built as reusable components and used in multiple UI interfaces."

"The application is mobile-friendly, allowing me to use it across any device, whether mobile, laptop, or desktop."

"The tech support is quite good."

"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."

More Appian pros

"The data visualization is good."

"Orchestration is commonly utilized by major corporations. The process of linking methods in ServiceNow, known as the RTS chain to parent methods, is executed seamlessly and efficiently. It's quite impressive and significant in its impact."

"It's probably the best product out there."

"Provisioning of new systems is among the most impactful features for automating complex workflows with ServiceNow Orchestration."

"The product has a flexible interface for development."

"Employee onboarding, de-boarding, and other service-provision features make the process easier and it saves us a lot of time."

"Great with IT processes and business processes."

"This is a user-friendly solution where scripts can be made with ease. There are also many integration options, including Microsoft products, which gives the product a competitive edge."

More ServiceNow Orchestration pros

Cons

"It would be nice if you could create your own customized apps when the business needed them."

"I wouldn't say their response time is long, but it could be quicker."

"The solution could improve by being more responsive when dealing with large quantities of data. Additionally, they can make the decision or rules engine better. It cannot handle too many rules or too many decisions at once."

"Appian could improve their customer-facing initiatives."

"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'd like improved functionality for testing new devices."

"The solution could use some more tutorials to help brand new users figure out how to use the product effectively."

"If there is a very complex process that includes a lot of data transitioning and memory-centric processes, it consumes a lot of memory."

More Appian cons

"I would like a user experience module to be added."

"From my space, the only thing that I can say is the spinning up with Google Cloud Services."

"Frequent upgrades may negatively impact the performance of instances. Therefore, for now, I don't recommend any additional upgrades."

"The deployment requires awareness among the project staff."

"The third-party integrations are challenging when the tools are not from ServiceNow partners. This presents issues when integrating solutions from other vendors."

"It is a highly complex platform to work on."

"The automatic remediation needs enhancement, particularly integrating ServiceNow with tools like SolarWinds and Logic Monitor. It is functional, but it needs improvement."

"There should be connectors to cover at least the top industry applications, and they should be easier to configure in a plug-and-play fashion."

More ServiceNow Orchestration cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"It is expensive, but powerful. I would recommend comparing against cheaper licensing products and open source."

"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."

"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."

"The cost is a bit higher than other low-code competitors, OutSystems and Mendix. The price needs to be more competitive."

"It's good value for the price."

"The license is a bit expensive and the pricing model is sometimes confusing for new users or business users. It is difficult for them to know what volume of usage they will have to be able to purchase the best-suited license at the beginning."

More Appian pricing and cost advice

"The solution is costly and orchestrations are very expensive."

"The cost of the solution is based on the number of plugins, conductors and integrations used and is charged annually. The licensing cause has been increasing gradually which makes it difficult to access. Initially offer free features but over the time the charges rise which make it an expensive solution with limited features. Along with that, the integration issues persist and require additional middle where and internet connectivity for effective usage."

"This is an expensive product, but it is the best in the market considering the features and lack of competitors."

"In terms of price, this solution is at the higher end of what you'll find."

"ServiceNow doesn't give a clear cost indication. They have different contracts with different organizations and it's all about negotiation, so you don't know how they are doing at the cost level."

"Pricing is custom to every customer."

"It is not very expensive."

"It is quite expensive because we've had some customers come back and say it's quite pricey because in order for them to go ahead with Orchestration, they must have already been paying for Discovery, service mapping, and a few other things."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	41

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	8

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about ServiceNow Orchestration?

The interface of the solution is very user friendly and it is easily accessible via a simple URL. This makes it easier to complete the UI based tasks but using other features require expertise in l...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow Orchestration?

The cost of ServiceNow Orchestration is considered medium; it is expensive but powerful. I would rate the pricing experience as a six out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ServiceNow Orchestration?

The third-party integrations are challenging when the tools are not from ServiceNow ( /products/servicenow-reviews ) partners. This presents issues when integrating solutions from other vendors.

See all answers

Comparisons

ServiceNow vs Appian

Compared 13% of the time

Camunda vs Appian

Compared 9% of the time

Pega Platform vs Appian

Compared 9% of the time

Salesforce Platform vs Appian

Compared 9% of the time

OutSystems vs Appian

Compared 6% of the time

More Appian Competitors

Camunda vs ServiceNow Orchestration

Compared 43% of the time

Control-M vs ServiceNow Orchestration

Compared 15% of the time

Temporal vs ServiceNow Orchestration

Compared 8% of the time

IBM BPM vs ServiceNow Orchestration

Compared 6% of the time

Nintex Process Platform vs ServiceNow Orchestration

Compared 5% of the time

More ServiceNow Orchestration Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Appian

October 2025

Download Appian product report

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Orchestration

September 2025

Download ServiceNow Orchestration product report

Also Known As

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS

No data available

Overview

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:

Complete automation: Through complete automation, companies are able to coordinate and manage employees, existing systems, bots, data, and artificial intelligence (AI) in a single workflow. The solution offers a way to centrally manage all third-party automation vendors as well.
Low-code applications: Appian offers the ability to build applications faster with visual development and low-code tools. All applications are ready-made to be suitable for mobile.
Low-code data: Appian lets companies source data from multiple types of sources, eliminating the need for data migration. Through no-code and low-code solutions and industry-standard connectors, the platform also eliminates the need for data silos.
Enterprise ready: The platform offers options for companies to scale their businesses to an enterprise level without complications.

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:

Robotic process automation (RPA): Users of Appian can assign software bots to perform rules-based tasks that need to be repeated over a set course of time. This can improve efficiency and performance within an organization while saving human resources.
Intelligent document processing: The tool offers a feature for quick and accurate extraction and structuring of data. This can reduce time and costs for organizations because it eliminates the need for outsourcing such services.
AI: Appian utilizes artificial intelligence to enhance applications, workflows, and automation. AI is also used to address complex processes and unique situations.
Business rules: Organizations can automate and simplify work processes while adhering to their operating procedures.
Application development: Appian provides a low-code development feature that allows users to deploy applications over ten times faster than through conventional approaches. This feature not only allows for quick application building, but also applications that run on multiple types of platforms, seamless data integration, and business scalability.
Integrations and data: Appian allows for data integration from a wide array of sources without the need for migration. This contributes to easy access to data across systems, real-time data insights, improved user experience, and accelerated development.

Appian Benefits

The benefits of using Appian include:

The solution ensures seamless organization growth, as it supports various UX patterns, common data schemes, and upgrades, used to facilitate application development on a bigger scale.
Appian can increase process speed and deliver applications considerably faster compared to conventional development.
The platform is easy to use and suitable for complete beginners to build applications and workflows.
Appian offers a variety of design tools that facilitate development and deployment.
Appian offers detailed real-time data insight which allows organizations to access relevant information about their processes as they are developing.
The solution offers clients the ability to move data between the cloud, on-premise, and hybrid configurations.
The platform is easy to optimize, which allows businesses to utilize it according to their personal needs.
Appian offers connectivity across web, mobile, email, voice, and chat, providing a multi-channel experience for companies and their clients.

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.

Appian

ServiceNow is the fastest-growing enterprise cloud software company in the world above $1 billion (2018 revenue was $2.6 billion, up 36% year over year). We deliver digital workflows that create great experiences and unlock productivity to approximately 5,400 enterprise customers worldwide, including almost 75% of the Fortune 500.

ServiceNow

Sample Customers

Hansard Global plc, Punch Taverns, Pirelli, Crawford & Company, EDP Renewables, Queensland Government Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning (, Bank of Tennessee

experian, BEACHBODY, HealthPartners, Banosoft

Buyer's Guide

Appian vs. ServiceNow Orchestration

September 2025

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