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Appian vs TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 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 Business Process Management (BPM)
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (8th), Rapid Application Development Software (9th), Low-Code Development Platforms (6th), Process Mining (7th)
TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
31st
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of Appian is 6.0%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

Featured Reviews

RAVIRANJAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Low-code with good reliability and good workflows
We have a partnership with Appian. We have worked with Appian to deal with issues. They have already incorporated many things into their platform. One of the things we have discussed, which I can highlight, is related to Excel manipulations. They have incorporated their Excel manipulations so it's far better than the earlier version. Earlier, we had to go with a plugin for even a simple Excel or spreadsheet calculation. Now, they have included all those things in their own out-of-the-box functionality. It's definitely a tool and does not require high code language. There could be a scope of enhancement for capturing the variety of use cases. One thing, for example, is Excel manipulation, which they now provide in their out of box functionality, however, that can still be improved.
Ray Ochieng - PeerSpot reviewer
Powerful workflow definition enhances operational stability and efficiency
TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM is powerful for defining workflows. It is low code, so you don't need a lot of coding, and tasks are just drag and drop. It is also very stable as we haven't had issues with it going down or encountering any operational issues for a long time. The stability and rich features in workflow definition make it a valuable tool.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of Appian are workflow management and the ease with which you can build the UI."
"There is a version coming out every six months with performance improvements."
"Compared to other code tools that I've seen, Appian has a more robust rules engine"
"The tech support is quite good."
"The low code functionality and being able to get applications faster to customers or to the market are valuable."
"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."
"Appian is a stable product and works very well."
"Recently, we added Appian Process Mining, Appian Portals, and now Appian RPA."
"It is the best product because of its stability. ActiveMatrix 5.x is highly stable in production, and the downtime is very low. I have worked on a lot of service projects, and the engine is very stable, robust, and scalable. The development and change requests can be pushed quickly, and the mapper activity and SSLT kind of features are also good. It is easy to do changes, testing, and deployment. Its deployment is very easy, and we can automate a lot of scripts for our on-premises solution. I work for an investment bank, and we have automated a lot of processes for our customers. Previously, we used to develop scripts and tools. With version 6.x, everything is moved to Maven and other things. Environment handling is done mostly through DevOps tools. As compared to Mulesoft, the deployment and configuration are very easy in TIBCO."
"The product's initial setup phase is straightforward."
"The capacity for distributing the jobs in a workflow is an important feature."
"The scheduling and the calendar are very useful."
"TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM is powerful for defining workflows."
"For specific situations this can be a good solution and a simplified interface to work with."
"TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM is powerful for defining workflows."
 

Cons

"Lacks business rules management as part of the solution."
"It has it's own built-in UI components and doesn't provide much flexibility to customize or extend those components."
"We'd like improved functionality for testing new devices."
"Appian has a few areas for improvement, which my organization raised with the Appian team. One is the Excel output which is limited to fifty columns when it should be up to two hundred or three hundred columns."
"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 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."
"Occasionally, certain pre-made modules may not be necessary and customers may desire greater customization options. Instead of being limited to pre-designed features, they may prefer a more flexible version that allows for greater customization."
"They should provide more flexibility so designers can create a more picture perfect device."
"The scalability of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Technical support needs to be streamlined."
"The product is missing some means of addressing more complex BPM constructs and should interface with more platforms easily."
"The maintenance of the package could be improved."
"ActiveMatrix is in the middle field. MuleDB is more on the engineering side with Java and other things. SnapLogic is there are on the higher side with very low coding. TIBCO stays in the middle like IBM or Oracle. TIBCO can move towards IBM's way of doing. IBM has a big market and many varieties of products and good integration, which TIBCO doesn't have. It can have better integration. TIBCO's transition to the cloud is a little slow. As compared to Dell, Boomi, and Mulesoft. TIBCO took the steps a little later. TIBCO's ID was far better and easier to work with previously. TIBCO's 5.x ID was very good, and the development environment and the transition were easy. Version 6.5 onwards, it is a stable product, but it would be good if they can do something similar to version 5.4 with version 6. They should concentrate on this API market. It will give them the strength and the ability to grab the market back."
"My experience with tech support has not been very good. Most of the time, issues are escalated to level three, where they are either unresolved or take two weeks to address."
"It is not lightweight and requires a lot of disk space, memory, and CPU."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"The tool is quite costly."
"The license is not very cheap. It's on the expensive side."
"Appian is very flexible in their pricing. In general, Appian's pricing is much, much lower when compared to competition like Pega or other products. Appian also has a flexible licensing model across geographies. Pega usually goes with a single licensing cost—which is a US-based cost—for all global customers, and it's costly. Whereas Appian has a different regional licensing cost model and it can be cheaper, depending on geography. So Appian's licensing is very flexible, and cheaper when compared to other competition."
"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."
"The cost depends on the number of users, although I recommend taking an unlimited license."
"There are some discussions about perpetual licenses and conversions, but I'm not much familiar with them."
"TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM is an expensive tool compared to others."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
26%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
40%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 do you like most about TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM?
The product's initial setup phase is straightforward.
What needs improvement with TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM?
It is not lightweight and requires a lot of disk space, memory, and CPU. Making it lightweight so it can run on a minimum processor and less memory would be beneficial. Additionally, the current wo...
What is your primary use case for TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM?
We are using TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM for network deployment workflows. For example, if a customer is interested in getting a NetWorker, there is a workflow where we log in, get the customer details,...
 

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
ADIS, Citi, Bank of Montreal, First Citizens Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Appian vs. TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,451 professionals have used our research since 2012.