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Magic xpa Application Platform vs OutSystems comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 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

Magic xpa Application Platform
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Application Server (11th), Application Infrastructure (14th)
OutSystems
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Rapid Application Development Software (9th), Low-Code Development Platforms (3rd), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Magic xpa Application Platform is 3.9%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OutSystems is 9.4%, down from 18.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OutSystems9.4%
Magic xpa Application Platform3.9%
Other86.7%
Mobile Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Mylsamy T. - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate - IT at Himalaya Wellness Company
Enables us to develop more than 90 applications in-house, which are used across our organization
It's a bit difficult to work with purely web-based applications to get the data and display it. There have been a few times when the connection was disconnected between the server and your browser. The connectivity on browser-built applications needs to be improved. The mobile application development could be easier. They could include different external applications, like finger sensors. I'm not sure whether it's in version 3.8 or not.
Aditya Bhatt - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Project Delivery Lead | Sr. Technical Lead at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Rapid delivery has transformed complex enterprise apps and supports faster cross-domain projects
Every platform or low-code platform tool is quite good in its own area, but there is always space to groom or enhance or improve. The same is with OutSystems as well. A couple of things from the integration point of view can be enhanced. If your application or the enterprise organization is tackling a huge data application where you have bulk amounts of data, it becomes a challenge for all the technologies and the same with OutSystems. You have to design your architecture in a very magnificent and decent way so that how you process your data so that load can be easily balanced. Data handling and huge data handling is a kind of challenge you may need to face. Then we have some vendor lock-in. If you are trying to migrate your application from OutSystems, then you probably get into this vendor lock-in system. Some organization may face challenges if some organization is on a small scale size. The small scale businesses may find OutSystems costly because of its high cost and pricing due to the licensing cost. Apart from that, OutSystems really plays well, and it needs a learning curve. If a traditional application or programming is there which your developers are skilled into and they are directly deployed into OutSystems, it may take some significant amount of time for them to get comfortable with OutSystems. There is a learning curve. OutSystems community is already in place, but it can more be enhanced regarding some aspects. They did organize lots of bootcamps and other user groups as well, but those can also be improved from the documentation point of view and having some integration guidebook as well. A couple of things which can be improved into OutSystems include the licensing cost, the vendor lock-in side, the learning curve, couple of integration aspects and customizations.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Magic’s unique approach to development ensures that the programmer stays focused on the objective of the program (i.e. display all customers in California), instead of the repetitive tasks that surround it (i.e. connect to database, open customers table, create the query to retrieve records within the specified criteria, fetch the result of the query, connect it to a data grid, etc.)."
"The solution makes the managing and adapting of the software very easy."
"I think this is a good tool for making some nice applications independent of the operating system, database, and environment."
"The ability to use the same development environment for both Windows and Android applications. Magic xpa also supports iOS applications."
"Without the need to compile code, the time spent in the development cycle is greatly reduced, allowing the programmer to test modifications to a program immediately after they have been saved."
"Magic’s Database Gateway allows the logic of the program to be isolated from the underlying database. This provides the flexibility not only to move existing programs to different database environments without the need to change the logic in the program but also allows the programmer access to different databases without the need to know how to "talk" to them."
"xpa gives us a fast development speed."
"Typically an experienced Magic developer can do the work of two to three experienced C#/.NET developers."
"OutSystems' low-cost approach has positively impacted our productivity, because we were able to develop faster with OutSystems, enabling us to implement many changes during our sprint."
"Refactoring with TrueChange is very simple."
"It provides for faster development and better software releases."
"Scalability proved to be an exceptionally beneficial feature."
"The most valuable features of OutSystems are the user interface, the flexibility to quickly integrate with almost anything in the system, and the ability to connect with databases."
"We have no complaints surrounding both the scalability and stability of this solution."
"Before using Outsystems to develop a client's reporting systems, the process would take six months to complete a report, and after using Outsystems and building a custom application, report-building is one click away and it only took us three months to build the custom application using OutSystems."
"There is literally a ton of stuff it can do. It's very flexible."
 

Cons

"Debugging .NET snippets is not possible, so it lacks the effects to solve problems. First you have to write and test your .NET code in VS, then you have to copy the .NET code in Magic xpa because there is almost nothing to debug it."
"Support is very bad. The main focus is placed on their own customers, big banks and big insurance companies, so those, like us, who are independent software vendors, are ignored."
"In the next version of the Magic xpa Application Platform, I want tables or small programs where I can directly add expressions. I can do it on SQL, but it would make life much easier if that specification were added to the platform."
"The user interface could be improved to be more friendly for developers."
"Magic has a tradition, when it adds new technologies/features to the Magic development tool, to provide either no documentation or documentation that does not provide an organized approach for bringing this new technology/feature to experienced Magic programmers."
"I would like to see a spell checker included with optional language support. Currently, this has to be purchased from a third-party."
"The ability to display page up, page down, top and bottom buttons along the scroll bar would make my mouse-reliant customers happy."
"When you have several tasks, you open a screen in a task in developing mode, and you don't see the parent screens. Debugging lacks the effects to solve problems. You have to do it first in a kind of studio. Then you have to be sure that you can do it in Magic because there is almost nothing to debug it. It's practically impossible to debug. You have to be sure before you put your snippets."
"While I can't speak to the market impact, as a developer, I've seen significant reductions in development time across different versions of our applications. One area for improvement would be the UI controls in Service Studio. Sometimes, controls don't appear in the IDE, requiring us to check them in the web browser instead. Overall, our experience with OutSystems has been positive, though improvements in UI development would be welcomed."
"The small-scale businesses may find OutSystems costly because of its high cost and pricing due to the licensing cost."
"The installation is a bit tedious."
"The initial setup of OutSystems is not easy. It is a very heavy application that requires a lot of hardware and software resources."
"It's difficult to do the component version control. I would like them to add more studying materials."
"I would like to see OutSystems improve its integration capabilities, especially with emerging technologies like AI and GPT."
"I would like to see improvements in versioning. It can be challenging to keep track of what changes should be committed, especially when many developers are working in one environment."
"The solution's testing framework needs to be improved, and the workflow should be slightly more mature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My clients have to purchase additional licenses in order to use what I built. It's not a fair approach."
"The cost for developers is high because you have to pay for licenses as well as runtime."
"The licensing cost varies because nowadays Magic has tailor-made offerings for clients. I think the solution is worth the money."
"It's not cheap. The licenses are not cheap. Not at all. They cost much money. There are other tools with free licenses but Magic asks for a lot of money."
"The licensing is too costly."
"The main problem with the Magic xpa Application Platform is pricing. You have to pay a lot of money for development, and you also have to pay a lot for the deployments and runtime, while in most competitors, you have to pay a lot for one of the two and not both."
"There are different licenses, we have the application and the online application. There are two different licenses for two different program sites for the Magic xpa Application Platform."
"Magic is not the cheapest IDE out there. If you are considering Magic xpa, you should do a cost-benefit analysis to feel comfortable with your decision. The Magic sales staff is very helpful in providing pricing."
"I believe they are very strict with their pricing platforms, or the pricing policies, and it changes."
"OutSystems was open to a deal that worked for both sides."
"OutSystems is expensive, and they changed the pricing model in the last couple of years. It's changing too much and it's becoming unstable. They are constantly shifting their prices based on users, courses, and other factors."
"The solution is expensive."
"The price is okay. OutSystems isn't expensive. It's a mid-range solution."
"I think the pricing for OutSystems is comparable with similar solutions. I would place it somewhere in the middle. We pay for the bundle and don't pay anything extra in terms of licensing and other fees."
"For one developer to use, the cost is around $5,000."
"For a single application, it's too expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise33
 

Questions from the Community

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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 that platform for good. The business model is to lock in and then keep pumping th...
What industries do you think OutSystems is most useful for?
I cannot really name an industry in which OutSystems cannot be beneficial. Who does not want to make top-notch applications that work in no time? And OutsyStems does exactly that. The low-code plat...
How did you decide which OutSystems edition was the best one for you?
We started using OutSystems fairly recently, so we are still on the free version of it. My company is still testing how we like the platform, but so far, we have been satisfied with it and will li...
 

Also Known As

uniPaaS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ADD, Cape plc, Adecco, Kuno Kinzoku Industry Co., GE Capital, Dove Tree, CBS Outdoor, Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Center, Allstate Life Insurance Company, Titan Software Systems
Randstad, Warner Brothers, HP, Intel, ING, Banco Popular, Thrivent Financial, Bacardi, Kent State University, Bacardi, FICO, ING, Vodafone, AbbVie, Estafeta, Siemens, Vopak
Find out what your peers are saying about Magic xpa Application Platform vs. OutSystems and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,647 professionals have used our research since 2012.