Mendix Reviews

We have a loan origination platform. What we're looking to do is have a dynamic process whereby, based on a variety of inputs, we can tailor the journey. At the moment, we're debating how that kind of journey works and if we put some kind of workflow in place, then firstly, this becomes a living documentation and, secondly, it's quite easy to be flexible as to how to adapt each journey rather than correcting one great big process. We wanted to break it up into smaller journeys. If each stage is isolated it becomes easier for each change that you want to make. That was the logic.

The features that I have found most valuable with Mendix are its business process management and its minimal low code, both from an interface perspective and from a process perspective. With Camunda, we were looking at it from our business process standpoint. Appian and Mendix were one size fits all.

In terms of what could be improved, of course I'd like it to be highly secure and highly scalable. Security is paramount to us. Scalability-wise, we don't necessarily have a huge volume.

From a scalability perspective, at this particular stage, it's not necessarily a top priority.

We started this journey with Mendix just a couple of months ago.

It is a flexible and stable solution.

Mendix is slightly less scalable than I'd like.

We have 30 internal users. The issue for us is, from a low-code interface perspective, how do we deal with external users?

The installation is fairly simple.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Mendix about an eight. I'd probably put Appian about the same and Camunda I would say is maybe a six. 

I would recommend Mendix, but obviously, for the right use case. That's the point.

We do not use the solution, but manage Mendix's process. We are partnered with Mendix and implement it within the organization, something practiced with prevalence in the UAE. Those making use of the solution are happy with it. 

The Ministry of Digital Economy in Jordan, which is responsible for managing the service portfolio of the Jordanian government, is wholly based on our Mendix application.

I can tell you how Mendix has improved my organization by discussing the projects with which I am already working. The old service portfolio is based on a Mendix workflow and system.

The most valuable features are the integration and UI customization.

While it is difficult for me to address which areas of the solution are in need of improvement, as I manage Mendix projects, but do not utilize them, I would point out the transformation of the BPM and the process with other applications. This is because the applications are conceptually what we need, as they concern the RPA Automation Anywhere and UiPath.

Mendix has the potential to redesign its process engine for compatibility with a BPMN tool without any further action being required, enabling seamless integration between the business processes design applications.

As mentioned, there needs to be an increase in the number of the UI components so that other platforms will not be used in place of the UI interface of Mendix, such as Angular.

Improvements should be made to the functionality to increase the number of UI components in the actual software. As such, we occasionally go outside the system to develop certain pages in React, Angular or Vue JS, which we then import to Mendix. This we do because of the limitation in the UI design, but it is not on par with what's happening, for example, with OutSystems or other tools.

The solution is stable. The most important entities utilize it, such as the Dubai Municipality in the United Arab Emirates and the Ministry of Digital Economy in Jordan. This has more than 5,000 services deployed in the system, around 2,000 of which utilize Mendix and OutSystems. We have had no complaints about stability, only of ordinary issues involving use of the system that entail errors or call for troubleshooting. 

The Dubai Municipality makes use of Mendix, as well as five out of 40 ministries. They have transferred their core applications to Mendix in their entirety. The remainder are in a transitional phase and this should be completed throughout the entire government of Jordan within five to six years. 

The maintenance contract between the entity and Mendix provides for multiple levels of support, similar to the circumstances existing with ARIS. As mentioned, I rate Mendix as an eight out of ten, because there occasionally occur delays in its adherence to the SLA. However, the solution's tech support tries to be helpful and responsive and to do so in a comparable manner. 

Installing the solution took from five to 10 days to ensure proper integration with, say, the active directory and other tools for data migration.

We handled the deployment.

Licensing costs are similar to those for all other IT technology, but they vary by region. As such, the United States, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan all have disparate licensing costs, even when it comes to the partners involved. We, for example, are entitled to a 50 to 60 percent  discount on licensing costs, whereas Jordan may be entitled to one of 90 percent. This makes it challenging to properly appraise the cost. ARIS is similar. The average price varies according to region, Jordan being entitled to a 50 percent discount over that of the UAE.

Mendix's support is far superior to that of OutSystems and more competitively priced.

While I can't say exactly which version of Mendix we are using, I can state that it is the latest one. 

The business analyst has a more important role than that of the developer in a Mendix project. He needs a proper understanding of how to design the Mendix process so it may be automatable and executable. The business analyst must be able to use a Mendix platform.

As Mendix needs to improve its product and support, I rate it as an eight out of ten.

Currently, we are testing this solution for application development.

You need experienced programmers and developers to understand this solution. We had a very experienced developer use the solution and they had difficulties, the training for developers could be better.

We have used the solution in the past 12 months.

The solution is stable.

We have tried to contact commercial support by phone and email but they never responded to any of our attempts. Their support is currently not good.

The solution was good in our tests but we could not get a hold of the company for further inquiries. This is the reason I gave such a low score below.

I rate Mendix a five out of ten.

The primary use case is for agile development using low-code and no-code tools.

This solution has allowed us to reduce the time required for building applications.

The workflow and automation features are quite good and valuable.

Overall, integration with the enterprise ecosystem needs improvement.

I would like to see the inclusion of APIs that can help with the interoperability.

Stability is ok. It is a bit stable, but we are seeing an increase in workload complexity, so they'll have to figure out a scaler.

I think that right now, the scale-out is quite ok. It is scalable.

We have more than twenty users including developers, system handlers, business analysts, testers, and DevOps. The DevOps team is really what really takes it ahead.

In terms of usage, there is a lot of interest in low-code and no-code tools. There are even other tools like OutSystems and others. There are also automation tools, such as RPA (Robotic Process Automation) tools. It is still an evolving market.

Technical support is quite okay, although as they expand they will probably have to increase their global support.

Before Mendix, we were looking at some open source solutions.

The initial setup was not too complex, but it took some time. I would say that it was mid-difficulty.

Our deployment took about four to six weeks, and then we used it for some of our application development builds. We took some of the agile projects and aligned them to that.

We used a system integrator for the implementation.

In terms of ROI, we have seen an approximate 30%-40% reduction in time that we require for building applications.

Initially, we started with a year for approximately $25,000, and if we need to expand the number of seats then we will increase it. There are no additional costs for us at the moment, but I think that if you need any professional services then they charge for them.

We evaluated OutSystems, Pega Platform, Google App Builder, and a few others.

This solution has good coverage, but I think that their roadmap still needs more features and functions. It also needs better integration with the current stack.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I have been using this solution for customer authentication, as well as scientific applications. It has performed brilliantly so far. 

It has quick response times.

It is a fast and agile solution. 

I would like it to help us be more productive.

Also, while the documentation is good, the development box could be better.

It is exceptional.

It is very good.

Mendix was the only solution that had a paradigm to allow us to do what we wanted to do with development.

It was straightforward.

I think the ROI is the:

• Skill 
• Execution 
• Vision

Developing applications that focus on the business instead of just focusing on the technology. And by doing to achieving a short time to market and quick ROI.

It gave the organizations I worked for the ability to create far more complex applications with a smaller team and in a shorter time frame. When we brought in external auditors they even confirmed the fact that what we build would take at least 50% more resources to develop in for example Java or .Net. Also, the fact that we don't have to take care of the basics during development, means we can focus on the actual business process and how to make the product work for the business.

• The speed and agility with which you can develop solutions with the Mendix platform
• It is possible to create the same applications that more traditional platforms offer in a fraction of the time
• You don't need to worry about the basics surrounding security, CRUD actions, integration, UX and many other things you need to create the same basics for when developing with traditional platforms

The document templates definitely need some love, they have been around for a while but no actual improvement have been done since they were released. At least not in terms of additional options like the web counterparts of the elements you have available have. Also, Mendix is even easy for non-developers to start developing apps with, however when the applications grows and gets more complex these type of users are not fully guided in making it as secure and performance as it should.

It would be great if the modeler could also start pointing in the right direction when it comes to that. Although Mendix did introduce the Mendix Application Quality Monitor which could help with this issue.

In the past, I encountered scalability issues that caused stability issues. Mendix can scale to multiple application servers but at the time it could not scale to more database servers, the only solution was, to add more resources to the single available database server.

I do believe that Mendix is trying to solve this with HP Helion and Cloud Foundry solutions which are horizontal and vertical scalable. I however haven't had any experience with these platforms in combination with Mendix yet.

In the past, I encountered scalability issues that caused stability issues. Mendix can scale to multiple application servers but at the time it could not scale to more database servers, the only solution was, to add more resources to the single available database server.

I do believe that Mendix is trying to solve this with HP Helion and Cloud Foundry solutions which are horizontal and vertical scalable. I however haven't had any experience with these platforms in combination with Mendix yet.

The level of direct customer service and technical support is great when you are a paying customer or a Mendix partner, if you are not the support is limited to the forum which is mostly run by community members, however even Mendix personnel will answer your questions.

So I would say it is alright. They have improved it a lot the last couple of years, and they continue to improve as their user base grows.

I've developed applications with numerous products combined or stand alone: PHP, ColdFusion, Java, JavaScript (jQuery, Prototype, Vanilla), CSS2/3 and HTML4/5.

However not a specific platform like Mendix, the major difference is as I mentioned before the fact that you can fully focus on business process development instead of all the basic stuff like login, CRUD, etc. That's why my primary platform to develop with is currently Mendix.

The initial setup is really easy all you need to do is create a Mendix account, create a project, fill in some basics for the project like the name, choose a base theme and then you are good to go. You will automatically get a sandbox environment connected to it, which is basically a free node in the cloud environment from Mendix to test and share your application with others. Using the Mendix Sprint environment you can also easily share the Mendix model with others to either develop or just review the application.

I've worked at employers that where both the vendor partner team and client which used a vendor partner, currently I'm working on a project in which I'm the third party expert hired to implement the solution. My advice would be to always hire a Mendix partner or freelancer with a couple of years experience before you take over development. Starting the project is easy but it still takes some experience to really set a solid foundry if you look at the architecture of your application. This is something that Mendix Customer Satisfaction Managers can guide any new client with.

The fact that your development resources can be greatly reduced compared to those platforms will give you a better ROI.

I have personally not been directly involved with pricing/licensing for any of the projects I worked on. However, judging based on experience, I can say that Mendix is not more expensive than any serious competitor solution.

Contact a Mendix partner or Mendix for an initial POC this can usually be done within a couple of days to see the power of the rapid development with the Mendix platform. If you are still not convinced or are a developer yourself check out the developer.mendix.com community and training options that are freely available to anyone that registers for free.

We are an implementation partner with Mendix. We build both custom projects and solutions. One of the solutions that we have provided to our customers is an MDM solution that we were planning to set up as a semi-product which allows for some customization with each customer.

Mendix is a platform. All the solutions that we build, we build in the Mendix platform. We started using Mendix in 2012, and we founded our company in 2013. We are a very experienced Mendix team.

We have two use cases. 

1. To build complete back-end solutions for smaller companies. They are complete back-end solutions and custom built for smaller companies.
2. It is for larger enterprises and more for the innovative, differentiating application. So, custom built or semi-custom built innovative, differentiating capabilities on top of ERP and legacy systems. 

Both use cases are a used, and we also built solutions in different companies. So, we have some smaller customers where we do the entire IT with Mendix. In addition, we have some very large customers (enterprise customers), where Mendix is the preferred local platform for all custom tools and innovative applications.

We built our organization around its capability, so we saw the opportunity of Mendix. We saw how Mendix in the market at that time struggled with the right commercial model. So, we built our organization around the platform's capabilities. We have two business units:

1. One unit does projects. That is the unit that does end-to-end projects for the customer. The customer, in this case, is the business who wants a cloud-based solution and doesn't care how it is done.
2. The other service that we provide is in the Netherlands. Many customers who are adopting their own Mendix, low code teams. They need help and support with this. We provide, in a consulting services capacity, our experience to help them build their team. 

We do two things on this level. Many customers start with projects and end up building their own team. This is our progress as we see it right now in the market, at least in the Netherlands, as there is a huge demand for these type of services. It is actually more difficult to find qualified personnel than find customers at this point.

1. The complete stack: You have a complete cloud operations, and everything is included. For every customer, wherever we go, we can provide a solution within a few days with a complete data environment in a very stable, high performance cloud. 
2. The development environment is model-driven. We really like this because we can use the information from this for our business engineers to make the information models, and they can also execute the model.
3. We do not need programmers anymore, so it is a small team of business engineers who design and build the application without us needing to program. That makes our teams four to six times more productive, but also a lot smaller with no overhead and very flexible. It is something, and not every Mendix partner does this. A lot of them have still use analysts and programmers in different roles, but we do not do this. I like that we use the platform on this level. We stick within the core of the platform, so we don't do anything with custom Java or custom JavaScript. 
   

Mendix is right now focusing on developer features while we would like to have more features for the information analyst. Mendix is not going this route because they clearly see the developer as their target group, while we like to see it as more of a tool for information analysts. 

What is lacking is the support of higher level modeling features, like the modeling you do is relatively low level, yet it is still close to programming. We would like to see a more business-oriented modeling environment, like BPMN. However, that is not the direction Mendix is going. We are developing our own intellectual property in this direction. Thus, we are building it ourselves.

Stability is very good. The modeling environment has been very predictable since Mendix 5. Between versions 4 and 5, there was a big problem with them. Since Mendix 5 and Mendix 7, it has been very predictable. Every month, there is a new release and it has stable functionality, although it is not only the functionality. If you look at the cloud environment, it is very stable, especially since Mendix cloud is now run on Amazon. It has always been click and go, but it is even more impressive what they can do now. 

Their current announcement that they also run a SAP Cloud and IBM Cloud makes it even more powerful. 

We are able to run very high performance applications on very small Mendix app containers. That is because we design our solutions to be high performance from a design point of view. We have not used the Mendix horizontal and vertical scaling options that they provide. Therefore, I am not an experienced user with scalability, but I do know that we can make already quite high performance applications with a single app containers and they can be scaled vertically and horizontally. 

Mendix is quite powerful. There are some limitations in Mendix. On the database level, there are still some layers between Mendix and the database. This means that some actions are not efficient, which might seem to be, and they have designed now a stateless architecture which also put some limitations of speed if you use a single instance. However, the stateless architecture allows you to spread horizontally your load. So, it has benefits and drawbacks. In general, it is good enough for what Mendix is supposed to be used for. There have not been any projects where we could not do them because of performance reasons.

We use technical support, for example, if there is a performance question, usually in the design phase. In the run time, we are so experienced in Mendix, having such high internal quality centers on what we want the applications to do when we stick within the core of the capabilities of Mendix, that we never contact support about this. In general, we are very infrequently calling support, maybe four times a year. So, we have some contact with support, but it is never about urgent issues. The experience that I have with that support is good, and usually the support engineers know what they are doing. So, no complaints about it.

Because we are an experienced partner, they know that question that we ask are relevant questions. I guess if you are an inexperienced user, and don't know how to ask questions to them, it could be different. However, we know exactly who to talk to and what to ask. As an experienced user, the experience might be different.

It is a little bit different because we have built our company around selling services from Mendix.

From a commercial point of view, we would like them to change that they currently sell it as a platform, but as a customer you have to decide upfront the usage of the platform. We would like to have Mendix sell it as a pay as you go model: You pay for what you use, and you don't pay for what you don't use. Mendix is currently refusing to do that, but their competition does not do it as well.

I understand that it is a risk for them. I told the commercial management about it, but there are several customers of ours who say, "We would like to adopt this platform, but we want to grow into the platform." Mendix does this, as they have a custom pricing if you buy the platform for multiple years, then you can get discounts in the first years to grow into the platform. However, I would really like them to have an Amazon model, where you can use it and pay per minute or hour, per user, etc. That is not available at this moment. I would like it, but their competition, like Salesforce, does not offer it either. Therefore, there is no real pressure on them to change.

1. When we found that we also had the option to choose OutSystems, we chose Mendix for the same reason I always advise my customers: the platforms. Mendix and OutSystems are basically the same, but there are some differences. The main difference for us was Mendix is a Dutch company and has a very large ecosystem of partners. So that there is something to choose from with healthy competition. 
2. Mendix has always been a more business-oriented platform than OutSystems. OutSystems is more targeted towards improving the developer productivity. Mendix is more about business IT alignment, and supporting the business. This is reflected in the functionality, and the way they build their solutions. Mendix is more like Apple. It is a one click, and everything worked, while OutSystems is more like Android. It is very competitive and great, but it has more technical capabilities and it is a little bit more complicated with too many features for business.

If you're looking for a model-driven low code platform, there are two worldwide leaders, like Mendix and OutSystems. You have some local products in the Netherlands, such as Betty Blocks, which are growing, but they are not as big as Mendix and OutSystems with national brand specific solutions. If you are looking for a global platform that is well established with the right reputation, Mendix and OutSystems are basically the ones to consider. If you are excluding model-driven as a criteria, then Salesforce is by far the largest. Salesforce is much larger than Mendix and OutSystems, but it is not model-driven. It depends whether you want model-driven or not.

Our shortlist was that it should be model-driven and provide all the infrastructure deployment, because we are not likely to hassle with the deployment, infrastructure, etc. Therefore, the main criteria were from a technical point of view:

• Is it model driven?
• Does it allow us to build like administrative applications based on databases?
• What does both the solution provider offer in terms of deployment options and what are all the systems which are available that we have to deploy ourselves? 
• Did we have to build our own cloud capabilities? We skipped this because it was too much work for us, and we did not want to build such an organization. Mendix provided us with the complete cloud, and we were happy with it.

The learning curve for an experienced software engineer or information analyst, it is quite steep. If you do not have any of these backgrounds, it will take you somewhere between five to eight months to master the platform. It depends on your experience in Java programming or database programming, if you will go fast. If you do have experience in making functional technical designs of software languages, like UML and BPMN, you will learn it quickly. Therefore, it depends on your track record.

If you want to see what it is capable of doing, you have to do a project with it, end-to-end and not just looking at the technology. 

• Do a project with the focus of learning, not the end result in mind, and learn from what you encounter. 
• Do a project, not a proof of concept, which does not help. It does not give you the insights you need. 
• Do a project, and it once you do the project, you have to do the second step, do multiple projects. If you have success with that, then go for platform. 
• Do a project, but start it with one end-to-end project, which should be small. It should not be too big, maybe between 20 to 50 business days of work. So, it is sort of manageable. If it fails, it does not cost you too much to do a project, that's what it magnifies. 
• If you have the resources to do a project with the two platforms, try them next to each other and see what the differences are.
  

Mendix is used to develop an application that is used by the business to achieve business goals, such as easy data interaction, data storage, reporting and monitoring of business assets, and ticketing.

Easy document generation saves a lot of time. The integrated security also saves a lot of time, especially when it comes to setting up user-roles and security. Finally, database updates work automatically. There is no need to write queries to update the database, once you make an update.

• The ability to rapidly build applications.
• Built-in management tool called Sprinter gives everyone involved in the development of the application an overview of the current state and progress of the application being built.
• Supports collaborative development which minimizes the risk of having multiple developers working on a single piece of code.
• Easy to integrate with both RESTful and SOAP web services. This is helpful because a lot of applications are dependent on others for data. For example, if you were to develop an app that does a background check on employees, you would integrate to systems like TransUnion to feed data to your application.

They need to enable multiple database connections so an app can directly read/write data to/from multiple databases. This would enable easy splitting of big applications that have complex entity relationships.

I would also like to see automatic adjustment to the Java Heap, whenever an application load becomes too much for the application.

It could also use hot database replication.

I would give it an eight out of 10 because of the ability to rapidly build apps with Mendix. You could actually build an application as someone from the business side is explaining what the solution requires.