Microsoft PowerApps alternatives and competitors

Our primary use cases for ServiceNow Now Platform include use incident management, problem management, case management, and our asset management. 

It's not used much for the business management part of it, though it's being assessed for it. We have other tools to manage that. In my organization we have the scenario where we will integrate with a couple of other tools which we have already purchased, which are used for the information management part of it. These will be integrated with this Now Platform. 

Another area which is currently being looked into but not yet implemented, is the compliancy part. They might go for it in future. One more thing is the security part. Though it is not yet being employed that much, it has a lot of interest. I can see a lot interest in this area. At times there is strategic interest in digitalization, so we might look into the analytics. There are more improved analytics features which are coming with the new versions of ServiceNow, which are also interesting.

ServiceNow offers a lot of features when it comes to IT service management and IT operations management. What interested me in ServiceNow was that a lot of service management, mostly our IT service management, are using ServiceNow as a tool.

I really doubt that we are making full use of the out-of-the-box features which ServiceNow provides in the sense that we have the tickets assigned to one of the assignment groups. People are taking a lot of time to really work on the ticket and provide a correct solution. I was looking at different features, including the machine learning and predictive analytics features available in ServiceNow, which can help solve the current issues we face.

In Power Apps, there is a central area which works on the automation part of it. Even though in ServiceNow I see a lot of features in the process automation part of it, when it comes to large teams with a lot of "in development areas," we're just getting into how we can automate the mundane processes. Plus, there is a robotic process automation team using UI who is looking into those areas.

Also, as part of the development tool, I analyzed to see how their domain expertise was. With a little knowledge of the technology and coding experience, they can make your software domain expertise come up with solutions very quickly. 

However, since we are already using Microsoft extensively and we already have Microsoft Office 365 and since we have adopted Microsoft as the Cloud provider platform, it made sense to take the Power Apps subscription. Even though ServiceNow has some integration capability with Azure, Power Apps was more in line with developing apps and the development of UI.

When it comes to ServiceNow, I haven't done much research on the UI part. I think that you can do different coding in ServiceNow. It was more about usage of tables, creating API's, and creating application codes for when you work on tables. But in Power Apps I could see features having a use, so I can work with this, and you create UI's out of it. Maybe my knowledge is limited and I may not have explored all of the features in ServiceNow, but this is one thing which on a high level I have noticed.

Also, with Power Apps you can attach it to multiple data sources, just like in ServiceNow.

I think that both have their own features and pros and cons. I don't think that Power Apps can fully replace ServiceNow when it comes to all the features ServiceNow provides in terms of service management or operation management capabilities.

Power Apps is mostly if you want to develop a web application or a mobile application and if you have some data source. If you have a back end already. If you have a database and you specifically want to develop a front end or a UI for that. Then I would prefer Power Apps.

Power Apps is mostly for the use cases where you want to give an API further uses to get specific data from the back end. When it comes to ServiceNow, there are not many purposes I can see regarding the service management part of it. It can be used as a ticketing tool that we can use for operations management. It can be used for server monitoring, like for our infrastructure management and monitoring purposes.

As I told you, we have within the organization a lot of tickets for cases which are being raised for problems with the application or the infrastructure or even for knowledge related issues. I am from the architecture central system, and if the people need help to find the architecture or they need a suggestion, they raise incidents of tickets using the ServiceNow Now. I have noticed that cases are not getting assigned to the critical people if there are so many different teams. A case for a problem which arises might fail to be worked on by some other members in the team. These are the areas that I feel the machine learning capabilities of ServiceNow offer.

It can give you a lot of improvement in the way the tickets get properly assigned to the right group. It saves a lot of time which saves the end user a lot of frustration, and they will be getting the correct group who can help them on their problem very quickly, preventing a delay and then after lot of time it come back to the admin group, and then the person who's working on it will do a relief study of the problem. 

It leads to a faster resolution of the problem.

That is my own experience. Then, if we can have chat bot services, that is another area of network manual intervention. That is what really attracted me when I was into the features of the latest ServiceNow.

As for what can be improved, the licensing and the pricing models are confusing. At least I found it a bit confusing. There are a lot of hidden costs in all these.

It's a bit costly. But as a cloud application platform and a service provider, I think ServiceNow is now really improving. When comes to the cost part it is a bit tricky to understand. It's not that straightforward.

Like other tools or other platforms, when we are in touch with the ServiceNow team, we talk about including everything from the information management in the entire software development. I feel they are doing well.

It has a lot of good documentation and a lot of good training available which helps the end user.

The programming language is currently limited to JavaScript. So I would like to see more programming languages available, especially since they have come up with the machine-learning features. Some more languages would be an additional improvement.

I see that there are so many connectors available for connecting it to other service providers and other platforms, for example OpenText, which we are using. There are out-of-the-box connectors to connect to OpenText and others. That is something that I'd like to see.

Other areas of improvement are support for more programming languages and much more capability-building when it comes to the machine-learning part of it. There is especially a need for a scope of improvement in the analytics and the machine-learning part of it, because they are always adding more modules. 

I have been using ServiceNow Now Platform for about five, six months.

I have not found any bugs or glitches. I have tried looking into the IntegrationHub features. I have tried looking into the APF features with ServiceNow. I was involved in setting up the SSO for ServiceNow across all the instances that have a card. It is not ready. We have still some migration to do, but SSO set up is ready. I set up the mail server.

I didn't find problems. My experience was good. It was not was complicated for me to understand. The tutorials and all the trainings which ServiceNow provides for us to set up the infrastructure or to try out the new features ensured it was not that complicated.

I tried these new features which have not yet been adopted in the organization. But I can not blame the platform for that, because I was trying the Virtual Agent features with my own personal developer on that.

The problem is you really need to have data to work on. If you want to train a model, you will be able to train it only if you have sufficient historical data. That is sometimes an issue, because when you work on your personal developer instance, the kind of data you have will be very limited and you will have to import some data from your production instance or some other instance to your personal developer instance.

When ServiceNow gives training, they provide a simulation platform. For this core training you will not be able to use the platform after that. So you need some time to really catch up and try different things to get a grip on what you're learning. The MS data was for working with the shape and I'm trying to get some data exported from our own production instance and import and try to work on that data. That is one issue I face.

So far, so good. But I cannot claim to have a very good knowledge of the entire platform. I have analyzed some areas and I found the experience good.

In terms of scalability, I'm impressed. I'm happy with the capability of the Now Platform. We have some dependencies on the vendors. But with the current investment we are learning the full benefits of the platform. I am positive that as time goes on we will be able to rate the real benefits of the platform.

I have interacted with a few of the technical support guys from ServiceNow and my experience was good. I found most of them really very professional and very technical people. I'm happy with the kind of service and the kind of value they are bringing to this engagement.

I cannot comment regarding the initial set up because we had the ServiceNow team help us with it.

Although we wanted to use the out-of-the box features as assets, the processes in the organization were not that straightforward so it required some amount of customization and that lead to us having discussions with the team from ServiceNow. I cannot say that it was really smooth and easy. Because of the complex workflows and processes being followed in the organization, there were a lot of discussions involved, and a lot of customizations done. The ServiceNow team was able to give us a lot of insight, including where the improvement can happen, but then we couldn't add up everything, as the workflow is a bit complex and it involved other vendors.

It's not over yet. We are still in the development phase because the old one we were using was being managed by an external vendor who is responsible for all our time activities for the maintenance of Infosys and others.

It depends on the assignments you have in your organization. Our organization is very process oriented and it faces the drawbacks of that, in the sense that it is not very agile. I think for such organizations, ServiceNow could bring in some improvements, provided we really understand how to use the tool to really ensure that the different services in the business can work together.  And to understand what your problem areas are and how this tool can help you.

People from different departments and different areas, especially from business and IT, should really join hands and work together. They shouldn't be working in silos.

If that is the case, then you have a tool to support you. It will help bring that unity and the visualization of whatever you have in the mission. Otherwise, I don't think you'll be able to improve anything.

On a scale of one ten I would I would give ServiceNow Now Platform a seven.

They would get a 10 if there were more programming languages available and if it was more clear to use. Also, if they offered more UI features. Also, when we are trying out the system, if there was a toolkit which could help guide us when it comes to navigation.

One thing I like about OutSystems is that there's no lock-in. You can keep running your applications because it's on .NET and hosted centrally. That's one of the advantages I see there in terms of not having an IT strategy that has a dependency on a particular platform.

The integration points need to be increased. People have also started to adopt this solution for their regular needs. That means it's not only the big enterprises that are adopting this solution. There are also small and medium enterprises that are adopting it. 

I've read that where you have large deployments, OutSystems starts to crumble a bit. That is the idea that no customer would know at the beginning and would also not like to hit the wall there. When it is on the client, there are a lot of applications already on low-code, and then suddenly you realize that you want to do some big applications, and you face hurdles. This is the general feedback for all such platforms.

We have been there with OutSystems for two and a half years to three years now. 

Stability could be from multiple perspectives. From an enterprise perspective, it is the stability of the company. For example, most of the enterprise ERPs are SAP, so I don't have to check twice if a product is okay. 

It's the IT strategy a company is taking, which is effectively what they're going to do for the next five years. They're going to onboard a lot of applications onto this platform. So stability-wise, of course, the scale of the company is not so big, whereas large enterprises could say that it's stable as an organization.

Coming to the other part of the stability which is at the platform-stability level, I think that the features and the support that they provide are quite good, and because it is horizontally scalable, so it doesn't matter there.

It has good scalability in terms of the target platforms, multi-tenancy, or hosting on multiple clouds.

My team has been interacting with technical support and their feedback is good. Their training is good. I think OutSystems provides one of the best trainings out of all similar platforms.

The development environment is quite easy. You install it out of the box, and it works. It's a one-click install there. I have not been involved with Enterprise setup, so I do not have any comments on that.

We primarily suggest the IT and OutSystems work together for the setup.

If I talk about enterprise-level implementation, we work very closely with Siemens, which is where Mendix comes from. We are partners with Siemens, and that's where it helps us in developing applications on Mendix because we get good community support there. I'm not sure how things are otherwise. 

For OutSystems, it is more of community support and a kind of library they have, in terms of the reference implementation of libraries, which can be applied.

For the industrial and enterprise nature of work, that is, for B2B scenarios, Mendix fares well. OutSystems might have a slight advantage for B2C scenarios. I would say that they are equivalent in most of the aspects. There are certain features that Mendix provides which OutSystems does not provide. Similarly, there are areas where OutSystems fares good but Mendix does not. I would rate Mendix and OutSystems the same. 

The initial adoption of Microsoft PowerApps is a little bit of a hurdle. If that's overcome, then other things would be reliant. When we talk about PowerApps, we talk about the whole Microsoft ecosystem, that is, Microsoft Flow, Microsoft PowerApps, Microsoft Power Automate, which effectively brings a lot of power in terms of an ecosystem. 

If I have to go with applications related to Microsoft Office 365, I might go for PowerApps. If I need external integrations and things, where they provide premium APIs and things, it becomes a little bit of a challenge. 

Development-wise, PowerApps could provide a free version. They always have but it's quite restricted. If you download OutSystems or Mendix, you could do anything with the free version. That's where, in terms of acceptance, PowerApps gets a little restrictive because you need a license to evaluate it. If it is not restricted, there'll be more adoption. Of course, you can restrict deployment, the size, and all that, but development capabilities should not be restricted.

The value proposition is not clearly visible out of these platforms as yet. Your penetration level will be decided based on if you are able to reach small and medium enterprises. If I compare something like Zoho with OutSystems, Zoho is getting good traction by purely focusing on the small and medium enterprises. These kinds of things could be game-changers in the future. 

That's where the licensing model becomes a little cryptic. Of course, for enterprise, it makes sense at certain times, and it does not at certain times. The licensing models are one of the things that could be improved there and changed in terms of adaptability.

OutSystems is quite a mature platform. OutSystems provides a lot of capabilities as such. However, it's not a one-size-fits-all kind of solution. Based on the needs, the platform that would be the most suitable one should be decided. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for office automation purposes.

The Sites features are very nice. We use it extensively.

We have Tempo reports and we enjoy that it has Tempo functionality. 

The interface is very good. Our clients really seem to like that.

The product has a very good mobile app.

Overall, the features of the product are very helpful.

It's a solution that doesn't really need a lot of coding, if at all. It's very drag-and-drop. That's what makes it so easy to use.

The product offers a lot of good integration capabilities.

We have clients that want to use Office 365, Microsoft Analytics, and Power Apps. Appian just isn't the same as using something specifically designed to cater to the Microsoft Suite.

The solution used to be a bit more difficult to use, but we've added Tempo and now everything is much easier. We can do things very quickly.

I've been using the solution for about 15 years or so. It's been well over a decade.

As a person that's more in development, I've never tested the stability or noted any weakness in its reliability.

I'm more on the development side of things and therefore haven't really been exposed to the scalability aspect of the solution. I don't know if it's possible or not.

Currently, we don't have much of a need for technical support. I personally have never been in touch with them. I can't speak to their knowledgeability or responsiveness.

I don't deal with the financial aspect of the solution. I'm not sure how much it costs or if it is expensive or affordable.

I want to migrate to Microsoft PowerApps. I'm actually looking for the feasibility of migrating the existing Appian objects into PowerApps.

We are Appian integration partners.

We have multiple clients using Appian, although some want to move over to Microsoft.

I would recommend the solution. It's quite easy to use, and the drag-and-drop functionality is great. For example, we have database records, and therefore we can easily pull the data from the database and connect and run the process. It's very easy when it's compared to previous versions. One thing to note, however, is that we do have a lot of memory. The memory has to be maintained and managed properly, otherwise, the system performance will come down.

I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten. There really is nothing like it on the market right now.

We primarily use the solution for IT service management and then we're using it for custom applications. That includes digitizing workflows and helping our company with that.

The solution was bought for ITSM and we have also bought the Pro package, meaning that we have particular AI capabilities, among other features, that are quite useful. 

The most valuable aspect of the solution is the possibility of the application development cap so that we can digitize workflows.

The solution scales well.

We've found the product to be quite stable so far.

When ServiceNow adds new features we have seen a tendency that they are very immature. They may release items too soon. In a company where you need to tweak and adjust, then I think there are so many improvements to be done.

If you have advanced questions, technical support often doesn't know the answer.

The stability has been good so far. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

We have five engineers on the solution, and then 375 users and 200 App Engine users.

The solution is quite easy to scale. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so relatively easily.

I've been in touch with technical support both directly and indirectly.

Their level of support is about the same as Microsoft. If you ask advances questions, however, it's difficult for them to help. They need to be more knowledgeable about the product itself - especially in regards to advanced features.

I would say that we are not completely satisfied with their level of service.

I didn't handle the initial implementation and I wasn't part of the team that did. I can't speak to how easy or difficult it was to implement or what the deployment process looked like. I'm not sure how long it took.

The solution is on the cloud and therefore doesn't require any maintenance.

The solution is a bit expensive. We have bundled it into our three licenses. It's difficult to actually say if they are more expensive than, for example, PowerApps, since everything is bundled together.

I've looked at PowerApps. I'd say that ServiceNow has smaller features. The pricing is likely the same.

We are customers and end-users of the solution.

I'd recommend this solution to other organizations.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

Our primary use is to develop secure applications for the Oracle Database. It is like an administrator for data processing functions.

This product allows us to manage our data processing using simple screens.

The most valuable feature is the ease of use.

The user interface is not complex.

Workflow capabilities should be added.

Better connection and integration with non-Oracle databases is needed.

I have been using Oracle APEX for the past four to five years.

We have not had a problem where it has crashed. However, it may be that our application is not complex enough.

We have approximately eight people using Oracle APEX. At this point, we are trying to reduce our usage.

I have not personally been in contact with technical support.

We did use another similar product before implementing APEX.

The initial setup is not very complex. Our deployment took four or five months.

A consultant assisted us with implementation and deployment.

We are currently in the process of migrating from APEX to Microsoft PowerApps.

My advice for anybody who is implementing APEX is to use the default parameters and do not do anything that is customized.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.