OutSystems Reviews

For some of the business processes, we want the process owners to be able to set up their own flow-throughs, process flows, workflows, etc. They don't need to have any kind of prior coding experience. They should be able to establish workflows for their respective processes by just dragging and dropping elements as part of self service without relying on IT (where possible).

OutSystems has really brought about citizen developers in my organization without any real coding experience to be able to develop their own work slows in their area of work.

The flow editor is the most valuable feature. It is simple and intuitive, and it can guide you step-by-step.

From an ecosystem perspective, it has a highly integrated flow editor, user interface, and data logic behind it. It has a very connected local ecosystem.

One of the biggest areas for improvement is that every time an existing data element is modified, it creates a new data element. It doesn't really modify that particular data element. So, a user has to follow an extra step of removing the existing data element and bringing in the new and modified data element that is being added, which sort of goes into negative productivity.

I have been using this solution for about four and a half years.

OutSystems' tech support is very good. They're fairly responsive.

It is one of the good solutions available in the market. I would rate OutSystems an eight out of 10.

Our use case is mainly for the manual control systems.

There are about 20 developers using this solution in my company.

The scratch coding is useful. The solution is easy to understand.

React is very easy to use for an experienced software developer.

It's difficult to do the component version control. I would like them to add more studying materials.

I have been using this solution for about six months.

Some systems have over 1,000 end users. It's very stable for heavy duty operation.

It's scalable.

Technical support is good.

For one developer to use, the cost is around $5,000.

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10.

I use OutSystems in my company to develop web applications and mobile applications to be released by an insurance company.

The most valuable feature of the solution is that it allows users to easily build applications.

I want OutSystems to provide some service that allows its users to see the overall features and components that the tool offers for projects, especially when you build many applications. It is hard to find the logic in OutSystems. From an improvement perspective, I want to be able to properly use logic in OutSystems.

I have experience with OutSystems. My company has a partnership with OutSystems.

It is a stable solution. I have not had any issues with bugs or the product breaking down.

I have experience with Mendix, PowerApps, and Power Automate. The UI and UX of OutSystems are better than Mendix. The UI of OutSystems is easy to understand.

The product's initial setup phase was easy.

The solution can be deployed in a week or two.

It is not an expensive product, especially if you have access to more features and deal with more projects.

I rate the overall tool a ten out of ten.

We use OutSystems for our customers in the banking and utility sectors. 

OutSystems is a low-code solution. Most features are drag-and-drop, so it's pretty easy to work with. It thus helps the organization by saving time for developers. 

The OutSystems Accelerator is the most valuable feature. 

There are very few resources available to learn OutSystems. If someone is utterly new to OutSystems and is trying to understand this technology by searching on platforms like YouTube, Udemy and Coursera, they won't find anything. It has negligible resources. 

In the next release of OutSystems, I would like to see a few more customizations in the front end. 

I have been using it for four months. 

I would rate the stability an eight out of ten. 

I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten.  

I would rate the technical support nine out of ten. 

Previously I was working on high-code solutions. Then I started using OutSystems low-code solution. 

The initial setup was straightforward. I would rate the ease of setup a ten out of ten. 

I would rate the pricing a five out of ten. There are no additional costs with the standard license. 

I would advise anyone wanting to use OutSystems to start learning early while pursuing a college degree. 

We are a team of ten Software Developers who use OutSystems in my company. We plan to increase the usage of OutSystems in the future. I would rate the overall product an eight out of ten. 

OutSystems could improve by being more like GitHub. It would be more helpful for us for division management and version control for our application.

I have been using OutSystems for approximately five years.

The scalability of OutSystems is very good, it scales automatically very useful for us.

We are satisfied with the support but it could be better. We are the product provider and sometimes we contact the support for our customers and we have to escalate our issue most of the time for the correct answer.

I rate the support from OutSystems a four out of five.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate OutSystems a nine out of ten.

In the last months, OutSystems has become our primary development tool. Grendene is a huge producer of footwear and our development in OutSystems is supporting the construction of a large set of applications in these areas:

Factory and production-level systems (industrial apps)

There are already many applications built to provide information to our offices and for production control of factory processes, simulation, and machine setup. In addition to the already running analytics apps, we are in the process of integrating OutSystems with machines' programmable logic controllers (PLCs). We believe that OutSystems can support factory-level systems that respond quickly. Beginning with the less critical processes, we have already started to build web/mobile applications to be used on the assembly lines and loading docks in the distribution center.

Integration and ETL

There are many APIs built in OutSystems to provide process automation and information to internal and partner systems. An example is the Melissa branch website that is sustained by a third-party and the product profile is provided by OutSystems APIs. ETL architecture is also developed to synchronize data among some SQL databases and the company’s units. 

Business and ERP Apps

Apps for business and ERPs are a fast-growing set of applications developed in OutSystems, accessed within the ERP portal. New developments are made in OutSystems using the ERP’s database as the information source and connections to many other specialized systems.

Corporative Apps

In addition to the above, there are many office processes, human resources, and product development/design teams that use OutSystems. Our "Careers" website was built in OutSystems with a dynamic approach that allows the human resource team to create and upload their own pages as a self-service website builder.

In the 21st century, innovation is not easy without IT support. With this low-code platform, we deliver more quickly and it allows innovation to occur fast. It reduces the risks associated with functional changes and these can be produced rapidly to meet deadlines.

• Easy and low-code web/mobile development: Reduces the manual labor in compiling and deploying applications and generating procedural code (by reducing development bureaucracy/processes, resulting in real gains). The LifeTime Server approach, requiring just a few steps to publish applications in production environments, is fantastic.
• High reuse of components and business logic: Once built, web/mobile components can be reused in all new developments. In addition, the OutSystems Forge is very useful. We can exchange components and even already-built applications, reducing costs to build specific solutions.

• Build-logic becomes simple with a graphic interface: Developers work better with visual support. In a related vein, we are currently studying if, in the near future, an OutSystems environment could be provisioned to non-technical areas to allow them to construct their own applications (supervised by IT, and with good governance and security assessments).
• Stakeholder engagement and satisfaction: In the past, it was difficult to keep our clients (employees and partners) up to date on the development process. There were many promises of application delivery dates which were often not met. With OutSystems, we can develop and share progress and functionalities.
• Integration: With the SOAP and REST APIs and the database connections allowing communication with different data sources, it’s simple and quick to fulfill requirements which demand resources from multiple sources. In this way, the platform provides opportunities for innovative ideas. A simple example is to check transportation costs against rotes using maps and GPS technologies to measure accurate distances.

There are some features expected in the future that may speed up some processes. But there is a lack of development resources that need implementing. For example, OutSystems does not provide any native reporting resources. All reports must be created with other tools or as a webpage. 

Another issue is the asynchronous processing and multithreading tasks for which the current resources of the platform are very generic and not built for the end-user. Any asynchronous jobs have to be constructed with an end-user dashboard to allow inspection of the status of the activities.

We have basically not encountered any issues with stability. There was only one situation, when we first started using the environments, that a security policy conflicted with the installation of OutSystems or Microsoft IIS server. We had to gather a team to solve the problem by removing security baselines until we found the conflict and fixed it. At that time, it took four days to resolve this conflict. Since then, the servers have never had a single instability. 

As a very scalable solution, OutSystems does not provide an already-built infrastructure of modules. Companies should follow OutSystems tips on growing their environments using the concepts of Canvas Architecture.

Canvas Architecture is a very scalable, sustainable, and feasible approach. Companies should use these layouts, but not follow it to the letter. It should be changed according to the company's strategies, depending on the kind of applications they are developing. 

On the other hand, some effort should be made to regularly maintain the norms and standards of the environments. Even with good governance in software development, due to the power and agility of the platform, it is not too easy to keep track of the development team; hence, the importance of a periodic reviews and standard, documented processes.

Technical support is qualified and proactive but not very specialized. OutSystems always fixes all bug reports within the expected timeframe.

The team is very proactive. When we had that situation with the security baselines that conflicted with the platform, late at night Brazil time, I received a call from OutSystems support in Portugal right way, willing to help solve the problem. However, when it became more technical they helped only up to a certain point, and only our team could ultimately fix it.

I would give OutSystems support a six out of 10. I understand that a more specialized level of support (with software engineers) is needed sometimes when the operational team cannot resolve.

We did not use another low-code platform before, although many of the traditional development technologies were widely tested (Java, .NET/C#, OpenEdge, etc.). OutSystems was the first which provided a complete, easy, and effective platform.

We have been using OutSystems since the middle of 2016. In the implementation phase of OutSystems, we had formal training and hired a third-party (Sispro S/A) with years of experience in the technology, for consulting and to design our environment correctly.

The setup itself was straightforward. Our company chose a local installation of the platform server in virtualized machines, instead of on the cloud (there were internal reasons for this choice, such as the need for prompt responses in production systems, which are not achievable over the WAN network). The setup was very simple, however, due to our very high-security scope, some difficulties with security policies had to be overcome. I would recommend choosing the cloud platform whenever possible, as it is much simpler to start with.

OutSystems was open to a deal that worked for both sides. It’s not ethical to give more specifics about the pricing and licensing.

We evaluated many solutions in the market. Some companies in Brazil were visited with a view to finding a more agile solution for the development of applications. Among those solutions were Zoho and Tibco. However, OutSystems stood out.

We find in OutSystems a great platform that enables extraction of data from multiple sources, and working with business logic to access essential information and produce process-automation at the highest level.

We have future projects in mind to build factory production process with this technology. New developers were recently hired to support the industrial development team and they are being progressively coached in OutSystems development, using an internal training program to reach this goal.

We rate OutSystems an eight out of 10. It is the best platform we have found. However, it’s not perfect.

In terms of advice:

• When possible, use a cloud environment option rather than a local installation.
• Negotiate a suitable license with OutSystems, taking into account that the application objects grow quickly.
• Hire trainers and make sure the development team sets up a proper architecture. If you choose the wrong approach or do not plan appropriate architecture, in a short time you will certainly have a very large rework. 
• It is essential to build an appropriate Canvas.
• Sometimes, junior developers will perform better with OutSystems, since senior developers often do not adapt to the graphical structural programming. It is not a rule, but some resistance and difficulty of adaptation were noticed.
• A good practice is to hire an expert consulting company, for a couple weeks, which already uses OutSystems. They will help your development team with basic questions, increasing the pace of learning and making it more effective. 
• OutSystems has a set of metadata and any kind of control is possible, but these structures should be practiced with the developers.
• OutSystems Forge is a very useful place, when starting out, to download components to adapt to your needs.
• SQL Server is a good default database option for OutSystems. We have never had a problem with it. We recommend using only a single database catalog instead of many.
• Another suggestion is to plan an approach for the REST/SOAP APIs with more security implementations. As a default, it provides NTLM authentication or basic authentication to SOAP API and a custom strategy for REST. We have built a complete architecture with client authorization, IP control, and cryptography over the exposed services. The OutSystems User Provider module can be customized with the company’s default authentication method, however, it is quite simple to maintain the standard module and just push data into the Users and Roles tables. Otherwise, it will take some time to understand how everything works underneath.
• Finally, perhaps the most important tip is regarding development governance. Not only for OutSystems but for all types of development, it is very important to maintain normalized and standardized environments. In a chaotic scene with no effort to have periodic reviews, a low-code platform could create a huge mess and the cost will be paid in the near future.

The tool makes the development process easier. 

I have difficulty in using several new features. Some of the product's features are tricky to use as well. 

I have been working with the product for six months. 

I would rate the solution's stability an eight out of ten. 

I would rate the product's scalability a nine out of ten. My company has around 20 people for the product. We use the product daily. 

The product's setup is easy. One person is enough to handle its deployment. 

The product is expensive and I would rate its pricing a seven out of ten. You need to pay a yearly subscription to use the product. 

I would rate the product a nine out of ten. 

It is kind of used for reactive and web applications. We're also working on the mobile applications as well. I use it in a banking environment. 

I've been onboarded there and then I'm just doing the activities for both internet banking as well as mobile banking, handling both servers as well as the front end.

Currently, this banking application can consist of both mobile as well as internet banking. We have it for eight different countries. For mobile, we have eight different applications, and for internet banking, it is a single application, however, it'll support eight entities in eight countries including Bahrain, the UK, Iraq, et cetera.

Normally we use it in a banking setup. Usually, transfer payment and then the benefits pay gateway, are those kinds of integrations we are doing currently for mobile. The onboarding process we do, the login for that process, et cetera, offer good features. 

We have one feature called multiple payments where we're able to select multiple beneficiaries and we're able to create ad hoc beneficiaries. Ad hoc beneficiaries mean there's no need to add the benefits directly. We can enter the beneficiary upon the number and we can do the payment. We can add multiple beneficiaries in a single go and then we will do the validation. 

We have a back office application as well where we can configure based upon the user as well as based upon the segment. We can configure per day.

We're able to do transformations. We can do the validation before calling the API. Once validation is done, we will show the set of validation. Either it can be the OTP validation or it can be a token validation. Once that is done, we can call the final API, which calls the code banking system for doing the payments.

We've acquired a new bank and would like to integrate e-services into the offering. We'd like to be able to have an option for doing an activation directly from the internet banking area so that there is no need to contact the bank directly. Having e-services capabilities would be ideal. 

There are a lot of enhancements and new features coming.

Currently, in mobile applications, we don't have push notifications. We're hoping that will come in the new release. 

I've been using the solution for 3.5 years. 

It's stable enough. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution is scalable. If I want to do any changes or anything, it has a one-click publish. There's no need to re-upload anything. We make changes, we expand, and it is a one-click deployment.

Currently, in Bahrain alone, there are 40,000 users on the app. We have the same for other countries as well. We have deployed more production for three entities - Bahrain, Egypt, and the UK. Currently, for the other three entities, it is in progress. We are planning to move those changes at the end of September.

We can add users as necessary. In LifeTime, we're able to handle user management. We're able to create a set of users and we can assign roles. It can be an admin role, like full control where it's able to do publishing, feedbacking, everything. We can receive a set of users and control access to certain areas. 

Technical support is very good. If there is any production issue or anything, we can raise the ticket and they're immediately helping. If there are any deployment changes that get affected, it means we have control of all directions also. Therefore, we can manage everything properly, without any effect, actually. Everything is completely handed down to OutSystems and it is more stable. If any deployment causes us an issue we can revert back to the older version and it'll work fine.

Before that, I used a server platform called Forti. It is similar to the OutSystems Platform. We were able to use mobile and web publications and able to create using that.

I worked on an AD platform as well. 

Comparatively, I'm able to see OutSystems is very easy to maintain and easily fulfills the business requirements. 

The deployment and process depends upon the model we are selecting. Normally consider if we are selecting big models, it'll take around 30 to 40 minutes for making a deployment to set up 15 applications. For example, if it is a mobile application, it means if we can select only the application, it will take a maximum of five to ten minutes for creating the solution and deploying in the UIT of production. For internet banking, we use Windows authentication, ID logins. For mobile banking, we used third-party APIs. We used common plugins for the camera location and everything. We integrated with Apple, Google, and Apple Wallet also.

Everything is completely handled in OutSystems, so we have a LifeTime available in OutSystems. Previously, we don't have LifeTime so we manually exported the solution and we deployed it in the UIT. With the help of LifeTime, we're able to see the versions and the differences. We can select the proper particular application and we can do the deployment. It is easy to maintain and easy to deploy as well.

For doing the deployments, any changes, are completely handled on our side.

I'm not sure how the licensing is set up. I don't handle that aspect.

However, I am able to see it s very costly as compared to other platforms. That said, we see the benefit of paying so much. They provide a lot of options. 

While we use version 11.10.20 for service, the service center for LifeTime is 11.0. Currently, we need to upgrade that. The upgrade plan is in progress. We have had to start recently.

I'd recommend the solution to others. 

I would rate it eight out of ten.