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Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Forms vs Appian comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Adobe Experience Manager (A...
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Customer Communications Management (CCM) (6th)
Appian
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (7th), Process Automation (9th), Rapid Application Development Software (13th), Low-Code Development Platforms (8th), Process Mining (6th), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Forms and Appian aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Forms is designed for Customer Communications Management (CCM) and holds a mindshare of 4.9%, down 6.3% compared to last year.
Appian, on the other hand, focuses on Business Process Management (BPM), holds 3.4% mindshare, down 5.6% since last year.
Customer Communications Management (CCM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Forms4.9%
Quadient Inspire18.5%
OpenText Communications17.7%
Other58.900000000000006%
Customer Communications Management (CCM)
Business Process Management (BPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Appian3.4%
Camunda7.1%
IBM BPM4.2%
Other85.3%
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

Q&A Highlights

AS
Community Manager at PeerSpot (formerly IT Central Station)
Aug 29, 2014
 

Featured Reviews

it_user692313 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Partner and AEM Architect at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Its flexibility and customization ability. Ease of initial setup and complete set of features to support digital marketing initiatives.
Start small and plan your first set of objectives clearly, leaving all the “nice-to-haves” for a later phase. Starting this way will help companies get a sample of the benefits, and get familiar with the tool in general. After the first phase, they may find things that they thought they wanted are not really required or can be achieved in a better, more efficient way in the AEM world. Another useful suggestion is to avoid trying to recreate your current solution using AEM; rather, try to look for new and different ways to achieve the same results that take advantage of AEM’s features.
SB
Finance Specialist at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees
Automated remittance workflows have boosted speed and accuracy but still need geo-tagging improvements
Remittance is a crucial part of my integral operation, so any disruption would majorly impact our clients. After switching to Appian, we never faced any disruption as it is reliable and we can generate data at any point in time, quite faster than other tools in my personal opinion. Regulators can ask for data from us at any time, and with Appian, we download data from our Appian tools to share it with them whenever they ask. I would share a real-life example: a customer's transaction processed more than a year ago. Suddenly the customer came back asking for all the details. In our previous tool, it was quite difficult to generate transaction details from over a year ago; however, while using Appian, we can pull up data using different key search fields, such as a customer's cell phone number, remittance tracking number, or MT103 reference number. We shared it with the customer instantly, and the customer was surprised we could provide all the details in such a short time. It added reputational value for our organization, thanks to Appian.You have pointed out two major things: time-saving and reduction of error, which are key points while processing remittance. Previously, while using another tool, it was quite time-consuming to process remittance, but after switching to Appian, it can extract data from MT103, eliminating the need for manual data entry. The process has become fully automated. Previously we could process only five to ten transactions within an hour, but now, after switching to Appian, we can process about 100 transactions in an hour, making it 10 times faster. In terms of error detection, since Appian extracts data from MT103, the extraction rate is quite good, and the error rate is negligible, lower than 0.001%. We can share accurate, error-free data with the regulator, which is essential for us. Appian benefits us significantly. After receiving an MT103, we check what the remitter is, the amount, if it is under threshold for processing, and if it is from a high-priority remitter or client. Since Appian extracts data from MT103 messages and identifies top-level clients from the database, it can notify us to process their transactions with priority. Due to automated data extraction, there are fewer instances of error. In our previous tool, we reported regulatory data to the central bank manually and often received complaints about invalid purpose codes due to manual data entry. Appian handles this automatically, and after switching, our error rate has dropped significantly, resulting in positive feedback from the Central Bank of Bangladesh regarding our reduced error rates. This has greatly enhanced our organization's reputation. Appian is fully on-premises, and we have our own system.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"LiveCycle has a good user interface and has developed an easy way to create fillable .pdf forms."
"All these features help companies create powerful web applications that can then be customized and maintained by marketers with little involvement from IT."
"This is the most complete solution of its kind, dealing with BPM and RPA, AI, case management, and document processing."
"When you consider the capability, what it can do, consider the price, consider the different advantages that it has, I think it's a superior product."
"Technical support has been amazing overall."
"The most valuable features of Appian are the Low Code, robust Process Design, Run-time Management, Deployment, Interfaces, and Mobility."
"The agile manner that we require to create our workflows is probably the most critical part of our solution and the time it takes to start processing the solution is also quite fast."
"As long as they know what they want or what they need to digitize, Appian would be there to support the transformation that their corporation or their company would be needing in the future."
"Low code development: Code can be developed pretty quickly which leads to less turnaround time for automation of business processes."
"We use this solution because End-to-End Process Automation in Appian is robust and scalable."
 

Cons

"Help menu is a bit difficult to navigate."
"We have found occasional issues with stability but those were, in general, caused either by custom developed code or issues in the implemented architecture."
"It is very expensive. It is also not easy to learn."
"We would like to see more reduced latency. We would like to make sure that the scale-out factor will be much more as workloads come in."
"The documentation needs to be improved."
"The UI of Appian is more internal. Recently, there has been an addition of an external user portal for the customer-facing stuff. It's still coming out."
"Authoring tool is slow to use resulted in limitations on how quickly solutions can be built."
"It needs better integration with our existing application ecosystem."
"If we could calculate the amount of data that will be realized, it would help us a lot."
"Even though the company has made great improvements in online documentation, featuring rich material which includes case studies of real-life use cases, the material could definitely be better in quality and coverage of use cases."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It's good value for the price."
"The price of the solution is reasonable and is paid annually. The price of the solution depends on how many users use the solution. It can range from $50,000 to $200,000. For example, for 20,000 users the price can be approximately $200,000."
"We will have to have a dialogue or negotiate a price for future use. To start with, it is a reasonable price. As we go ahead, we will have to make sure the costs are inline with our expectations as we grow our user base and workloads."
"Licensing of Appian is less expensive when compared to other BPMs in the market."
"The price of this solution is a little high here in Mongolia."
"If you're doing an enterprise-wide digital transformation, Appian is worthwhile, but not for just one or two use cases because the license costs are higher."
"It's an enterprise tool and can be used by enterprise only. So it's a very expensive tool."
"The tool is quite costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise46
 

Questions from the Community

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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...
 

Also Known As

Adobe LiveCycle
Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

State of Illinois, Department of Human Services
Hansard Global plc, Punch Taverns, Pirelli, Crawford & Company, EDP Renewables, Queensland Government Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning (, Bank of Tennessee
Find out what your peers are saying about Quadient, Gupshup, OpenText and others in Customer Communications Management (CCM). Updated: July 2026.
909,679 professionals have used our research since 2012.