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Appian vs Bonita comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 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

Appian
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
12th
Ranking in Process Automation
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Rapid Application Development Software (10th), Low-Code Development Platforms (5th), Process Mining (8th)
Bonita
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
19th
Ranking in Process Automation
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of Appian is 5.7%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Bonita is 3.5%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

Featured Reviews

Nitin-Agarwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamless integration enhances workflows while memory optimization can improve complex processes
I am working with all of these products: Pega, Appian, and OutSystems. I use Appian as a process orchestrator for workflow and rule-based routing, and it is preferred when I am developing an enterprise-wide application. The application is mobile-friendly, allowing me to use it across any device…
Paparao Nadipineni - PeerSpot reviewer
A simple and lightweight college course automation system with third-party integrations
The initial setup is straightforward and can be completed with the environment within an hour. First, take the latest from the git repository and check the git code to the monitor studio and a bar file, a deployable Bonita archive file. Then, take that process to the Bonita server, running at runtime on another server. Finally, deploy and enable it by selecting the proper organization.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With low-code, we don't need a lot of coding, and then from the plumbing perspective, there is a complete CI/CD pipeline that exists within Appian that can be leveraged for open deployment."
"Appian is easy to install and set up, and it does not come out with your audit. It has accessible process orchestration and process management. With Appian, the time to market is much faster."
"The solution has a lot of strong features for the financial industry, it is very easy to use."
"The technical support for Appian rates as 10 out of 10 because they have a great support team."
"The most valuable feature is business automation."
"The most valuable features of Appian are the VPN engine, it is fast, lightweight, and easy to set up business rules. Business teams can do it by themselves. That is a very good feature."
"The valuable features include process automation, Appian Portal, and Appian RPA."
"It has very flexible adaptation and the ability to save and automate processes."
"I really enjoy using the workflow management."
"Its user-friendliness, along with the availability of comprehensive and clear documentation on the website is the most valuable."
"Development of forms and flows."
"Flexible and drag-and-drop type of UI is very valuable. The integrations are also very good. You can build workflows very quickly, which is my favorite activity. By using the GUI, you can build the entire mechanism, notifications, and all this kind of stuff."
"Bonita is user-friendly."
"It is a great product that is powerful in developing applications."
"The user interface is better than all of the open-source BPMs that I have tried."
"One of the most valuable features is you can create without coding, it is a low code platform."
 

Cons

"The biggest areas of improvement would be in facilitating team development, DevOps, and integration with typical tools used in enterprise development (Jenkins, Subversion, etc.)"
"Architecture of product and scalabiility issues."
"There is no UI customization possible."
"Appian is a great tool for internal use cases where the users are company employees, but it has room to improve for use cases where the users are public facing, where anonymous users could come to a site and run a business workflow or interact with some data."
"​Appian is easy to set up, but JBoss is complex. JBoss is the application server for running Appian."
"A point of improvement would be the SAIL forms. The built-in tool used to generate forms does not have debugging support (to view local variables as they change on live preview, and step-by-step valuation) which is a big drawback for form development. Moreover, the script language used to build SAIL forms does not support inheritance or lambda expressions (functions as arguments of other functions), which makes the code base more verbose."
"If we could calculate the amount of data that will be realized, it would help us a lot."
"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 dashboard has limited features."
"It would be nice to have a wizard to help walk through the development process and create a backbone."
"There is a need for more components in the library and additional customization options for these components."
"I should be able to park the tasks that are within a process in a kind of container, and dynamically, a super admin should be able to connect these processes. This kind of feature might be helpful."
"The interface is advanced and quite good, but it could improve."
"I have run into a lot of problems because there is not enough documentation."
"There could be an improvement in IoT connectivity."
"Installation could be made easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The price is high."
"Licensing of Appian is less expensive when compared to other BPMs in the market."
"I'm sure it is cost-effective, but right now, we're just toying around with it. So, I don't have any hard numbers."
"It is fully managed, and I don't believe there are any additional expenses."
"I think that if somebody is really serious at looking at business value, then by all means, the product is well worth the value. You get representative business value for the price that you pay for the product, and for the implementation of the product."
"The tool is quite costly."
"The licensing will be on a monthly basis. We are estimating that cost to be around $2000 to maybe $3,000 per month. We don't foresee any costs above that."
"Licensing cost for the Enterprise edition comes out to be around 40,000 a year. There is also a Community edition, which is free. Some customers can go for the Community edition, but some of them require the Enterprise edition. Big companies go for the Enterprise edition, which comes with a lot of additional features such as a mobile app."
"I believe this is a very good financial choice."
"The Community Edition comes free of charge."
"The Enterprise edition is very expensive."
"have installed the image of Bonita BPM on Amazon AWS and there is just one option to use and pay for."
"The price is fair for what we are using the solution for."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"The product's pricing is acceptable. Pricing is yearly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Educational Organization
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
How does Bonita compare with Camunda Platform?
One of the things we like best about Bonita is that you can create without coding - it is a low-code platform. With Bonita, you can build the entire mechanism using the GUI, it’s that simple. You c...
What do you like most about Bonita?
The user interface is easy to use.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
Bonita BPM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Hansard Global plc, Punch Taverns, Pirelli, Crawford & Company, EDP Renewables, Queensland Government Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning (, Bank of Tennessee
With more than 1000 customers in 75 countries, and its ecosystem of more than 120,000 members, Bonitasoft is the largest provider of open-source Business Process Management, Low-code and Digital Transformation software worldwide.
Find out what your peers are saying about Appian vs. Bonita and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.