Appian vs Flowable comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Appian and Flowable are both solutions in the Process Automation category. Appian is ranked #5 with an average rating of 7.7, while Flowable is ranked #27. Additionally, 96% of Appian users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Flowable users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

Appian and Flowable are competitors in the business process management space. Appian is seen to have an edge in terms of quick setup and robust enterprise integrations, while Flowable stands out for its flexibility and customization options.

Features: Appian is known for low-code automation, dynamic case management, and comprehensive analytics. Flowable is praised for its adaptive, cloud-native architecture, strong BPMN compliance, and more granular control over processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Appian provides a streamlined deployment process supported by extensive documentation and proactive client service. Flowable offers flexible deployment options, including cloud, on-premises, and hybrid solutions, with customer service noted for deep technical expertise, aiding in complex custom integrations.

Pricing and ROI: Appian's setup costs are higher, but rapid deployment leads to quicker ROI for those valuing speed and ease. Flowable's open-source model offers a cost-efficient initial setup with potentially lower long-term costs, appealing to organizations capable of leveraging its model effectively.

To learn more, read our detailed Process Automation Report (Updated: October 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Process Automation

October 2026

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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

Automation Anywhere

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash

Management Consultant at Accenture

Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions

Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.

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Shad Bhowmik

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.

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Simon Greener

Solutions Architect at Cohga Pty Ltd

Helps to control the workflow and business process components of customers' operations but OSGi integration can be challenging

I'd rate my experience with the initial setup of Flowable at about a three out of ten, but for our developers, it's probably closer to a six. I found it challenging due to the complexity of the user and help documents and the fact that much of the Flowable documentation and tutorials are focused on cloud-based implementations. Since we're primarily interested in basic components like BPMN models and form design, which aren't included in the product, the learning process was more difficult for me. In contrast, our developers are more comfortable diving into the code and technology stack, which allows them to be more proactive in their approach. The deployment took three months to complete. We're still in the deployment process. Our main challenge is integrating the Flowable process engine into our product, which uses OSGi. This has led to complexity in managing the Java versions and dependencies, as the tool has around 150 Java files. We could have chosen to interact with Flowable via a Docker container and the REST API, which would have isolated the OSGi Java dependencies, but we decided to integrate it directly. This has required resolving Java version control issues and upgrades, leading to various development challenges that must be addressed. It is a learning process for all of us. As an integrated solutions architect, I would have probably opted for the Docker route rather than the direct OSGi integration chosen by the developers. However, since they went with the OSGi integration, it's taking us longer to complete the deployment. Currently, we have one full-time developer dedicated to deployment, along with one part-time developer, and my involvement at about a quarter of my time. So, we have about two people working on deployment. As for maintenance, we're not entirely sure yet. Given our direct OSGi integration choice instead of Docker and REST, maintenance may be more challenging. However, we'll have a clearer picture once deployment is complete.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have been able to reduce the amount of repetitive tasks completed by operations, allowing individuals to move onto tasks which cannot yet be automated."

"After using AA for some of the flows, we identified that the execution time was reduced by 70% when compared to the other automation tool that we have been using for 8 years."

"The ease of use of getting started is probably the big thing. They had a lot of references that we were able to check. It is a well-known player, and being able to get up and running quickly was the big thing."

"The ability to find objects easily through the 'Capture' option saves your time most significantly."

"Compared to other RPA solutions on the market I have worked with, AA surpasses its competitors by far."

"Using Automation Anywhere has improved our company significantly, as we are doing over eight to 10,000 invoices a month, which people had to do before, while now the automated process is doing that without too much human intervention, saving probably about at least two to possibly three FTEs per week."

"With IQ Bot, we can now include cognitive automation into our process. The cognitive document processing is pretty good with IQ Bot."

"I would rate Automation Anywhere overall a nine out of ten."

More Automation Anywhere pros

"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."

"We use this solution because End-to-End Process Automation in Appian is robust and scalable."

"The most productive aspect of Appian lies in its ability to develop interfaces, particularly user interfaces. Creating user interfaces is highly productive, when these interfaces are integrated with the original database. In such cases, using record types proves to be a very efficient method of handling data. The synergy between interfaces and record types enhances productivity."

"Appian has greatly improved how quickly we are able to build and deploy technology solutions for our business partners."

"Appian's most valuable features are the quick time it takes to develop for the market. It's easy and faster than other BPM solutions."

"Write to Data Store Entity - Saving data in SQL databases is done easily using entities. Entities (CDTs in Appian terminology) define relationships and target schema tables via XSD files."

"The application is mobile-friendly, allowing me to use it across any device, whether mobile, laptop, or desktop."

"The most valuable features of Appian are the Low Code, robust Process Design, Run-time Management, Deployment, Interfaces, and Mobility."

More Appian pros

"The tool's most valuable feature is the process engine. It allows us to define BPM-based workflows, deploy them into our process engine, and interact with them within our product."

Cons

"Excel functionalities, the macro interface can be improved in the next release of RPA platform Automation Anywhere."

"Certain areas of the user interface require improvement."

"I suggest having more ways to perform string manipulations and string operations, instead of just what is pre-defined in the V11 tool."

"They are already working on this: The boom of generative AI, the next-gen technologies, including advanced AI and ML technologies, are in the roadmap. I would like to see more and more AI integration and a bit more analytics. That would be great."

"The AA portal should not give us pop-ups every time a bot agent is updated."

"The GUI can be improved by making it more user-friendly."

"It would be great if they provide installation documents that are easier to understand, place more focus on capturing the fields, and most importantly, concentrate more on the OCR capability."

"I would like to see extensive OCR capabilities in the next release."

More Automation Anywhere cons

"The solution could improve by being more responsive when dealing with large quantities of data. Additionally, they can make the decision or rules engine better. It cannot handle too many rules or too many decisions at once."

"Occasionally, certain pre-made modules may not be necessary and customers may desire greater customization options. Instead of being limited to pre-designed features, they may prefer a more flexible version that allows for greater customization."

"I would like to see more features for enterprises. They would also benefit from adding documentation and training on their site."

"One of the areas that Appian is working on is to improve its UI capabilities and give more flexibility to the UI."

"The UI of the application has been completely overhauled within the past couple years, but the tools for developing the new interface have not yet been updated."

"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."

"Lacks integration with other products."

"The tool itself is pretty good, but the main area that we struggled with was the backend. The frontend development is really good, but the backend modeling can be streamlined a little bit. There are good integrations, but tying them through the data layer and then up into the frontend could be improved a little bit. It does read/write on the data source, and you can configure it to just write or just read, but there is a little bit of work involved."

More Appian cons

"In my opinion, areas of improvement for Flowable include the management and creation of forms within the open-source components and the documentation and examples provided. While the cloud-based Flowable implementation with no-code features is attractive, we prefer more control over integration, especially since we deploy our product onto AWS. We also want to avoid additional licensing fees for Flowable runtime user components on top of our software development and implementation charges."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost of Automation Anywhere is better than UiPath and Blue Prism."

"In terms of pricing, this is a good product."

"We have seen ROI in terms of cost and time with a couple of our projects."

"Regarding the price, licensing, and maintenance, Automation Anywhere provides its customers with its best and affordable value."

"It is the most economically friendly and it provides you with a lot of functions."

"Automation Anywhere offers a subscription-based licensing model for cloud, on-premises, and hybrid deployments."

"Annual licensing costs would be about $100,000."

"With the rebate processing automation that we did, it has provided us a savings of around an hour or two a person on a daily basis, which is quite a lot of savings."

More Automation Anywhere pricing and cost advice

"The license is a bit expensive and the pricing model is sometimes confusing for new users or business users. It is difficult for them to know what volume of usage they will have to be able to purchase the best-suited license at the beginning."

"The price of this solution is a little high here in Mongolia."

"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."

"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."

"It is fully managed, and I don't believe there are any additional expenses."

"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 tool is quite costly."

"The cost depends on the number of users, although I recommend taking an unlimited license."

More Appian pricing and cost advice

"Since the tool is open-source, we don't have to pay anything for it. It's free to download and use, which is great for us. If Flowable hadn't been available as open source and required a license fee for us to integrate it into our product, we might not have chosen it."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Outsourcing Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Outsourcing Company

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

31%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	162
Midsize Enterprise	86
Large Enterprise	565

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	47

No data available

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...

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How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...

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How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.

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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...

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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. The...

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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 i...

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Comparisons

UiPath Platform vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 10% of the time

Blue Prism vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 4% of the time

AutomationEdge vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 3% of the time

Celonis vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 2% of the time

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Camunda vs Appian

Compared 8% of the time

Pega Platform vs Appian

Compared 6% of the time

IBM BPM vs Appian

Compared 4% of the time

ServiceNow vs Appian

Compared 4% of the time

Microsoft Power Apps vs Appian

Compared 2% of the time

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Camunda vs Flowable

Compared 23% of the time

Temporal vs Flowable

Compared 16% of the time

n8n vs Flowable

Compared 9% of the time

Kognitos vs Flowable

Compared 9% of the time

Nintex Process Platform vs Flowable

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automation Anywhere

October 2026

Download Automation Anywhere product report

Buyer's Guide

Appian

October 2026

Download Appian product report

Buyer's Guide

Process Automation

October 2026

Download Flowable product report

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS

No data available

Interactive Demo

Automation Anywhere

Demo not available

Appian

Demo not available

Flowable

Overview

Automation Anywhere offers ease of use, robust system connectivity, and GenAI-driven document automation through a cloud-native platform, significantly enhancing productivity across multiple industries with advanced AI features.

Delivering a comprehensive suite of tools designed for easy integration and rapid deployment, Automation Anywhere drives efficiency by reducing costs and automating repetitive tasks. Its cloud-native platform supports broad industry adoption, including advanced AI features like process automation and Co-Pilot, streamlining complex workflows with minimal technical skills required. Users benefit from robust integration capabilities, which facilitate seamless interaction with multiple systems. However, there is room for improvement in areas such as user-friendliness for beginners, stability, flexible licensing, and enhanced OCR functionality. Organizations in sectors such as banking, finance, manufacturing, and healthcare gain from the improved operational efficiency and ROI Automation Anywhere offers.

What are the important features of Automation Anywhere?

Ease of Use: Simplifies automation tasks with a user-centric interface.
Robust Connectivity: Provides seamless integration with multiple systems.
GenAI-Driven Document Automation: Leverages AI to automate document management.
Process Automation & Co-Pilot: Enhances workflow automation with advanced AI.
Cloud-Native Platform: Enables rapid deployment and integration.

What benefits should be evaluated in reviews?

Time Savings: Automation drastically reduces manual processing time.
Cost Efficiency: Decreases overall operational costs by automating tasks.
Productivity Enhancement: Streamlines workflows with AI-driven tools.
Improved Integration: Enhances ability to work with multiple systems.
Scalability: Supports growth with a flexible cloud-native architecture.

In the insurance industry, Automation Anywhere is utilized for automating processes such as enrollment management and compliance checks. Its applications extend to supply chain management, financial transactions, and business performance monitoring across sectors like banking, finance, manufacturing, and healthcare, helping organizations to automate routine tasks, improve efficiency, and reduce costs.

Automation Anywhere

Appian provides AI automation for critical processes. The platform orchestrates AI agents, people, and systems within unified, governed workflows, giving AI the structure, data, and controls required for reliable enterprise value. The result is end-to-end automation that replaces fragmented manual work at scale.

Appian

Flowable is a versatile software that streamlines and automates business processes. It is commonly used for workflow management, task automation, and digital transformation initiatives.

Users also utilize Flowable for document management, case management, and customer journey mapping. Its valuable features include efficient workflow management, seamless integration capabilities, and a user-friendly interface.

Flowable allows for smooth collaboration and task automation, and its ability to integrate with other systems and applications enables a seamless flow of information.

The intuitive and easy-to-use interface makes it accessible to users of all technical backgrounds.

Flowable

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics

Hansard Global plc, Punch Taverns, Pirelli, Crawford & Company, EDP Renewables, Queensland Government Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning (, Bank of Tennessee

1. Adobe 2. BMW 3. Cisco 4. Dell 5. Ericsson 6. Ford 7. General Electric 8. Honda 9. IBM 10. Johnson & Johnson 11. Kia Motors 12. LG Electronics 13. Microsoft 14. Nike 15. Oracle 16. PepsiCo 17. Qualcomm 18. Red Bull 19. Samsung 20. Toyota 21. Uber 22. Visa 23. Walmart 24. Xerox 25. Yahoo 26. Zara 27. Accenture 28. Bank of America 29. Citigroup 30. Deutsche Bank 31. ExxonMobil 32. Facebook

Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda, BMC, Pega and others in Process Automation. Updated: October 2026.

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