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Appian vs Hyland OnBase comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 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)
10th
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (8th), Rapid Application Development Software (9th), Process Mining (8th)
Hyland OnBase
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
16th
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
12th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of Appian is 5.7%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hyland OnBase is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Process Management (BPM)
 

Featured Reviews

Kunal Sharda - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience enables seamless automation and elevates process efficiency while embracing innovative technologies
The features of Appian that have proven to be the most beneficial are its capability to create processes and integrate with external systems while ensuring data consistency across all the systems. The latest features of Appian are quite useful around the UI/UX design and the artificial intelligence integrations. Appian is aiding in leveraging AI technologies in multiple ways: one way is for developers, as they make development efficient and quick by enabling developer co-pilots across various phases of the application, which helps design Appian quickly and provides suggestions along the way. Another way is through AI Skills, which can be integrated anywhere in the process model to leverage artificial intelligence for tasks such as extracting data from documents, summarizing information from documents or long paragraphs, and building custom prompts with Appian. Appian also utilizes AI for business users, providing a feature called process each view, enabling business users to create their own dashboards, reports, and gain insights from their data and processes using artificial intelligence. It's multi-fold and always growing.
Srinivas Rao Kagitha - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good dashboards and reports but fails to offer better migration features
The migration is a bit difficult in the tool. Whenever we make certain changes to workflow or other stuff, migrating the code from one environment to another is a bit tedious. The tool has an option for export and import, which is not robust. Most of the time, we need to do things stuff manually. For example, if we make any changes in the existing life cycle or any queues, we have to move those changes manually. There is no robust way to migrate code from one environment to a lower environment, like prod. When it comes to the product's technical support, the turnaround time is a bit longer than expected. The issue may be because there are a number of issues or a large number of customers who are reaching out to the support team for help. I believe that the solution's technical team can provide a solution more quickly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Appian is a stable product and works very well."
"Compared to other code tools that I've seen, Appian has a more robust rules engine"
"Technical support is quite responsive."
"It has created executable requirements and speeds up the SDLC process greatly."
"Appian is a very low code platform. It's very easy to learn and use."
"The initial setup is easy."
"I find the BPM the most valuable feature."
"The product's most valuable feature is the low code aspect of development. We can develop an end-to-end VPN solution using a single platform."
"Integrating Hyland OnBase with our systems enabled us to automate document designs and templates, which was extremely helpful in the finance and banking industry."
"We found the setup process to be okay since they do offer a troubleshooting guide."
"OnBase is a remarkable tool. It is a well-done product. Hyland has a lot of experience in building it and looking for new things for clients in terms of functionalities. It has amazing stability, and it can grow horizontally and vertically. It is built for growth. Their technical support is also quite good and available throughout the year."
"I like the cloud and its integrability."
"It provided data security features, allowing restrictions on sensitive documents, such as who could view or modify them."
"The solution's most valuable features are integration and flexibility."
"Hyland OnBase is valued for its security, especially for those in the finance domain who require data confidentiality."
"The product's initial setup phase is not difficult."
 

Cons

"The documentation needs to be improved."
"Lacks business rules management as part of the solution."
"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."
"The solution needs more features. For example, a way to connect to our viewing database, to record, and more interface and component design."
"One of the areas that Appian is working on is to improve its UI capabilities and give more flexibility to the UI."
"Native mobile capabilities or hybrid mobile app capabilities are very limited. Things like offline sync, offline storage, access to smartphone device features, etc. are not supported by the Appian platform yet."
"The performance is pretty good, but the distortions need to be optimized in order for it to work well."
"We'd like improved functionality for testing new devices."
"The application could potentially be more open-source, allowing integration with more solutions."
"We found the size of images to be a restriction, though this may have been due to the API used rather than the Hyland application."
"The dashboards do have some room for improvement as compared to the other vendors which are there in the market."
"I find OnBase's monolithic architecture to be expensive, and adopting microservices could be beneficial."
"The solution’s initial setup is a little difficult."
"We are struggling with duplicates and would like to have OCR functionality when using this solution."
"Software malfunctioning usually occurs when we receive documents from external sources."
"An area for improvement would be the training - getting our people up to speed on how to use it required more training than we expected due to the complexity of the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When it comes to pricing, it's definitely not affordable. However, it really depends on the requirements that you're seeking from the solution."
"BPM done right is a huge value proposition for almost any company, and with Appian's low code rapid development model, the ROI can be huge, while the break-even point should be accelerated tremendously."
"The price is high."
"The cost is calculated on a per-user basis. It might be expensive for small and mid-sized enterprises."
"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 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."
"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 solution costs around $6,000 per month."
"The tool's price is high."
"There are a number of different types of licenses. There are concurrent licenses, individual licenses and imaging licenses."
"They can do better in terms of the pricing model. It is a really expensive tool in Latin America. They should have different prices for different regions."
"OnBase is reasonably priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
8%
 

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...
What do you like most about Hyland OnBase?
The solution is very developed and we are not taking full advantage of its functionalities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hyland OnBase?
I find pricing to be on the higher side due to its monolithic architecture. I would rate it six out of ten. Transitioning to microservices, allowing users to pay for only what they use, could reduc...
What needs improvement with Hyland OnBase?
I believe the reporting features need improvement, as other competitors in the market provide better analytics. Hyland is working on a new platform (HXP) to integrate features from all products, ad...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
OnBase
 

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
Honda France Industries, Hill County Texas, Hylant Group, ING Lease France, State of South Carolina, Syracuse University, Swindon College, Rhode Island Department of Human Services, Rochester Institute of Technology, Moen, Odense University Hospital
Find out what your peers are saying about Appian vs. Hyland OnBase and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.