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Appian vs Knack 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 Rapid Application Development Software
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (9th), Process Automation (7th), Low-Code Development Platforms (3rd), Process Mining (7th)
Knack
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
32nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No-Code Development Platforms (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Rapid Application Development Software category, the mindshare of Appian is 7.8%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Knack is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rapid Application Development Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Appian7.8%
Knack0.4%
Other91.8%
Rapid Application Development Software
 

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.
ND
Flexible and granular security options, good filtering, and the pricing model is cost-effective
The vendor does a really poor job of marketing this software because it should be more popular. This is something that I have pointed out to them. It's a super piece of software, but very few people are aware of it. I am an EX-IT director and I've worked in big systems, and I'm amazed this solution isn't more popular. The "native" integration with other products could be improved. The user interface for the systems that you build can use some improvement because as it is now, you may have to use HTML and CSS to make it look more modern or to match a clients existing look. The documentation is amazing, although they don't do videos and their YouTube channel is very poor. They could create some training videos.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Appian also has very flexible local integration."
"Appian is a stable product and works very well."
"There is a version coming out every six months with performance improvements."
"What I found most valuable in Appian is that it lets you drill down on multiple things through the structure of the reporting and UI side. It's also low-code, yet it results in quick deliverables."
"I find the BPM the most valuable feature."
"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."
"It is easy for me to define the process and create configurable workflows."
"The Application Designer is very user friendly. There are also lot of plug-ins that you can use and, for the most part, they are free."
"The security is the most valuable feature, in particular, the way I can give different access to different areas to different people, so you can really fine-tune access for different users."
 

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.)"
"Something I would like to see improved is an SQL database connection."
"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."
"It is difficult to set up the on-premise version."
"What could be improved is more on the front end perspective, like the user interface and the mobile application aspect."
"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."
"If we could calculate the amount of data that will be realized, it would help us a lot."
"It needs better integration with our existing application ecosystem."
"The user interface for the systems that you build can use some improvement because as it is now, you have to do a lot of HTML and CSS to make it look modern."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's good value for the price."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Product pricing compared to some of the earlier vendors, like IBM, CA, and Oracle, is quite well-priced. Although, we do feel that as we increase the number of users and the workload increases, we will have to spend more."
"It is fully managed, and I don't believe there are any additional expenses."
"The license is not very cheap. It's on the expensive side."
"This product has really good value, as it doesn't have a per-user cost, there's a flat fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
16%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise41
No data available
 

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...
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
No data available
 

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
Siemens Kaiser Permanente VMware SunChemical C.R. England Philips The Salvation Army United Way U.S. Green Building Council Cambridge University Press
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, ServiceNow, Oracle and others in Rapid Application Development Software. Updated: September 2025.
869,785 professionals have used our research since 2012.