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Magic xpa Application Platform vs OutSystems comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 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

Magic xpa Application Platform
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Application Server (10th), Application Infrastructure (14th)
OutSystems
Ranking in Mobile Development Platforms
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Rapid Application Development Software (6th), Low-Code Development Platforms (3rd), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Mobile Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Magic xpa Application Platform is 4.0%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OutSystems is 9.3%, down from 17.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mobile Development Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OutSystems9.3%
Magic xpa Application Platform4.0%
Other86.7%
Mobile Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Mylsamy T. - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate - IT at Himalaya Wellness Company
Enables us to develop more than 90 applications in-house, which are used across our organization
It's a bit difficult to work with purely web-based applications to get the data and display it. There have been a few times when the connection was disconnected between the server and your browser. The connectivity on browser-built applications needs to be improved. The mobile application development could be easier. They could include different external applications, like finger sensors. I'm not sure whether it's in version 3.8 or not.
Aditya Bhatt - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Project Delivery Lead | Sr. Technical Lead at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Rapid delivery has transformed complex enterprise apps and supports faster cross-domain projects
Every platform or low-code platform tool is quite good in its own area, but there is always space to groom or enhance or improve. The same is with OutSystems as well. A couple of things from the integration point of view can be enhanced. If your application or the enterprise organization is tackling a huge data application where you have bulk amounts of data, it becomes a challenge for all the technologies and the same with OutSystems. You have to design your architecture in a very magnificent and decent way so that how you process your data so that load can be easily balanced. Data handling and huge data handling is a kind of challenge you may need to face. Then we have some vendor lock-in. If you are trying to migrate your application from OutSystems, then you probably get into this vendor lock-in system. Some organization may face challenges if some organization is on a small scale size. The small scale businesses may find OutSystems costly because of its high cost and pricing due to the licensing cost. Apart from that, OutSystems really plays well, and it needs a learning curve. If a traditional application or programming is there which your developers are skilled into and they are directly deployed into OutSystems, it may take some significant amount of time for them to get comfortable with OutSystems. There is a learning curve. OutSystems community is already in place, but it can more be enhanced regarding some aspects. They did organize lots of bootcamps and other user groups as well, but those can also be improved from the documentation point of view and having some integration guidebook as well. A couple of things which can be improved into OutSystems include the licensing cost, the vendor lock-in side, the learning curve, couple of integration aspects and customizations.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"My employees can develop and deploy something in a matter of hours."
"Magic’s unique approach to development ensures that the programmer stays focused on the objective of the program (i.e. display all customers in California), instead of the repetitive tasks that surround it (i.e. connect to database, open customers table, create the query to retrieve records within the specified criteria, fetch the result of the query, connect it to a data grid, etc.)."
"Being able to make changes to existing programs to comply with last minute changes in requirements, and/or being able to fix, test, review, and deploy new code in a manner of hours instead of days, definitely gives us a huge advantage over our competitors and this is only possible thanks to Magic’s speed of programming."
"xpa gives us a fast development speed."
"The solution makes the managing and adapting of the software very easy."
"The Magic xpa Application Platform is very suitable for production since it is easy to update. The program is simple to upgrade and deploy. The solution is convenient in production. You need to adjust the data, then adjust the program which is not difficult."
"The ability to use the same development environment for both Windows and Android applications. Magic xpa also supports iOS applications."
"What I found most valuable in the Magic xpa Application Platform is that it has a client-server and web browser technology that's perfect for company users."
"The most important features of this tool are its visual modeling capabilities and drag and drop functionality. You can see what you are coding which makes it easy to understand and maintain. They have also created a big revolution in digital transformation by introducing native mobile app development under the same IDE."
"Overall, it's a very nice solution."
"Some systems have over 1,000 end users; it's very stable for heavy duty operation."
"Their drag-and-drop functionality is amazing."
"Before using Outsystems to develop a client's reporting systems, the process would take six months to complete a report, and after using Outsystems and building a custom application, report-building is one click away and it only took us three months to build the custom application using OutSystems."
"It is a stable solution."
"The solution is stable and doesn't require many server resources, so I don't think there are stability issues."
"It is a stable solution, and the initial setup is straightforward."
 

Cons

"Support is very bad."
"When you have several tasks, you open a screen in a task in developing mode, and you don't see the parent screens. Debugging lacks the effects to solve problems. You have to do it first in a kind of studio. Then you have to be sure that you can do it in Magic because there is almost nothing to debug it. It's practically impossible to debug. You have to be sure before you put your snippets."
"Magic has a tradition, when it adds new technologies/features to the Magic development tool, to provide either no documentation or documentation that does not provide an organized approach for bringing this new technology/feature to experienced Magic programmers."
"Debugging .NET snippets is not possible, so it lacks the effects to solve problems. First you have to write and test your .NET code in VS, then you have to copy the .NET code in Magic xpa because there is almost nothing to debug it."
"The Android environment is missing a number of functions for file/folder manipulation, sending receiving text messages (SMS) and the menuing options are limited. For now, it is left to the developer to write his/her own Java functions to include in the APK."
"The configuration of the xpa RIA mobile environment is complex and a discouragement to new developers. Also, Magic's documentation can be less than complete at times which leads to frustration for new developers. (I encourage new Magic developers to join the Magic Users Group)."
"In the next version of the Magic xpa Application Platform, I want tables or small programs where I can directly add expressions. I can do it on SQL, but it would make life much easier if that specification were added to the platform."
"The user interface could be improved to be more friendly for developers."
"I think OutSystems needs to improve in many areas. First, sometimes Service Studio becomes really slow and even hangs for long periods. Also, if I have not published my module in some time, and some kind of Service Studio exception occurs, I lose my work."
"It's difficult to do the component version control. I would like them to add more studying materials."
"The integration Studio could be improved. It needs a tool in which we could develop C# code and then integrate into OutSystems. The application could have a better UI."
"The initial setup is a little difficult."
"The product could benefit from improved connectors to integrate with outside platforms."
"The latest version of the app generation tools could be more user-friendly."
"There are many tutorials available but they are very basic and good for learning the platform. To develop an enterprise-grade application, advanced tutorials need to be developed to help IT professionals design/develop high-quality/performance applications."
"The solution is costly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are different licenses, we have the application and the online application. There are two different licenses for two different program sites for the Magic xpa Application Platform."
"The licensing cost varies because nowadays Magic has tailor-made offerings for clients. I think the solution is worth the money."
"The main problem with the Magic xpa Application Platform is pricing. You have to pay a lot of money for development, and you also have to pay a lot for the deployments and runtime, while in most competitors, you have to pay a lot for one of the two and not both."
"The licensing is too costly."
"The cost for developers is high because you have to pay for licenses as well as runtime."
"My clients have to purchase additional licenses in order to use what I built. It's not a fair approach."
"Magic is not the cheapest IDE out there. If you are considering Magic xpa, you should do a cost-benefit analysis to feel comfortable with your decision. The Magic sales staff is very helpful in providing pricing."
"It's not cheap. The licenses are not cheap. Not at all. They cost much money. There are other tools with free licenses but Magic asks for a lot of money."
"It is still very expensive, so small companies can’t generally afford it... Still, the time saving on development and delivery is worth the value."
"The subscription is billed on a yearly basis."
"OutSystems is a very expensive solution, and it has to be cheaper."
"It's not cheap. It's pretty expensive."
"I believe they have two pricing options. One is approximately $4000 USD a year and the other is approximately $10,000 USD a year."
"OutSystems is expensive, and they changed the pricing model in the last couple of years. It's changing too much and it's becoming unstable. They are constantly shifting their prices based on users, courses, and other factors."
"The tool’s licensing is based on the user’s usage."
"There is a free trial to use this solution and other options available, such as enterprise. There are different subscription plans."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise33
 

Questions from the Community

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Which solution is better for developing non-ITSM applications: OutSystems or Service Now?
The short answer is that OutSystems is far better for 2 main reasons. Firstly, with Service Now you are locked into that platform for good. The business model is to lock in and then keep pumping th...
What industries do you think OutSystems is most useful for?
I cannot really name an industry in which OutSystems cannot be beneficial. Who does not want to make top-notch applications that work in no time? And OutsyStems does exactly that. The low-code plat...
How did you decide which OutSystems edition was the best one for you?
We started using OutSystems fairly recently, so we are still on the free version of it. My company is still testing how we like the platform, but so far, we have been satisfied with it and will li...
 

Also Known As

uniPaaS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ADD, Cape plc, Adecco, Kuno Kinzoku Industry Co., GE Capital, Dove Tree, CBS Outdoor, Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Center, Allstate Life Insurance Company, Titan Software Systems
Randstad, Warner Brothers, HP, Intel, ING, Banco Popular, Thrivent Financial, Bacardi, Kent State University, Bacardi, FICO, ING, Vodafone, AbbVie, Estafeta, Siemens, Vopak
Find out what your peers are saying about Magic xpa Application Platform vs. OutSystems and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.