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Microsoft Power Apps vs OutSystems comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.1
Microsoft Power Apps boosts productivity and savings by automating processes, though ROI and licensing can vary for complex cases.
Sentiment score
6.3
OutSystems' ROI varies, with rapid development and reduced costs leading to high returns and improved customer experiences.
The connection between Power Apps and Power BI simplifies generating and presenting reports, alleviating the workload and enhancing productivity.
Revit Developer at Expocentric pty Ltd
The aim is to create a cleaner interface to replace spreadsheets, thus standardizing processes and improving efficiency.
Management Analyst at a government with 10,001+ employees
Developing that same project in OutSystems can be completed in around 40 to 50% less time, requiring only six resources.
Software Developer Advisor at NTT DATA Services
Time efficiency. Your team can be deployed to work on different modules parallelly and you can really save time up to an enormous level.
Senior Technical Lead at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Microsoft Power Apps customer service is mixed, with some delays; users rely on community support and documentation for help.
Sentiment score
7.0
OutSystems' support is responsive and valued, but specialized assistance and faster issue resolution are needed for some users.
They are probably adequate for pretty vanilla type of requirements or support tickets, but when it actually comes to something in-depth, I would not rate them more than six or seven, maximum seven.
Automation Enthusiast at Self employed
Their assistance was crucial as we developed the solutions.
Management Analyst at a government with 10,001+ employees
Community support is closer to an eight or nine since there's a big enough community that someone has likely faced the same problem and posted about it, improving the community overall.
Technology & Innovation Consultant at a construction company with 10,001+ employees
Many helpful videos and documentation are available on the OutSystems site, making it relatively easy to learn the platform.
Software Developer Advisor at NTT DATA Services
They do have the customer support ticketing system where you can raise the ticket, decide the priority, and depending upon your priority and urgency, they are going to resolve your problem.
Senior Technical Lead at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
There have been no issues with support,
Project Manager at Centre for Content Creation
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Power Apps is flexible and adaptable but may face scalability issues with large data and enterprise use.
Sentiment score
7.3
OutSystems offers scalable, cloud-based architecture, supporting diverse environments for efficient enterprise growth, despite some cost concerns.
If it is flexible and includes premium connectors, scalability is easy.
Solutions Architect at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
It is quite scalable, though there are some limitations regarding the number of records.
RPA Developer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
They can be deployed vertically and horizontally, supporting as many deployments as needed.
Software Developer Advisor at NTT DATA Services
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Power Apps is stable and reliable with occasional issues; generally well-rated, especially for simpler use cases.
Sentiment score
7.8
OutSystems is highly stable and reliable, handling heavy operations well, despite minor issues under massive user bases.
I have not really seen any performance issues, slowness, or response time.
Automation Enthusiast at Self employed
I would rate the stability of Microsoft Power Apps as a nine out of ten.
Solutions Architect at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Power Apps needs improvements in integration, documentation, pricing, customization, connectivity, and user experience for seamless functionality.
OutSystems needs to enhance performance, reduce costs, improve support, and refine integration, UI, documentation, and AI capabilities.
This would assist business process users who lack coding knowledge.
Solutions Architect at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
These tools should be intuitive for business users who will need at least a week of training to use them effectively.
Management Analyst at a government with 10,001+ employees
In many use cases, applications might require importing data exceeding two thousand records, potentially reaching one hundred thousand.
RPA Developer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
It is crucial to be aware of which module corresponds to which application in real-time projects, as there are multiple applications.
Software Developer Advisor at NTT DATA Services
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.
Senior Technical Lead at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would like to see more integration between the use of artificial intelligence to speed up the process delivery time.
RPA Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Power Apps offers competitive pricing with varying costs based on subscription, often cheaper than custom development.
OutSystems is costly for small businesses, but valued for its robust enterprise features compared to competitors.
For small to medium enterprises, it is affordable, especially with Microsoft Enterprise licensing.
Solutions Architect at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
For more elaborate work, an upgrade to an enterprise license, costing around $35 per license, is needed.
Management Analyst at a government with 10,001+ employees
It is in the middle range and considered reasonable given the current price.
RPA Developer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Subsequent users can be added at an additional cost per user; exact pricing details can be found on the OutSystems site.
Software Developer Advisor at NTT DATA Services
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Power Apps facilitates rapid app development with seamless integration, customizability, low-code access, and cost-effective automation options.
OutSystems enhances productivity with one-click publishing, visual modeling, seamless integration, and flexible cross-platform support for rapid development.
It integrates seamlessly with Power Automate for process automation and connects with email, SharePoint, Power BI, and MS Teams, facilitating everyday processes.
Revit Developer at Expocentric pty Ltd
Canvas Apps provide complete user design flexibility with many connectors to integrate into Microsoft Power Apps, making it efficient to fetch and update information from various data sources such as Dataverse, Excel, SharePoint, and Azure.
RPA Developer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
I run a couple of SQL Servers, which are premium connectors in Microsoft Power Apps, and that requires a different licensing model than what a standard E5 license covers.
Technology & Innovation Consultant at a construction company with 10,001+ employees
OutSystems offers a lot of reusable components and solutions that I can simply drag and drop and use, which has a significant impact on project delivery time.
RPA Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
We use integration extensively in OutSystems, which allows us to connect our own internal systems to our newly created system applications.
Project Manager at Centre for Content Creation
OutSystems has a very good learning curve for developers.
Software Developer Advisor at NTT DATA Services
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Power Apps
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
1st
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
OutSystems
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
4th
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (1st), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Low-Code Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power Apps is 9.0%, down from 19.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OutSystems is 5.3%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Low-Code Development Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Power Apps9.0%
OutSystems5.3%
Other85.7%
Low-Code Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

BS
Automation Enthusiast at Self employed
Low-code AI workflows have streamlined content curation and currently support rapid app creation
Microsoft Power Apps could be improved because there are still a lot of jargons and too many moving parts. For example, if you look at Copilot, the term Copilot is confusing in the sense of whether it is Copilot in M365, Copilot Studio, or Copilot in Microsoft Power Apps. There is a plan designer which uses Copilot. The whole thing how AI has been positioned is still not lucid for the end user. An end user wants to know exactly what they want and where they go to get it. I think that could also be because things are evolving so fast. From an end-user perspective, the way it has been positioned, the clarity and the boundaries between the different types of offerings and AI offerings available is confusing as of now. There should be better clarity on that. The biggest issue I have, and I have also spoken to a few of my clients about this, is the licensing model. In traditional software development, almost 95 percent of the time, the development team bears the cost of the licenses. For example, if I develop something, I may have to pay licenses for four or five different software that I use. As a user, if you use my services, you probably pay something to me as a subscription, but you do not have to bother about the licenses. All that is wrapped under the hood. Unfortunately, in Power Platform as such, and even in other low-code things like UiPath, if you use a premium feature such as Dataverse, almost everything ends up using Dataverse or SQL Server or some relational database. If you use that, then as an app builder or app maker you have to have a premium license. The end user too would need to have a premium license. That really makes the adoption prohibitive. It is too expensive. We are talking about something like around just for Microsoft Power Apps alone, approximately twenty dollars per month, which is extremely high. Another point to consider for what else can be improved in Microsoft Power Apps is that one does not know what compute power one is getting when one buys a license. If you look at the licensing model, you will get to know how much of Dataverse storage you will get in terms of log storage, database storage, and file storage. However, you do not get to know how much of compute power is being given to you. I do not think Microsoft has an SLA saying that any request of a certain amount, such as MB per second, you will get a response time of whatever, one by sixtieth of a second or some millisecond. I do not think that they have that performance SLA in place. They do have storage SLA which comes with the license, but they do not have a corresponding SLA for performance.
MA
Software Developer Advisor at NTT DATA Services
OutSystems facilitates rapid application development and effective project management
What I find valuable about OutSystems is that it has a very good learning curve for developers. Within two weeks, we can gain knowledge in OutSystems, and it is very easy to learn. With my background being .NET, OutSystems is straightforward to learn, which is beneficial. Developing applications in OutSystems is good, and the flexibility allowed by OutSystems for application development is excellent compared to my experiences with other low-code technologies, where I've faced some challenges. The clean separation of concerns in the architecture provided by OutSystems is a key benefit compared to other platforms. OutSystems integrates with our existing tech infrastructure and provides flexible integration. If we want to integrate with third-party services, OutSystems has SOAP and RESTful services that allow us to consume external services, integrate with external databases such as SQL or Oracle, and includes integration studio for writing custom .NET code. After developing a .NET component, we can reference it in service studio, creating a reference file that makes integration easy. OutSystems officially supports various integrations and also includes an API discovery tool for consuming and exposing services, providing a lot of information about incoming URLs, similar to how we use Postman.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise50
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise31
 

Questions from the Community

How would you choose between Microsoft PowerApps and Salesforce Platform?
I think it depends on your use case. If your organization uses Microsoft Enterprise products, PowerApps will work better in your environment. Similarly, if you have a Salesforce integration in pla...
Would you choose ServiceNow over Microsoft PowerApps?
Hi Netanya, I will choose ServiceNow because ServiceNow is a very good tool compared to Microsoft PowerApp. Because ServiceNow has a very strong module (Performance Analysis) reporting which will ...
Would you choose Microsoft Azure App Service or PowerApps?
Microsoft Azure App Service is helpful if you need to set up temporary servers for customers to run their programs in locations that other cloud providers do not cater to. When servers are closer t...
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

PowerApps, MS PowerApps
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

TransAlta, Rackspace, Telstra
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 Microsoft Power Apps vs. OutSystems and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.