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OpenText Process Automation vs OutSystems comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

OpenText Process Automation
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (26th)
OutSystems
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (1st), Rapid Application Development Software (4th), Low-Code Development Platforms (2nd), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Process, Business Automation, and Digital Transformation solutions, they serve different purposes. OpenText Process Automation is designed for Business Process Management (BPM) and holds a mindshare of 1.2%, up 0.4% compared to last year.
OutSystems, on the other hand, focuses on Low-Code Development Platforms, holds 4.8% mindshare, down 10.2% since last year.
Business Process Management (BPM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
OpenText Process Automation1.2%
Camunda9.3%
IBM BPM4.1%
Other85.4%
Business Process Management (BPM)
Low-Code Development Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
OutSystems4.8%
Microsoft Power Apps8.3%
Oracle Application Express (APEX)5.2%
Other81.7%
Low-Code Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Senthil Natarajan - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Operating Officer at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
The solution enables automation of supply chain and invoice processing with comprehensive integration and workflow capabilities
The main valuable features of OpenText AppWorks are the BPM modules. There is the standard BPM modeler and a case modeler. These are two strong features from the workflow layer. Additionally, the integration capability of the solution is beneficial. With these features, we are able to use OpenText AppWorks for automating supply-chain-related problems, vendor process automations, and invoice automations. We have built almost twenty-plus types of solutions and implemented around three hundred fifty-plus implementations. The solution also allows us to integrate it with our ERP system.
Aditya Bhatt - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Lead at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 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

"Its customer support is reliable and easy to approach."
"AppWorks is a very quick development platform with low-coding capability and strong integration with third-party systems."
"The monitoring aspect is highly valuable, as it offers an exceptional capability to track every minute of action performed by a business user in the global context."
"We really appreciate the process automation and how can you create human tasks as one of your processes."
"In terms of the scalability and the handling of complexity, the customers are satisfied, and we also have confidence in the solution to achieve whatever implementations are required."
"From a business perspective, the most valuable aspect lies in the optimization of processes."
"We've automated several processes, including purchase requisition to purchase orders, RFQ processes, vendor onboarding, project budgeting, and business case creation. The recent versions of OpenText AppWorks, especially those incorporating low-code functionalities, have had a significant positive impact. In some cases, we've observed a remarkable reduction in development time, ranging from 50 to 75 percent. The MTP model and life cycle have facilitated rapid development cycles."
"The good part of OpenText AppWorks is that all of its components are together in one platform, including integration capability, UI capability, and workflow capability."
"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."
"The scalability of OutSystems is very good, it scales automatically very useful for us."
"It is much easier to develop applications with the product’s IDE."
"We can quickly develop an application using the tool."
"The most valuable features of OutSystems are the user-friendly platform. The drag-and-drop feature is great. I have used other rapid application development tools before, but they were not as advanced as OutSystems. With the previous tools, I had to manually build certain features, but OutSystems does it automatically."
"OutSystems is easy to use."
"Integrations with external systems with SOAP and REST are easy to implement off-the-shelf, but a developer can always implement specific libraries for other integrations."
"In terms of user support and community engagement, I rate the tool a ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"The crucial missing element is the archival function."
"OpenText needs improvements in its integration model to align with newer integration types."
"The integration could improve."
"AppWorks could be improved by including BPM simulation."
"There could be some improvements with the low code design part. It could be more customizable and more user friendly."
"A room for improvement in OpenText AppWorks is its user interface. It should have mobile compatibility because right now, you still have to make two applications with a user interface for Android and a user interface for iOS, so if OpenText AppWorks can provide one UI that can be used across all devices, that would make the solution better. An additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of OpenText AppWorks is a better UI in terms of the look and feel. Another feature I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is mobile compatibility because, at the moment, you have to make your application mobile-ready or compatible with mobile devices because there's no provision for it in OpenText AppWorks."
"The solution needs to continue to enhance the low-coding feature within the product itself."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing structure."
"The product's high price is an area of concern, where improvements are required."
"The initial setup is a little difficult."
"Mobile apps should have been fully native."
"The prices should be lower. It is a little bit too high for a small market."
"In OutSystems, cloud management is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"I would like to see improvements in versioning. It can be challenging to keep track of what changes should be committed, especially when many developers are working in one environment."
"We had some lagging issues under high data loads, and the solution needed to be customized to improve this."
"The cons involve delays in project timelines primarily due to the time taken in requirements refinement and challenges faced when adding new features, making it somewhat complex to manage and maintain applications as they grow in scale."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AppWorks is pretty expensive."
"There is a user-based perpetual license."
"Pricing for OpenText AppWorks, specifically in the Indian market, is reasonable, but I'm not aware if it's still reasonable outside of India. The licensing cost is based on the number of licenses and the number of users. OpenText AppWorks has different licensing options."
"The price is on the higher side."
"The licensing cost varies based on several factors, such as the size of the customer and the domain URL."
"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 tool’s licensing is based on the user’s usage."
"It is not an expensive product, especially if you have access to more features and deal with more projects."
"The product is expensive and I would rate its pricing a seven out of ten. You need to pay a yearly subscription to use the product."
"OutSystems is an expensive product. My company has to make monthly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution."
"OutSystems was open to a deal that worked for both sides."
"The solution is expensive."
"The price is okay. OutSystems isn't expensive. It's a mid-range solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Insurance Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Performing Arts
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise31
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about OpenText AppWorks?
We've automated several processes, including purchase requisition to purchase orders, RFQ processes, vendor onboarding, project budgeting, and business case creation. The recent versions of OpenTex...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpenText AppWorks?
From an enterprise point, their pricing is a little bit crazy because they don't have a SaaS model. They have to go with a perpetual model, which makes it look crazy initially. But over a period, i...
What needs improvement with OpenText AppWorks?
They can improve the UI capability. Recently, they launched a low-code platform, called entity modeling, which they can enhance further. It would be beneficial if OpenText ( /products/data-express-...
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...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Red Deer County, DHFL Pramerica Life Insurance, Bangkok Airways, PBS, CIZ (Netherlands Ministry of Health), The Dutch Ministry of Defence, Mercer
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 OpenText Process Automation vs. OutSystems and other solutions. Updated: July 2023.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.