Mendix Reviews

We do not use the solution, but manage Mendix's process. We are partnered with Mendix and implement it within the organization, something practiced with prevalence in the UAE. Those making use of the solution are happy with it. 

The Ministry of Digital Economy in Jordan, which is responsible for managing the service portfolio of the Jordanian government, is wholly based on our Mendix application.

I can tell you how Mendix has improved my organization by discussing the projects with which I am already working. The old service portfolio is based on a Mendix workflow and system.

The most valuable features are the integration and UI customization.

While it is difficult for me to address which areas of the solution are in need of improvement, as I manage Mendix projects, but do not utilize them, I would point out the transformation of the BPM and the process with other applications. This is because the applications are conceptually what we need, as they concern the RPA Automation Anywhere and UiPath.

Mendix has the potential to redesign its process engine for compatibility with a BPMN tool without any further action being required, enabling seamless integration between the business processes design applications.

As mentioned, there needs to be an increase in the number of the UI components so that other platforms will not be used in place of the UI interface of Mendix, such as Angular.

Improvements should be made to the functionality to increase the number of UI components in the actual software. As such, we occasionally go outside the system to develop certain pages in React, Angular or Vue JS, which we then import to Mendix. This we do because of the limitation in the UI design, but it is not on par with what's happening, for example, with OutSystems or other tools.

The solution is stable. The most important entities utilize it, such as the Dubai Municipality in the United Arab Emirates and the Ministry of Digital Economy in Jordan. This has more than 5,000 services deployed in the system, around 2,000 of which utilize Mendix and OutSystems. We have had no complaints about stability, only of ordinary issues involving use of the system that entail errors or call for troubleshooting. 

The Dubai Municipality makes use of Mendix, as well as five out of 40 ministries. They have transferred their core applications to Mendix in their entirety. The remainder are in a transitional phase and this should be completed throughout the entire government of Jordan within five to six years. 

The maintenance contract between the entity and Mendix provides for multiple levels of support, similar to the circumstances existing with ARIS. As mentioned, I rate Mendix as an eight out of ten, because there occasionally occur delays in its adherence to the SLA. However, the solution's tech support tries to be helpful and responsive and to do so in a comparable manner. 

Installing the solution took from five to 10 days to ensure proper integration with, say, the active directory and other tools for data migration.

We handled the deployment.

Licensing costs are similar to those for all other IT technology, but they vary by region. As such, the United States, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan all have disparate licensing costs, even when it comes to the partners involved. We, for example, are entitled to a 50 to 60 percent  discount on licensing costs, whereas Jordan may be entitled to one of 90 percent. This makes it challenging to properly appraise the cost. ARIS is similar. The average price varies according to region, Jordan being entitled to a 50 percent discount over that of the UAE.

Mendix's support is far superior to that of OutSystems and more competitively priced.

While I can't say exactly which version of Mendix we are using, I can state that it is the latest one. 

The business analyst has a more important role than that of the developer in a Mendix project. He needs a proper understanding of how to design the Mendix process so it may be automatable and executable. The business analyst must be able to use a Mendix platform.

As Mendix needs to improve its product and support, I rate it as an eight out of ten.

In our biggest project to date, we replicated with somebody else. It took three years to do uncompleted, and we replicated it in about six months, to build an end-to-end application for customer use.

Traditionally, it's basically used for anything where there's not an out-of-the-box solution available. We don't recommend people use it for out-of-box solutions, as you're typically going to get better support and value by using something else. This, on the other hand, is something you can customize as you desire. 

The solution is just very quick and responsive. 

The initial setup is very straightforward, and those implementing the product do not have to be very technologically advanced in order to manage the process.

Their app store has been revamped in the last year, and it allows basically anybody who creates a widget or a module inside of it, to share it with the whole community. It's got a very, very robust shared community, which is amazing.

There are free online learning and certifications if a user would like to learn more and better understand the solution.

There's a new update coming soon, and that will be full of great items.

It's not so much that there's room for improvement on the product. They're creating some custom or some out-of-the-box modules that are going to be a part of it. In particular, they've got a workflow module that we could replicate-build ourselves, so to speak. It's probably a module that would take a couple of months, and then you can tweak it. To have that out-of-the-box potential for certain aspects is going to be really good. Having all that workflow prebuilt will be amazing.

There's no direct tech support. However, it's not the type of product you really would get tech support on. 

I've been dealing with the solution for two years at this point.

We haven't had any issues with it. Internally, we support a very large infrastructure and haven't headed any issues, and our three larger clients haven't had any issues at this point. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

It's only scalable vertically until you get to an enterprise license. Then, you have horizontal and vertical scalability. I'd recommend in general that people get an enterprise license.

We use it internally for maybe 400 of our employees, however, depending on what its use case is, it could be everybody. My largest one has 4,000 people they supply using it.

The solution doesn't offer technical support at all. There is a community around it, however, and it is quite robust. That's where we do most of our learning. 

The solution is very straightforward, due to the fact that it's all cloud-based infrastructure, and there's low-end stuff that a citizen developer could do pretty easily. For our onboarding, if we have new developers, people who were actually back with their schooling, compared to some other products, and typically they're on their own doing development within one month of starting training. This is compared to some of our more complex solutions. They may be shadowing and have oversight for six to seven months. The onboarding process to learn it is very, very quick. Therefore, a company shouldn't have any issues with the initial setup.

In terms of maintenance, we have a person on the team that creates a backlog of small work to do once a month, and that's it. There are no updates, or new deploying, or anything like that that is necessary.

In terms of ROI, the results totally depend on the client. With one particular client, it was much more about time. They had 4,000 people that have to submit documents, and they were submitting them in PDF, and having people transcribe them. They had no digital, and so they're changing everything. One of our other big ones, which is a public use case on Mendix's site, called Zmac, was shown last year, while the trucking industry was in decline, to have experienced over 20% growth. They had ROI in year one, for five years worth of costs.

Their licensing costs are on their website. It's easy to find out the overall costs. That being said, I'm under the impression they're getting ready to have a massive overhaul to that, which is going to be a really good thing for the customers. 

From what I understand, they're getting ready to move to a lower platform cost, and it's going to be more focused on the users in terms of how the cost is. That should offer a lower entry threshold than it is currently. It may be as much as 50% lower, and the user base is what their charge will be based on.

I work post-sales doing basically project management and solution design before it hits my developers.

We use a variety of different versions of the solution which we use. Mostly, it's version 8.3 on. That being said, if it's a new customer, they're going to have the most recent. If it's not, we update them as appropriate depending on how it's going to affect the existing environment. We're looking forward to 9.0, coming out this month actually. They're discussing a lot of good, new features we're excited about.

I'd recommend those considering the solution to take the classes, as they're worth it to make sure you understand the solution. It is all online learning. The other program we use with it has been extremely effective for us. There's a program called Datadog and it helps us monitor any kind of error logging at a much more granular level, which has been helpful in pinpointing anything that potentially comes up.

In general, on the platform overall, I would rate the solution at a ten out of ten, and on the pricing model, as it is now, at an eight out of ten. In general, for me, it falls currently at a nine out of ten. That may change once the pricing is adjusted in the near future.

One use case which we're thinking about at the moment is for a clearing platform for security clearing for risk assessment on margin accounts. It happens from time to time that there is a situation called margin call, which is basically a process where one of our operators from the risk unit behind securities needs to get more money or more assets from the client who owns the margin account. 

At the moment, the process is that they have a spreadsheet or checklist in digital form and they go through a highly governed process. They follow a printed-out or virtual copy step-by-step. At each step, they're getting a sign-off and a peer review of each step by a peer in the risk department and it takes forever. It's a lot of admin.

The Mendix base automation is basically replacing this document, this checklist. It just makes it much more helpful as all this has to happen within an hour, that call and getting assets, for example. 

The company is massive and each use case is very different, however, at the moment, those tend to be small processes and trying to cut down the administration, which normally means writing documents, archiving files, scanning documents, that kind of thing, which people currently do manually.

We like Mendix a lot. In terms of technology, it is really good. 

We find it intuitive and easy to use. 

We are quite happy with the solution and look forward to moving to the cloud. We have it hosted in the Docker systems on-prem. When we move to the cloud, we can see that it will be simple. 

We specifically want version control of whatever we deploy in the production. However, with Mendix, unfortunately, storing things in binary is quite a lot. If you put it into Github and stuff like that, we'd like it to be a text type of source code rather than binary. 

There are not enough developers who are using Mendix. The knowledge base available online and in the market is not as rich as other competitors. 

In terms of workflow automation, local automation, they should focus on integrating AI modules. Many companies are trying to build their own models, however, if you compare with how much learning Google has done on their Google models, it makes sense to go for integrations rather than starting from scratch with teaching your AI. That's roughly how we see the domain of RPA and local automation platforms.

The integration or making use of some artificial intelligence and models which are out there could be a lot better. There should be some kind of marketplace. 

The user interface styling is a bit tricky. It's got a restrictive and highly sophisticated styling which could be better.

We put the solution into production about a year ago now.

We have a new platform, which we put into production about half a year ago, and we had an initial 10 sort-of automated processes on top of it at the moment. It's going to grow, obviously. That's the idea.

So far, we are happy with the potential it has for scaling, although in practice we have not yet tried.

We haven't yet had to reach out to technical support and therefore I can't speak to how responsive or knowledgeable they are at this time.

For Mendix, we're not using any kind of collaboration tools or deployment which Mendix provides as we have our own tools and deployment and task management and risk management right inside our organization. We're not going to jump from one tool to another. Just because we have Mendix code, we're not going to use its deployment. We are using current tools, which are established in the enterprise.

It's important that Mendix stays flexible in terms of source code, in terms of deployment, and that it doesn't lock things down. If, for example, there would be a restriction suddenly on which kind of deployment mechanism can be used, then that would cut some customers out. That goes through the approval of risk management. Risk management is very important when you're deploying to production.

We use our own in-house team and tools for implementation purposes.

At the moment, we are using Blue Prism for RPA. We are using also Mendix for the workflow, which is not quite RPA. We're combining those two. We do have an eye on UiPath due to the fact that, in the last year, we're feeling that Blue Prism is falling behind the competition at the moment.

We did look at other tools, however, it wasn't me who did that. It was about two and a half years ago. There was a lot of research on everything on the market. Honestly, I don't know why they picked Mendix, however, they were clearly a strong candidate. Looking at Gartner shows it's a very strong candidate. I was quite surprised that it doesn't have a bigger clientele. 

We are just a customer and end-user.

We're not using the latest version of the solution, however, we're going to upgrade to the latest one. In Mendix, we're using 8.9, however, we're now going to upgrade soon as some of our teams have just started using later libraries, and obviously, that needs upgrading.

We're heavily governed and our governance processes and approvals for cloud take forever. We have these automations deployed on-premise. Both Blue Prism and Mendix are hosted internally and will be for a number of years. We want to go cloud, however, first, we need to get our internal approvals in order.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten. It's one of the best which we touched and we're still happy with it. However, dealing in binary makes me deduct a few points. 

We use Mendix for client projects in the retail, e-commerce, and banking industry.

My team has ten developers, and for one solution, we require three to five developers.

Mendix is useful for various industries, such as retail, e-commerce, and banking. For example, we're currently using the solution for a payment app for retail. It can also be used to create a mobile banking app.

Mendix is a low-code platform, which means that it allows us to build applications quickly and with less coding. It also has various pre-built components and integrations, which can speed up the development process.

Furthermore, one of my team members has Mendix certification and uses it for marketing and sales purposes. The team is learning about how Mendix can be used for queries, which are currently at an intermediate level. Additionally, I have completed 55 queries in Mendix.

I find the fast development speed and low cost to be very valuable features of Mendix. It's a smart solution for busy developers when we need to apply new changes or fixes quickly. Mendix helps to save time and meet project deadlines faster.

One thing I would like to improve is the support system offered by Mendix. It can sometimes take a while to get the help I need when I'm using Mendix.

I've been working with Mendix for a bit more than one year. We're using Mendix Eco System version.

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution.

I am satisfied with Mendix customer service and support. Although, sometimes, it takes a long time to respond.

Positive

We had Mendix support, with a cycle of five deployments per night. Setting up the infrastructure took us about a week the first time, but it became easier and quicker afterwards. When we deploy for the second time, it only takes a fraction of the time compared to the initial deployment.

We did not need any consistent support in deployment.

I would definitely recommend it to others who are looking to start using it. Mendix is a great platform to use. The calls in Mendix are currently of high quality, and there are even some free apps available. I have used it in my previous projects, and it has been a reliable tool for development.

Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten.

Currently, we are testing this solution for application development.

You need experienced programmers and developers to understand this solution. We had a very experienced developer use the solution and they had difficulties, the training for developers could be better.

We have used the solution in the past 12 months.

The solution is stable.

We have tried to contact commercial support by phone and email but they never responded to any of our attempts. Their support is currently not good.

The solution was good in our tests but we could not get a hold of the company for further inquiries. This is the reason I gave such a low score below.

I rate Mendix a five out of ten.

The primary use case is for agile development using low-code and no-code tools.

This solution has allowed us to reduce the time required for building applications.

The workflow and automation features are quite good and valuable.

Overall, integration with the enterprise ecosystem needs improvement.

I would like to see the inclusion of APIs that can help with the interoperability.

Stability is ok. It is a bit stable, but we are seeing an increase in workload complexity, so they'll have to figure out a scaler.

I think that right now, the scale-out is quite ok. It is scalable.

We have more than twenty users including developers, system handlers, business analysts, testers, and DevOps. The DevOps team is really what really takes it ahead.

In terms of usage, there is a lot of interest in low-code and no-code tools. There are even other tools like OutSystems and others. There are also automation tools, such as RPA (Robotic Process Automation) tools. It is still an evolving market.

Technical support is quite okay, although as they expand they will probably have to increase their global support.

Before Mendix, we were looking at some open source solutions.

The initial setup was not too complex, but it took some time. I would say that it was mid-difficulty.

Our deployment took about four to six weeks, and then we used it for some of our application development builds. We took some of the agile projects and aligned them to that.

We used a system integrator for the implementation.

In terms of ROI, we have seen an approximate 30%-40% reduction in time that we require for building applications.

Initially, we started with a year for approximately $25,000, and if we need to expand the number of seats then we will increase it. There are no additional costs for us at the moment, but I think that if you need any professional services then they charge for them.

We evaluated OutSystems, Pega Platform, Google App Builder, and a few others.

This solution has good coverage, but I think that their roadmap still needs more features and functions. It also needs better integration with the current stack.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I have been using this solution for customer authentication, as well as scientific applications. It has performed brilliantly so far. 

It has quick response times.

It is a fast and agile solution. 

I would like it to help us be more productive.

Also, while the documentation is good, the development box could be better.

It is exceptional.

It is very good.

Mendix was the only solution that had a paradigm to allow us to do what we wanted to do with development.

It was straightforward.

I think the ROI is the:

• Skill 
• Execution 
• Vision

Developing applications that focus on the business instead of just focusing on the technology. And by doing to achieving a short time to market and quick ROI.

It gave the organizations I worked for the ability to create far more complex applications with a smaller team and in a shorter time frame. When we brought in external auditors they even confirmed the fact that what we build would take at least 50% more resources to develop in for example Java or .Net. Also, the fact that we don't have to take care of the basics during development, means we can focus on the actual business process and how to make the product work for the business.

• The speed and agility with which you can develop solutions with the Mendix platform
• It is possible to create the same applications that more traditional platforms offer in a fraction of the time
• You don't need to worry about the basics surrounding security, CRUD actions, integration, UX and many other things you need to create the same basics for when developing with traditional platforms

The document templates definitely need some love, they have been around for a while but no actual improvement have been done since they were released. At least not in terms of additional options like the web counterparts of the elements you have available have. Also, Mendix is even easy for non-developers to start developing apps with, however when the applications grows and gets more complex these type of users are not fully guided in making it as secure and performance as it should.

It would be great if the modeler could also start pointing in the right direction when it comes to that. Although Mendix did introduce the Mendix Application Quality Monitor which could help with this issue.

In the past, I encountered scalability issues that caused stability issues. Mendix can scale to multiple application servers but at the time it could not scale to more database servers, the only solution was, to add more resources to the single available database server.

I do believe that Mendix is trying to solve this with HP Helion and Cloud Foundry solutions which are horizontal and vertical scalable. I however haven't had any experience with these platforms in combination with Mendix yet.

In the past, I encountered scalability issues that caused stability issues. Mendix can scale to multiple application servers but at the time it could not scale to more database servers, the only solution was, to add more resources to the single available database server.

I do believe that Mendix is trying to solve this with HP Helion and Cloud Foundry solutions which are horizontal and vertical scalable. I however haven't had any experience with these platforms in combination with Mendix yet.

The level of direct customer service and technical support is great when you are a paying customer or a Mendix partner, if you are not the support is limited to the forum which is mostly run by community members, however even Mendix personnel will answer your questions.

So I would say it is alright. They have improved it a lot the last couple of years, and they continue to improve as their user base grows.

I've developed applications with numerous products combined or stand alone: PHP, ColdFusion, Java, JavaScript (jQuery, Prototype, Vanilla), CSS2/3 and HTML4/5.

However not a specific platform like Mendix, the major difference is as I mentioned before the fact that you can fully focus on business process development instead of all the basic stuff like login, CRUD, etc. That's why my primary platform to develop with is currently Mendix.

The initial setup is really easy all you need to do is create a Mendix account, create a project, fill in some basics for the project like the name, choose a base theme and then you are good to go. You will automatically get a sandbox environment connected to it, which is basically a free node in the cloud environment from Mendix to test and share your application with others. Using the Mendix Sprint environment you can also easily share the Mendix model with others to either develop or just review the application.

I've worked at employers that where both the vendor partner team and client which used a vendor partner, currently I'm working on a project in which I'm the third party expert hired to implement the solution. My advice would be to always hire a Mendix partner or freelancer with a couple of years experience before you take over development. Starting the project is easy but it still takes some experience to really set a solid foundry if you look at the architecture of your application. This is something that Mendix Customer Satisfaction Managers can guide any new client with.

The fact that your development resources can be greatly reduced compared to those platforms will give you a better ROI.

I have personally not been directly involved with pricing/licensing for any of the projects I worked on. However, judging based on experience, I can say that Mendix is not more expensive than any serious competitor solution.

Contact a Mendix partner or Mendix for an initial POC this can usually be done within a couple of days to see the power of the rapid development with the Mendix platform. If you are still not convinced or are a developer yourself check out the developer.mendix.com community and training options that are freely available to anyone that registers for free.