OutSystems vs. Power Apps

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
OutSystems
Score 7.3 out of 10
N/A
The OutSystems Platform is a Platform-as-a-Service solution for rapid delivery of responsive web and mobile applications. It includes functionalities required to develop, deploy, manage and change web and mobile applications. It is targeted at the delivery of enterprise applications that require integration with backend systems, complex business rules and logic, usable interfaces and flexibility to change. It can be deployed in the cloud, on-premises or in hybrid environments.
$4,000
per month
Power Apps
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
PowerApps is a low code / rapid application development product from Microsoft that allows users to quickly build apps.
$20
per month per user
Pricing
OutSystemsPower Apps
Editions & Modules
Basic
$4,000.00
per month
Pro
$10,000.00
per month
Power Apps Premium
$20
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
OutSystemsPower Apps
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
OutSystemsPower Apps
TrustRadius Insights
OutSystemsPower Apps
Highlights

TrustRadius
Research Team Insight
Published

OutSystems and PowerApps are both low-code development platforms designed to allow developers to quickly build applications without writing lengthy sections of code. Outsystems provides a feature rich platform that includes one-step deployment and rapid application development.  OutSystems is most popular with mid-sized businesses and large enterprises, likely due to its advanced feature set and higher price point compared to competitors.  PowerApps is Microsoft’s low-code development tool and is built to integrate seamlessly with other Microsoft applications. PowerApps is most popular with businesses that make heavy use of Microsoft software in their infrastructure.

Features

OutSystems and PowerApps are both built to help developers create applications quickly and with minimal code, but they also have some limitations that are important to consider. 

OutSystems provides an easy to use interface that developers will be able to become comfortable with quickly.  Businesses using OutSystems find that the ease of development provided by OutSystems speeds up development while still allowing for complex applications. In addition to speeding up development time, OutSystems also helps developers deploy their applications with a single click, so pushing applications to production is very quick.

One of the biggest benefits of PowerApps is that it integrates easily with Microsoft technologies such as Azure.  For businesses that heavily use Microsoft technology, PowerApps makes it very easy to deploy applications across an entire organization. PowerApps also provides a variety of pre-built forms and views that can be inserted into projects, or edited to save a developer from having to start from scratch.  All in all, PowerApps is a strong choice for developers building internal applications to be deployed on Windows servers.

Limitations

Though OutSystems and PowerApps both allow for creating applications with minimal code, they also have some limitations that are important to consider.

OutSystems is a strong choice for developers that aren’t working with Windows infrastructures, but it also has limited support for MacOS.  As a result, there are relatively few infrastructures that can’t take advantage of PowerApp’s Windows integrations, but can take advantage of OutSystems.  Businesses using Windows servers may prefer the easy implementation of PowerApps over OutSystems, and Mac users may prefer a tool with a stronger Mac solution.

PowerApps integrates well with Windows technology, but it doesn’t offer any support for MacOS.  For Windows users, PowerApps is a strong choice, but it may be ineffective, or unusable for other users.  Additionally, the user interface for PowerApps is clunky compared to OutSystems, so businesses should expect developers to need either training, or significant time with the documentation before they can be as efficient as possible with it. Additionally, many users state that PowerApps is most appropriate for internal applications, while OutSystems can be better used for consumer applications.

Pricing

OutSystems offers a free version with support for one environment and up to 100 end users, which is a good choice for businesses looking to try before they buy.  The basic package supports up to 1,000 users and starts at $4,000 per month.  The standard package supports any number of end users for $10,000 per month. Businesses that need more features or support can reach out to the vendor for an enterprise quote.

PowerApps starts at $10 per user per month for single apps, or $40 per user per month for unlimited applications. 

Features
OutSystemsPower Apps
Low-Code Development
Comparison of Low-Code Development features of Product A and Product B
OutSystems
7.9
Ratings
6% below category average
Power Apps
8.8
Ratings
5% above category average
Visual Modeling5.20 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Drag-and-drop Interfaces8.00 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Platform Security6.20 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Platform User Management8.10 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Reusability9.90 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Platform Scalability10.00 Ratings7.50 Ratings
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OutSystemsPower Apps
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User Ratings
OutSystemsPower Apps
Likelihood to Recommend
7.1
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.5
(0 ratings)
9.7
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.3
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
OutSystemsPower Apps
Likelihood to Recommend
OutSystems excels with building web interfaces fast and lends itself to custom integrations written in .Net. Most anything can be brought in given this ability to be extended. One of the drawbacks to the speed of development is that most quality control teams become quickly overwhelmed and may be unable to keep up.
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PowerApps is well suited for "quick-wins" and fast prototypes of business solutions. It also is beneficial for situations where business partners and developers work together - it allows the business folks to provide a "quick-and-dirty" prototype which is then fleshed-out by developers that are trained experts on the platform. The interactive and easy to understand representation of the solution allows business partners to "see" the solution and add, remove, or correct aspects of it themselves. It provides a common view and understanding of the actual solution across business units and tech teams. PowerApps, being a low-code\no-code platform is not well suited for business processes that require many complex computations or large amounts of custom code - such as solutions that are better architected as Web Site or "full-blown" desktop solutions. There are solutions that are just not easy or quick to accomplish in a low-code\no-code platform. Enterprise Architects should know the difference, however business partners often try to create a solution and only when stuck because it becomes too complex do they engage a tech team for assistance - at which point there are sunk-costs involved and hinderences to re-platforming the solution
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Pros
  • Deployment management – OutSystems has a built in robust, multi-environment deployment system that helps ensures the clean and error free deployment of applications through the development, testing and production product lifecycle
  • Rapid application development – Through the low code, graphical development environment you can develop applications far quicker than with more traditional development environments
  • Cross platform mobile development – OutSystems handle the development and building of mobile application for both iOS and Android in a simple streamlined way that removes 90% of the problems normally associated with multi platform development
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  • Power Apps has formats that are pre-built that don't require any coding which makes it easier to achieve your vision. This does become a challenge if your App needs don't fit into that format.
  • We deal with a ton of data so the fact that you can connect to any data source in addition to their pre-stablished data connections makes the process a breeze.
  • The online learning resources and tutorials are helpful as well for those who are tech savvy.
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Cons
  • The platform controls all the parts. While great for development and overall maintenance, it could lead to discussions with your DBA (who has to trust the platform). As a developer I love the platform, as a DBA I would like more control.
  • By making software development model driven using flows, you are forced to rethink the way of programming. It makes it easier, but sometimes the way of working leads to code which could be optimized (standard problem in model based software development).
  • Most of the code is generated, so the technical knowledge of the inner working of coding are not Essentials. This could lead to degration of this knowlegde. As part of this, most technologies will only be used when OutSystems supports it. They do a good job on implementing these things. But things like Node.js would be nice.
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  • PowerApps has a great coding option, but there are some pieces of the tool that the requirement to understand code is a barrier to fun if the user doesn't code.
  • MUCH time can be spent looking for solutions on this young platform and the body of forum/help/lessons learned is not as robust as it will be in a few years.
  • Like many early-stage Microsoft products, PowerApps is a relatively blank slate that will be improved by the feedback of their users and ongoing feature development. Right now it seems that the product lacks a critical mass of use-case driven templates (there are some, but I haven't yet found one that didn't require more work to customize it to my need that it would take to build my own tool).
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Likelihood to Renew
We are very happy with OutSystems and our developers deliver good work. OutSystems lets us build new software on a regulare (2 weekly) basis, which is highly flexible and adjustable. Even without very much experience, our developers manage to build usefull software, which is working a lot better than our previous (legacy) software.
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No answers on this topic
Usability
OutSystems has a feature in which we can develop a functionality in a application and can use that functionality in another application without developing it again. That is main plus point for the development team so they can work with different functionalities rather focusing on the same thing again and again. if we want to make any change on the user side then we can make it live with just the deployment using the service center.
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PowerApps is a great solution and I have spent the last year familiarizing myself with the platform and building custom applications to complete a whole range of tasks such as asset management, custom invoice generation, and item restriction tracking. We as a company have barely begun to scratch the surface of what can be achieved with PowerApps.
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Support Rating
The tech support is very reachable. Usually by [email] from but also by phone if needed. We had some difficulties at the start with understanding "what our machine was doing" under high performance load. After some good sessions understanding our needs they delivered good solutions for our problems we had in the beginning.
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The community forums are extremely responsive to questions asked, there is a good body of online documentation and many community posts to draw from. Although the platform has changed, which means some of the posts are out of date and the solutions provided aren't relevant. Of relevance, I read over 400 articles plus documentation to get this first app built in SharePoint, move it to SQL and make it work exactly the way it should.
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In-Person Training
Excellent material full of hands on that improve the understanding of the platform.
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No answers on this topic
Online Training
The online training material is well designed and explanations are step by step, helping trainees to understand and follow each exercise and new concept.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
In a large company, patiently and consistently work the behind the scenes politics with business and IT partners across the firm.
This is transformational - you will need a solid set of key business partners to lock arms together to move forward.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Totally different products of cource. Sitecore is best suited for full fledged websites with extensive support for analytics. OutSystems for modular business processes with a UI. Hence, there is no overlap. But even for small websites, or even landingpages, I would recommend OutSystems, with a custom made analytics part or a plugin.
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1. PowerApps functionality comes with E1 over E3 License without adding extra costs 2. For Nintex you pay (at the beginning) for each workflow, so my intention would be, to do no workflows to prevent additional costs, but I want a platform with a fair price that allows me to create workflows without thinking about the price for each workflow and we use only some workflow and relative easy workflows and forms as a medium-sized company. 3. PowerApps provides a lot of functionality without needing to invest in premium features directly.
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Return on Investment
  • The ease of use of the OutSystems development process has been the biggest ROI for us. We have developed our Framework product and maintained/enhanced it with only 4 workers.
  • OutSystems has enhanced their product very significantly over the last 4 years. They have gone from a simple to use tool to a very simple to use sophisticated tool that covers the standard mainframe-based computing apps and the apps used on handheld mobile devices all using the same basic set of development tools.
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  • Automation of manual processes brings an ROI on labor costs.
  • Intake of data provides clean database design.
  • Connectivity to data-lake provides insights and trends into the data.
  • Able to scale operations with efficiencies provided by the app.
  • Can mature the process and workflows to do more.
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