Nintex offers low-code enterprise automation software that has been around for almost 20 years. Through strategic acquisitions, such as its purchase of Kryon, Nintex has positioned itself as a strong contender in the business process automation space.
With the automation market expanding rapidly, a wide range of alternatives to Nintex have emerged. These alternatives vary in software capabilities, service quality, security features, and more. Which one is the best fit for your organizational needs? We will be answering this question in the following article.
Is Nintex right for your business?
Nintex offers capabilities for the whole spectrum of automation needs from e-signatures to process mining to RPA in the form of two different platforms that are available for cloud and self-hosting.
Nintex is known for its user-friendly approach, catering to both business users with limited technical expertise and IT professionals seeking robust customization options.
Key features of Nintex
- Citizen development
Nintex focuses on enabling non-technical users to build and manage processes. This is achieved through a user-friendly, low-code development environment.
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA):
In addition to its core BPA capabilities, Nintex offers RPA through acquisitions like Kryon and Foxtrot. This allows users to automate repetitive tasks that involve interacting with different applications.
- Microsoft integration
Nintex has a strong focus on integrating with Microsoft products, particularly SharePoint and Office 365, which makes it a good choice for organizations that heavily rely on the Microsoft ecosystem.
- Document generation and e-signatures
Nintex has expanded its platform to include document generation through its DrawLoop acquisition and e-signature capabilities through AssureSign. These features enhance Nintex’s ability to automate document-centric processes.
- Pre-built templates and connectors
Nintex offers a library of pre-built templates and connectors that help users quickly get started with automating common processes. This includes connectors for popular applications like Salesforce, SAP, and ServiceNow.
- Wide deployments
Nintex is known for its ability to support large-scale deployments of automations across an organization.
Why look for a Nintex alternative?
Nintex is one of the most versatile business process automation tools available, but that doesn’t mean it would be the best solution for every organization. Just like any software, Nintex has its own limitations and challenges:
- Limited capabilities for complex processes
Nintex is not best suited for handling complex automation needs that require features like advanced decisioning, dynamic case management, and robust data management
- Process intelligence
While Nintex offers analytics with usage charts, its process intelligence capabilities are limited compared to some competitors. For deeper insights, integration with external business intelligence systems is recommended. Additionally, while some process intelligence platforms provide deep and thorough process and task mining for process discovery, Nintex’s are limited to simple process capture for one user.
- Focus on ease of use
Nintex’s focus on citizen development and ease of use has positioned it as a strong contender for simple workflow automation. However, this focus has also limited its ability to offer more advanced features that cater to professional developers.
- Fragmented product portfolio
Nintex has grown through acquisitions, which has resulted in a somewhat fragmented product portfolio. While this provides a breadth of capabilities, it can also lead to integration challenges and a less cohesive user experience. Rather than one platform with all of the best capabilities, features are split between different software tools.
These are the main limitations Nintex has, and depending on your organizational needs, some of the Nintex alternatives and competitors may be a better fit for you.
Our top Nintex alternatives list:
1. ProcessMaker BPA platform
ProcessMaker is a comprehensive business process automation (BPA) and orchestration platform designed to deliver rapid results, even for complex automation challenges.
With its intuitive low-code features, ProcessMaker provides an accessible and user-friendly experience for a broad range of users, including non-technical teams, while maintaining competitive pricing. As a BPA platform, it strikes a balance between ease of use and technical capabilities, making it suitable for a wider range of process automation needs compared to Nintex.
Beyond its powerful workflow and orchestration capabilities, ProcessMaker stands out with its advanced Process Intelligence (PI) suite. This suite offers deep insights into business processes, enhancing visibility and transparency. With prioritized automation recommendations, organizations can pinpoint the exact processes to automate and get a head start on designing the automations. Additionally, the PI helps to evaluate the success of implemented automation efforts, allowing companies to focus on initiatives with the highest return on investment.
Key features of ProcessMaker:
- Orchestrating complex processes
If the workflows involve multiple systems, decision points, and parallel flows and require more sophisticated features like a decision engine or support for advanced scripting, ProcessMaker stands out as a better option.
- Flexible design environment
ProcessMaker supports both simple and complex processes through BPMN process models, allowing organizations to start with basic automations and iterate with stakeholders, or gradually scale up as their needs evolve.
- Cost-effectiveness
ProcessMaker offers a more flexible and affordable pricing structure than Nintex. Its case-based pricing allows users to only pay for what they use, making it a more cost-effective option for organizations with varying automation needs.
- Comprehensive process intelligence
ProcessMaker’s PI offers process discovery, analysis, and optimization features. It combines both process mining and task mining capabilities that help organizations gain deeper insights into their workflows and identify areas for improvement.
- User-friendly design
While both ProcessMaker and Nintex emphasize user-friendly design tools, ProcessMaker’s interface is more intuitive and easier to use, particularly for building complex processes.
- Process orchestration
ProcessMaker connects people, processes, and systems through in-app interfaces and APIs, allowing organizations to go beyond simple workflows and manage entire functions in one place.
- AI-powered features
ProcessMaker’s AI design assistant helps developers and designers with process modeling, generating code from text prompts, and quickly designing user interfaces. Beyond boosting design time, ProcessMaker FlowGenie is the launchpad for building and deploying AI agents within business processes, while maintaining critical guardrails with BPMN and traditional process management.
Who is it for?
ProcessMaker offers versatile business process automation and orchestration solutions, tailored to meet the needs of organizations at varying stages of automation maturity. Whether automating simple workflows or managing complex orchestration, ProcessMaker combines accessibility with robust functionality. ProcessMaker Platform is the ideal solution for IT teams to easily manage, automate, and orchestrate a range of complex business processes all in one place.
What sets ProcessMaker apart is its low barrier to entry, offering competitive pricing, free trials, and tools that are simple to use. The platform is designed to serve a diverse audience, including professional developers seeking rapid development tools, citizen developers aiming for ease of use, business leaders and process owners focused on team optimization and IT managers who require scalable automation solutions.
2. Camunda
Camunda is a BPA and orchestration platform designed for professional developers who want to automate complex enterprise business processes. Its strengths lie in its open-source foundation, robust orchestration, and the ability to automate very complex workflows.
Key features of Camunda:
- Developer-centricity
Camunda targets professional developers and offers a high degree of customization and extensibility due to its open-source nature. This contrasts with Nintex’s emphasis on citizen development, which might limit its flexibility for complex scenarios.
- BPMN adherence
Camunda strongly adheres to a BPMN standard, which makes process mapping and documentation easier.
- Orchestration
Camunda can orchestrate processes spanning multiple systems, ensuring visibility into execution. This makes it suitable for organizations with more complex automation needs.
Who is it for?
Camunda presents a robust, developer-centric BPA solution, ideal for organizations handling complex, high-volume processes. It offers high customization and deep technical capabilities, which make it an ideal solution for an experienced tech-savvy user. However, unlike ProcessMaker, this platform is harder to use for less technical users, and the learning curve is steeper than for other tools.
3. Bizagi
Bizagi is a comprehensive Business Process Automation (BPA) platform that enables organizations to design, automate, and refine their business processes. Equipped with tools that cover every stage of the process lifecycle, Bizagi simplifies complex workflows while driving efficiency.
What makes Bizagi stand out among competitors like Pega, Appian, and Camunda is its intuitive process modeling capabilities. Designed with usability in mind, Bizagi empowers business users to actively contribute to the automation process, bridging the gap between technical teams and business stakeholders for seamless collaboration.
Key features of Bizagi:
- Process modeling & design
Bizagi offers a visual, BPMN-compliant process modeler that’s intuitive even for those without technical expertise. This allows business users to map out and design processes efficiently.
- User interface development
Bizagi provides tools for building user interfaces, including support for mobile apps and web portals. This facilitates user interaction with processes and allows for the creation of engaging and user-friendly experiences.
- Collaboration and governance
Bizagi promotes collaboration by offering role-based access control and features for managing process versions and approvals.
Who is it for?
Bizagi is a great solution for organizations of different sizes that want to involve business users in the process automation journey. With its user-friendly process modeling tool and low-code development environment, Bizagi opens the door for a wider range of users to participate effectively. Unlike technically-intensive platforms such as Camunda and Pega, Bizagi prioritizes accessibility, making it easier for non-technical users to engage in and drive automation initiatives.
4. Pega systems
Pega is a process orchestration platform designed to address the needs of complex orchestration and advanced case management. It provides an extensive range of tools, including low-code development, workflow orchestration, and robotic process automation, making it a comprehensive solution for managing complex business operations.
Like Appian, Pega primarily caters to large enterprises that deal with complex, resource-intensive processes and demand robust case management functionalities. While the platform excels in managing heavy process loads effectively, it does require significant training due to its steep learning curve, posing a challenge for new users.
Key features of Pega systems:
- Complex orchestration
Pega is better suited for organizations handling highly complex processes with intricate decision logic. It is designed to handle heavy process loads and is typically adopted by large enterprises with demanding scalability requirements.
- Case management
Pega excels in case management, providing tools to handle complex, unstructured processes that require dynamic adaptation and collaboration. Its case management framework allows users to track case progress, manage related documents, and collaborate effectively to resolve issues.
- Integrations
Pega Systems has strong integration capabilities with pre-built connectors for popular systems and a community marketplace for additional integrations. The Pega Process Fabric facilitates task management and workflow orchestration.
- Low-code development
Pega offers a low-code development environment, which significantly speeds up development cycles.
Who is it for?
Pega Systems is tailored for large enterprises managing complex and mission-critical business processes that require advanced orchestration and comprehensive case management. Its core strength lies in navigating intricate workflows and automating operations across various systems, making it less suitable for simpler workflows. Due to the platform’s complexity and customization needs, Pega solutions are typically deployed by professional developers with specialized expertise.
5. Appian
Appian is a BPA platform designed to deliver enterprise-grade solutions tailored for complex orchestration needs. Unlike many other automation tools, Appian primarily caters to large enterprises with intricate automation challenges, making it an ideal choice for professional developers who excel in building and deploying sophisticated applications.
Compared to platforms like Nintex and ProcessMaker, Appian requires a higher level of technical expertise to unlock its full potential. While it tends to position itself at the premium end of the pricing spectrum, Appian offers valuable opportunities for exploration through free access to the Appian Community and a complimentary version of its platform. This enables businesses to evaluate the software’s capabilities before committing to a significant investment.
Key features of Appian:
- Low-code development
Appian’s platform offers a visual, low-code development environment designed to streamline the creation and deployment of applications. By eliminating the need to focus on complex coding, the platform enables developers to direct their attention toward refining business logic, which can significantly accelerate development timelines.
- Data fabric
Appian’s Data Fabric provides a unified view of data from multiple sources, enabling efficient data management and analysis across the process lifecycle. Users can explore the Data Fabric with custom reports.
- Pre-built connectors
Appian offers a robust marketplace of pre-built connectors for popular systems, facilitating integration with various enterprise applications, though they also rely on partners to fill out the marketplace offering.
Who is it for?
Appian offers a higher level of technical capability and a broader range of features for demanding automation projects. Therefore, its focus is on professional developers building sophisticated applications rather than on citizen developers.
Vendors like ProcessMaker and Nintex typically have a lower entry cost than Appian, making it a more attractive option for smaller organizations or those starting their automation journey. Appian’s pricing, while flexible, can become more expensive for larger deployments.
6. Pipefy
Pipefy is a cloud-based business process automation platform that enables businesses to easily create and automate workflows. It offers an intuitive, visual interface for building workflows, known as “pipes,” and provides a range of features to support process management, including task management, reporting, and integrations.
Key features of Pipefy:
- Visual workflow builder
Pipefy offers a user-friendly, drag-and-drop interface for building workflows, enabling users to create and automate processes without the need to code.
- Forms and data collection
Users can create custom forms to collect data associated with processes and automate actions based on the information collected.
- Task management
Pipefy provides tools to manage tasks, assign responsibilities, set deadlines, and track progress within workflows.
Who is it for?
Pipefy is a single-path workflow tool, meaning it’s simpler and best suited for straightforward, linear processes. Competitor tools like Nintex, ProcessMaker, and Bizagi, on the other hand, serve as more comprehensive BPA platforms.
However, Pipefy’s intuitive design and integrations make it a great tool for business users with no coding experience and citizen developers.
7. Kissflow
Kissflow is a low-code process automation platform that focuses primarily on simple workflow automation and case management. Its strength lies in providing tools that enable business users to build forms and portals. Kissflow prioritizes ease of use, making it accessible for users with limited technical expertise.
Key features of Kissflow:
- Low-code platform
Kissflow provides a low-code environment for building and deploying workflows, forms, and applications. While it supports BPMN standards, it prioritizes self-documenting capabilities to capture and illustrate workflow steps and data.
- Visual workflow designer
Kissflow offers a user-friendly, drag-and-drop interface for building and automating workflows without coding, making it accessible to business users.
- Form builder
The platform enables users to create custom forms for data collection and manage data within the platform, supporting structured workflows and processes.
Who is it for?
Kissflow is mainly for businesses seeking a user-friendly, low-code platform for automating simple linear workflows and managing cases. While its technical capabilities are more limited than Nintex’s, its ease of use and affordability make it an attractive option for specific use cases. It’s important to consider the complexity of workflows, integration needs, and technical expertise available when choosing between Kissflow and and a more comprehensive BPA platform like Nintex.
8. Salesforce Flow
Salesforce, widely recognized for its top-tier Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform, also delivers robust business process automation through Salesforce Flow. Unlike Nintex, which is dedicated mainly to BPA, Salesforce integrates these automation tools within its CRM framework. This integration is designed to enhance efficiency by automating and optimizing processes, specifically those linked to customer engagement and sales activities.
Key features of Salesforce:
- Salesforce ecosystem
Salesforce Flow is integrated within the larger CRM platform, making it easy to integrate with other tools and features within the Salesforce ecosystem.
- RPA capabilities
Salesforce offers RPA functionality based on MuleSoft Automation, allowing users to automate repetitive tasks and processes
- Business rules engine
Salesforce allows users to implement decision logic and automate rule-based actions through a Business Rules Engine for managing business rules.
Who is it for?
Salesforce Flow is a versatile automation tool that empowers users within the Salesforce ecosystem to streamline processes, from simple tasks to slightly more complex workflows. Its low-code approach makes it accessible for business users, while its integration with the Salesforce platform and more advanced developer features provide flexibility for a wider range of automation needs.
Salesforce Flow is well-suited for organizations already utilizing the Salesforce platform and seeking to extend automation capabilities within their existing Salesforce environment.
9. ServiceNow
ServiceNow offers BPA capabilities through its Now Platform. While not solely dedicated to general-purpose BPA like Nintex, ServiceNow utilizes its robust IT service management (ITSM foundation) and vast ecosystem to deliver automation solutions.
Key features of ServiceNow:
- Low-code workflow design
ServiceNow offers a visual workflow designer through Flow Designer and Process Automation Designer. These tools allow users to design and automate processes using a drag-and-drop interface.
- AI-powered features
ServiceNow uses AI and machine learning to enhance its BPA capabilities for tasks such as recommending content, generating code from text prompts, and assisting with process modeling.
- Focus on IT
Now Platform is widely recognized for its strength in IT service management. This broader functionality differentiates ServiceNow from platforms like Nintex, Kissflow and Salesforce Flow.
Who is it for?
ServiceNow’s core strength lies in its IT service management capabilities, making it highly attractive to IT departments for managing incidents, changes, problems, and other IT-related processes.
ServiceNow’s Now Platform offers a wide range of applications beyond just BPA, making it suitable for large organizations seeking to automate and manage diverse workflows across various departments.
10. Bonitasoft
Bonitasoft is a BPM platform primarily known for its open source solution. Its platform empowers organizations to automate processes and build custom applications, driving operational efficiency and innovation.
Key features of Bonitasoft:
- Open-source approach
A key differentiator for Bonitasoft is its open-source foundation, allowing users to access and use the basic functionalities of the platform for free. This can be particularly appealing to organizations with limited budgets or a preference for open-source solutions.
- BPMN compliance
Bonitasoft places a strong emphasis on BPMN compliance, offering a robust process modeler that visually represents processes using swim lanes.
Who is it for?
Bonitasoft’s focus on professional developers makes it a good fit for organizations with in-house technical expertise capable of leveraging the platform’s open-source nature and customization options. It is also more appealing to regulated industries due to its open-source nature and emphasis on security.
Conclusion
The business process automation market offers a wide range of choices, and Nintex stands out as one of strong contenders. Choosing the right platform depends on what your organization needs. Whether you’re looking to automate simple workflows, manage more complex processes, or find a tool suited for business users or developers, it’s important to align the platform with your goals. Additionally, consider whether you need a solution for ongoing automation or just occasional projects.
Different platforms offer varying features, such as development environments, integration options, AI, process optimization capabilities, and user-friendly interfaces. By evaluating these factors carefully, you can identify the solution that best fits your needs—and Nintex is just one of the many excellent options to consider.
