Areas where OutSystems Out-Smarts Appian:

1. The data modelling is very flexible. It is totally visual. We can model the entities and the relationships among them visually and also update the UI accordingly. It can be done very quickly - at-least for the most basic use cases. You can denote relationships using Foreign Key constraint visually in the Service Studio. OutSystems outsmarts Appian (as of version 16.2) in this aspect.

2. OutSystems has a lot of variety in Charts\/Reports when it comes to Analytics (seen in the demo). There are many different charts to choose from. Also a great amount of customization is possible with those charts in OutSystems. This is an Advantage over Appian. Although, it would not be so difficult for Appian to bring in more charts(and more options to customize them) in the later versions.

3. The development can be done on a local environment as well as in the cloud. It can be published to the cloud with one click from your local machine. When developing on the local environment, it downloads the code to your machine by connecting to the cloud. This allows flexibility - it makes it possible to develop offline.

4. The Debugger is a very good tool for the developers. It is better than the Monitor Process Instance in Appian (which does not have all the features of a debugger). It lets you set breakpoints, step in, step over etc. It enables the developers to closely look at how their application is behaving and inspect all the variables of interest.

5. You need not create a process model for everything. You can have a workflow without having a process. In Appian, every workflow needs to be backed by a process model.