Read our in-depth comparison of Kissflow and Pipefy, two popular workflow management tools. We examine their features, customization, pros and cons, and pricing to help you choose the right solution for your business.
Workflow management tools have become indispensable for businesses of all sizes, helping streamline processes, improve communication, and increase productivity. Two popular options in the market are Kissflow and Pipefy. Both systems aim to help businesses better manage their workflows, however, they go about it in markedly different ways and ultimately target rather different markets. In this article, we compare Kissflow and Pipefy to help you determine which tool best suits your organization.
Kissflow is a cloud-based workflow management and automation platform that offers a user-friendly interface for creating, managing, and optimizing business processes. Kissflow offers enterprise-grade business process management. Core features include:
Pipefy’s key selling point is that it builds workflows on top of Kanban boards. These are referred to as pipes. Each pipe can have multiple stages. Multiple cards can be added to a pipe. These then move from phase to phase until completion. Core features:
Kissflow provides a high degree of flexibility and customization, allowing users to create custom forms, design workflows, and set up automation rules. The UML-like workflow blueprint designer caters to experienced BPM consultants but can be used with relative ease by less tech-savvy users.
Pipefy, on the other hand, focuses on flexibility through its agile task management approach. Users can create custom pipes (workflows) and define the stages, rules, and assignments for each process. Pipefy also supports conditional logic, enabling users to automate tasks and trigger actions based on specific conditions. Automations is how you achieve automatic movement of tasks from stage to stage as well as automatic assignment of tasks to different teams in Pipefy.
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Kissflow |
Pipefy |
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|---|---|---|
| Pros | Advanced automation capabilities Wide range of pre-built integrations Powerful reporting and analytics Customizable user experience Great UML-like workflow blueprint builder Easy to go from conceptualizing workflows to implementing live workflows Kanban boards are included as an option |
User friendly Bottom-up approach to workflow design Familiar Kanban boards metaphor Natural progression from task management to workflow management A relatively shallow learning curve Affordable |
| Cons | Expensive Ignores SMB segment completely May have a steeper learning curve for beginners |
Constructing workflows from the bottom up requires multiple iterations and fiddling No option to build workflows from top to bottom, starting with a general layout The Kanban board metaphor can be the hammer that makes every problem look like a nail. |
Kissflow offers by-the-book business process design: you get to construct business processes as UML-like diagrams, which you can then run multiple workflows from. It’s all grown-up enterprise-grade stuff packaged in a very top-down approach: you start with a bird-eye-view, outlining your business process in broad strokes and then flesh out individual stages.
Pipefy starts out in the Kanban board territory that many SMB customers will be much more at home in. Instead of dumping the full range of enterprise features on you, Pipefy lets you begin with a simple Kanban board and then gradually evolve it into pretty much a full-fledged workflow. Pipefy offers you a bottom-up approach: you begin by operating at the level of individual cards, and then add features to your pipe incrementally, adding automations, handover of tasks, the works.
Both Kissflow and Pipefy offer an intuitive interface to help collaboration and communication among team members. Kissflow, however, has significantly more features to offer, so there is more of a learning curve. It features a centralized dashboard where users can view tasks, track progress, and collaborate on projects.
Pipefy’s Kanban board design facilitates a visual representation of tasks and processes, making it easy for team members to track progress and collaborate on tasks. The platform also supports comments and attachments, encouraging communication and collaboration within teams.
Kissflow offers native integrations with popular business tools like Google Workspace, Office 365, Slack, and Salesforce, among others. It also provides a REST API for custom integrations.
Pipefy relies on third-party integration platforms like Zapier and its API for connecting with other business tools. While this approach offers flexibility, it may require additional setup and configuration compared to native integrations.
When selecting a workflow management tool, it’s crucial to consider how well it can scale as your business grows. Kissflow’s cloud-based platform and tiered pricing structure make it easy for organizations to scale their usage and features according to their needs. However, with Kissflow you start big. With its user-friendly interface, Kissflow facilitates adoption by team members at all levels of technical expertise.
Pipefy also offers a scalable solution, with pricing plans designed to accommodate the needs of businesses of varying sizes. Its Kanban-style boards and customizable workflows make it suitable for organizations with diverse processes and requirements.
Both Kissflow and Pipefy offer robust process automation capabilities to help businesses streamline their workflows and reduce manual intervention. Kissflow’s automation features are built around conditional logic, enabling users to set up triggers and actions based on specific conditions within the workflow.
Pipefy also supports automation using conditional logic, allowing users to create rules that trigger actions when certain criteria are met. Additionally, Pipefy’s integration with Zapier enables users to set up automated workflows with other apps and services.
Kissflow emphasizes custom plans and is targeted at large teams. The “small business” plan starts at $9,000 a year for 50 users. The corporate plan is $24,000 per year (for a minimum of 100 users). Plus there is a custom enterprise plan.
Pipefy offers a starter free plan with paid plans charged on a per user per month basis with no minimal number of users requirements. In addition, a 16% discount is offered for annual billing.
Kissflow and Pipefy are both powerful workflow management tools with distinct features and capabilities. Kissflow offers a more comprehensive set of workflow design and management features that emphasize the top-down approach to workflow design and implementation.
Pipefy encourages users to build their workflows from the bottom up, starting with familiar Kanban boards and cards and evolving those into full-fledged workflows with handover of tasks between teams as tasks/cards move from stage to stage in a pipe.
The greatest differentiator between the two systems is the price: Kissflow clearly targets the enterprise segment, whereas Pipefy aims to be far more approachable both in terms of its agile approach to workflow management and in terms of pricing. Pipefy even has a free starter plan.
Thus, we would recommend Kissflow to larger organizations that want to take their workflow management to the next level and fully automate their business processes, while Pipefy would be a good fit for smaller companies that want to gradually ease into workflow management by way of Kanban boards and stave off diseconomies of scale as their business grows.
