Is Activiti or APITable better?

Neither clearly leads. Activiti starts at Free and APITable at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Activiti or APITable?

Activiti starts at Free and APITable at Free.

Does Activiti or APITable run on more platforms?

Activiti runs on Linux, Windows, Docker, Kubernetes. APITable runs on Web, Linux.

Can I use Activiti for free?

Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.

What is Activiti best used for?

Activiti is most often used for an alfresco or hyland content services deployment where activiti is already the embedded workflow engine, a java application that needs to embed a bpmn engine as a library under a permissive licence, an organisation that has ruled out camunda 8 on licence grounds and needs an apache 2.0 alternative, document-centric approval workflows where the process engine sits inside the content management stack rather than beside it. Of those, an alfresco or hyland content services deployment where activiti is already the embedded workflow engine and a java application that needs to embed a bpmn engine as a library under a permissive licence are not what APITable is typically brought in for.

What can Activiti do that APITable cannot?

Activiti covers BPMN 2.0 engine, Activiti Cloud, Modeler, Java and REST APIs. APITable covers API first design, Widget SDK, Embeddable views, Multiple view types.

Automation Integration · head to head

Activiti vs APITable

Activiti

Automation Integration

Apache 2.0 BPMN engine under Hyland, from which Flowable and Camunda were forked

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

APITable

Spreadsheets

Open source spreadsheet database with an API first design and an embeddable widget system

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: Activiti the last stable release was 8.2.0 in January 2024, and while release candidate builds continue, a two-year gap between stable versions is a real risk signal for a production dependency.; APITable records are held in the product own schema rather than as native database tables, so the practical row ceiling is a product limit and large tables should be load tested before commitment.
They diverge on capability: Activiti covers BPMN 2.0 engine, APITable covers API first design.
Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Activiti and APITable actually diverge.

Attributes where Activiti and APITable differ
Attribute	Activiti	APITable
Platforms	Linux, Windows, Docker, Kubernetes	Web, Linux
Category	Automation Integration	Spreadsheets

Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (Open source, no licence fee), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Activiti

BPMN 2.0 engine
Activiti Cloud
Modeler
Java and REST APIs
Pluggable persistence
Identity integration

Only in APITable

API first design
Widget SDK
Embeddable views
Multiple view types
Linked records and formulas
Self hosting
Real time collaboration

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Activiti

An Alfresco or Hyland content services deployment where Activiti is already the embedded workflow enginenot APITable
A Java application that needs to embed a BPMN engine as a library under a permissive licencenot APITable
An organisation that has ruled out Camunda 8 on licence grounds and needs an Apache 2.0 alternativenot APITable
Document-centric approval workflows where the process engine sits inside the content management stack rather than beside itnot APITable

APITable

Embedding an editable table view inside a product you are building, rather than sending users to another toolnot Activiti
An internal platform where tables are read and written mostly by code through the API and only occasionally by peoplenot Activiti
A self hosted replacement for a per seat spreadsheet database where seat count is the cost drivernot Activiti
Building a custom dashboard widget that sits beside the data instead of in a separate reporting toolnot Activiti

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Activiti

The last stable release was 8.2.0 in January 2024, and while release candidate builds continue, a two-year gap between stable versions is a real risk signal for a production dependency.
Both Camunda and Flowable forked away and took large parts of the contributor base with them, so the community, tutorials and third-party tooling around Activiti are much thinner than around either fork.
Commercial support is only realistically available by buying Hyland Alfresco subscriptions, so there is no way to pay for Activiti support on its own.
Activiti Cloud imposes a distributed architecture of several Spring Boot services plus Keycloak, which is heavy for teams who simply wanted an embeddable engine.
Documentation is dated and partly split between old Alfresco sites and Hyland Connect, and the transition between Activiti 6, 7 and 8 architectures makes much of the older material actively misleading.

APITable

Records are held in the product own schema rather than as native database tables, so the practical row ceiling is a product limit and large tables should be load tested before commitment.
The hosted free tier caps records per space, so evaluating on the cloud version gives a misleading picture of what the software can do when self hosted.
Automation is thin compared with the commercial alternatives, and most real workflows end up in an external automation tool.
The self hosted deployment is heavier than a single container, so running it properly means managing several services rather than one.
Documentation and community activity are uneven in English, and finding an answer to an operational problem can take longer than the problem itself deserves.

Pricing, plan by plan

Activiti

Free

ActivitiFree
- Apache 2.0 licence
- Embeddable Java library or Activiti Cloud services
- No usage limits

APITable

Free

Self hosted open sourceFree
- No licence fee
- No product record cap on self hosted deployments
- Docker and Kubernetes deployment

Which should you pick?

Choose Activiti if

You need bpmn 2.0 engine.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Linux, Windows, Docker, Kubernetes.
You also want activiti cloud.

Activiti review

Choose APITable if

You need api first design.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Web, Linux.
You also want widget sdk.

APITable review

Questions people ask

Is Activiti or APITable better?: Neither clearly leads. Activiti starts at Free and APITable at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Activiti or APITable?: Activiti starts at Free and APITable at Free.
Does Activiti or APITable run on more platforms?: Activiti runs on Linux, Windows, Docker, Kubernetes. APITable runs on Web, Linux.
Can I use Activiti for free?: Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Activiti best used for?: Activiti is most often used for an alfresco or hyland content services deployment where activiti is already the embedded workflow engine, a java application that needs to embed a bpmn engine as a library under a permissive licence, an organisation that has ruled out camunda 8 on licence grounds and needs an apache 2.0 alternative, document-centric approval workflows where the process engine sits inside the content management stack rather than beside it. Of those, an alfresco or hyland content services deployment where activiti is already the embedded workflow engine and a java application that needs to embed a bpmn engine as a library under a permissive licence are not what APITable is typically brought in for.
What can Activiti do that APITable cannot?: Activiti covers BPMN 2.0 engine, Activiti Cloud, Modeler, Java and REST APIs. APITable covers API first design, Widget SDK, Embeddable views, Multiple view types.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Activiti: Is Activiti still maintained?

Yes, Hyland continues to publish builds, but the last stable release was 8.2.0 in January 2024.

APITable: What is the record limit?

The self hosted edition has no product cap, but performance is bounded by the internal schema rather than by your database. Test at your expected size.

Activiti: What is its relationship to Camunda and Flowable?

Both are forks of Activiti: Camunda in 2013 and Flowable in 2016, when core developers left Alfresco.

APITable: Can I embed it in my own product?

Yes, and that is the main reason to choose it. Views embed and the widget SDK extends them.

Activiti: What licence is it?

Apache 2.0, which distinguishes it from Camunda 8’s source-available licence.

APITable: Is the hosted version representative?

No. Its free tier caps records per space, which is a commercial limit rather than a technical one.

Activiti: Should I choose Activiti for a new project?

Only if the Apache licence or an existing Alfresco deployment is decisive. Flowable and Camunda have far larger ecosystems.

APITable: How hard is self hosting?

Harder than a single container. Plan for several services and someone to keep them running.

APITable: Does it do automations?

Lightly. Expect to pair it with an external automation tool for anything multi step.

Activiti vs APITable

Activiti

APITable

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Activiti

Only in APITable

What people use each for

Activiti

APITable

Where each one falls short

Activiti

APITable

Pricing, plan by plan

Activiti

APITable

Which should you pick?

Choose Activiti if

Choose APITable if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Activiti

More on APITable

Keep looking

Other head to heads