Appian (NASDAQ:APPN – Get Free Report) and SAP (NYSE:SAP – Get Free Report) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, risk, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, earnings, valuation and profitability.
Profitability
This table compares Appian and SAP’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Appian | -14.88% | -532.05% | -10.11% |
| SAP | 8.15% | 11.44% | 6.92% |
Insider and Institutional Ownership
52.7% of Appian shares are owned by institutional investors. 44.0% of Appian shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 7.4% of SAP shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Earnings & Valuation
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Appian | $595.66 million | 4.70 | -$111.44 million | ($1.22) | -26.88 |
| SAP | $33.27 billion | 9.19 | $6.64 billion | $2.50 | 99.53 |
SAP has higher revenue and earnings than Appian. Appian is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than SAP, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Appian and SAP, as provided by MarketBeat.com.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Appian | 1 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 2.00 |
| SAP | 0 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 2.89 |
Appian currently has a consensus price target of $40.80, suggesting a potential upside of 24.43%. SAP has a consensus price target of $252.33, suggesting a potential upside of 1.41%. Given Appian’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Appian is more favorable than SAP.
Risk & Volatility
Appian has a beta of 1.57, meaning that its stock price is 57% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, SAP has a beta of 1.23, meaning that its stock price is 23% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
SAP beats Appian on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.
About Appian
Appian Corporation, a software company that provides low-code design platform in the United States, Mexico, Portugal, and internationally. The company's platform offers artificial intelligence, process automation, data fabric, and process mining. It provides The Appian Platform, an integrated automation platform that enables organizations to design, automate, and optimize mission-critical business processes. The company also offers professional and customer support services. It serves to financial services, government, life sciences, insurance, manufacturing, energy, healthcare, telecommunications, and transportation industries. Appian Corporation was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in McLean, Virginia.
About SAP
SAP SE, together with its subsidiaries, provides applications, technology, and services worldwide. It offers SAP S/4HANA that provides software capabilities for finance, risk and project management, procurement, manufacturing, supply chain and asset management, and research and development; SAP SuccessFactors solutions for human resources, including HR and payroll, talent and employee experience management, and people and workforce analytics; and spend management solutions that covers direct and indirect spend, travel and expense, and external workforce management. The company also provides SAP customer experience solutions; SAP Business Technology platform that enables customers and partners to build, integrate, and automate applications; and SAP Business Network, a business-to-business collaboration platform that helps digitalize key business processes across the supply chain and enables communication between trading partners. In addition, it offers SAP Signavio to help customers to discover, analyze, and understand their business process operations; SAP's industry cloud solutions that provides modular solutions addressing industry-specific functions; Taulia solutions for working capital management to help enable customers mitigate the effects of inflation by providing visibility into working capital and access to liquidity; and sustainability solutions and services. SAP SE was founded in 1972 and is headquartered in Walldorf, Germany.
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