This article details the minimum requirements your system must meet to run Appian.
This table lists the supported platforms for servers that host Appian. Only 64-bit operating systems running on x86-64 CPU architecture (sometimes referred to as x64) are supported. Linux hosts must have a minimum kernel version of 2.6.23. Windows hosts must run Windows Server 2008 R2 or later.
| Linux (Reference Platforms) | Windows Server | Windows Desktop |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.0+ | Windows Server 2016 | Windows 10 |
| CentOS 6.0+ | Windows Server 2012 | (Deprecated) Windows 7 |
| Ubuntu 18.04+ | (Deprecated) Windows Server 2008 R2 |
Microsoft has ended support for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7. As such, this will be the final version of Appian which supports these operating systems.
Only server versions of Windows are supported for production environments. Desktop version of Windows are only supported for local development environments.
While Windows environments are fully supported, Appian recommends running on Linux if possible as we typically observe better performance and stability in Linux environments. Additionally, running more than one instance of the Appian engines and the Internal Messaging Service (Kafka and Zookeeper) is not a supported configuration in Windows environments. This means that high-availability and load balancing the Appian engines are not possible in Windows environments.
Due to the way file names and file paths are calculated for documents stored in Appian, all servers hosting the same Appian installation must use the same type of operating system. Do not mix Windows and Linux.
Customers who wish to run VMware must use one of the platforms listed above as the guest operating system.
VMware's VMotion capability has been known to cause corruption inside Zookeeper, which can lead to site unavailability. Appian requires disabling VMotion for any VMware servers that host Zookeeper.
The Appian installation includes OpenJDK 8. The bundled JDK should only be used with Appian, not with other programs that run on the same server.
While Oracle JDK 8 is supported, Oracle ended public updates for Commercial use of Java SE 8 at the end of January 2019. Oracle Customers can obtain updates for Java SE 8 through the My Oracle Support portal. For more information review the Oracle Java SE Support Roadmap.
The table below describes the physical system requirements for Appian.
Development sites (sites where applications are built) and production sites (sites where the applications run) have different load profiles, scaling characteristics, and performance demands and so are broken out separately.
| Usage Pattern | RAM (GB) | Storage (GB) | CPU Cores |
|---|---|---|---|
| Infrequent Use, Few Applications | 15 | 30 | 2 |
| Frequent Use or Many Applications | 30 | 100 | 4 |
| Usage Pattern | Concurrent Users | RAM (GB) | Storage (GB) | CPU Cores |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single Application | < 100 | 30 | 100 | 4 |
| Departmental adoption | 100 - 1,000 | 60 | 500 | 8 |
| Enterprise adoption | > 1,000 | 240 | 1,000 | 32 |
Production instances of Appian should run on dedicated hardware or virtual machines in order to prevent resource contention, port conflicts, and interference from other applications.
The sizing guidelines in the table above are a rough approximation for hardware requirements. They should be treated only as a starting point. Actual sizing also depends on things like number of active processes and the data in those processes, number of archived processes, number of uploaded files, engine checkpoint frequency, and whether or not the site is highly available so your actual requirements may vary. The sizing script can help project the RAM that will be required for your installation. Sizing is best run while your application is under development with sample data as well as after your application has been completed with real data.
For customers who wish to run Appian from cloud infrastructure as a service, Appian will run on any that support the operating systems and minimum hardware requirements as listed in this article.
The following major providers of cloud infrastructure as a service are known to be compatible with Appian:
The following relational database management systems (RDBMS) are supported as the Appian data source and as business data sources. The RDBMS can be hosted on Amazon RDS as long as it is one of the types and versions listed below and the network latency falls within the recommended guidelines.
| RDBMS | Driver |
|---|---|
| MySQL 8.0 with InnoDB engine | Connector/J 5.1.x |
| MySQL 5.7 with InnoDB engine | Connector/J 5.1.x |
| MariaDB Server 10.4 | MariaDB Connector/J 2.5 Series |
| Oracle 19c | Oracle 19.7 JDBC Driver Certified with JDK8 |
| Oracle 18c | Oracle 19.7 JDBC Driver Certified with JDK8 |
| Oracle 12c R2 | Oracle 19.7 JDBC Driver Certified with JDK8 |
| Oracle 12c R1 | Oracle 19.7 JDBC Driver Certified with JDK8 |
| Oracle 11g R2 | Oracle 19.7 JDBC Driver Certified with JDK8 |
| Microsoft SQL Server 2017 | Microsoft JDBC SQL Server Driver 7.x |
| Microsoft SQL Server 2016 | Microsoft JDBC SQL Server Driver 7.x |
| Microsoft SQL Server 2014 | Microsoft JDBC SQL Server Driver 7.x |
| Microsoft SQL Server 2012 | Microsoft JDBC SQL Server Driver 7.x |
| Microsoft SQL Server 2008 | Microsoft JDBC SQL Server Driver 2.x and 7.x |
| PostgreSQL 12 | PostgreSQL JDBC 4.2 Driver |
| PostgreSQL 11 | PostgreSQL JDBC 4.2 Driver |
| IBM DB2 UDB v11.1 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows | IBM DB2 JDBC Driver version 4.22.29 |
In addition to these supported databases, any other JDBC-compliant database can be queried from a Query Database Smart Service.
Note: Appian recommends a round-trip time for TCP communications with the database of less than 10 milliseconds with an upper bound of 25 milliseconds for acceptable performance. Network latency outside of these bounds will result in degraded system performance.
The supported Web browsers are listed in the table below. Use the Appian for Mobile Devices application for iOS and Android instead of mobile browsers. See Mobile Devices for more information.
Web browsers must allow cookies. If a user's browser is not configured to allow cookies, then Appian displays an alert stating that cookies must be enabled in order to log in.
With Microsoft ending its support for Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) this summer, Appian will also end support for IE11 shortly afterwards, in November 2022.
| Browser | Comments |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Edge (version 79+, Chromium-based) | Supported on Windows and MacOS operating systems. Appian supports the most recent stable version. |
| Microsoft Edge (version 78 and earlier) | Only supported on Windows 10 operating systems. |
| Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 | Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 is supported on Windows operating systems. Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 is supported on Windows 8.x tablet. Running Internet Explorer in Enterprise or Document Mode to emulate older browser versions is not supported. Note: With Microsoft ending its support for Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) this summer, Appian will also end support for IE11 shortly afterwards, in November 2022. |
| Mozilla Firefox | Mozilla Firefox updates automatically. Appian supports the most recent stable version of Mozilla Firefox. |
| Google Chrome | Google Chrome updates automatically. Appian supports the most recent stable version of Google Chrome. |
| Apple Safari | Safari is only supported on Mac operating systems. |
Note: Appian does not support browsers that are no longer supported by their vendor. Use the latest supported browser version and always apply all available security updates.
Web browsers for Appian Cloud users should be configured to allow TLS version 1.2.
The table below lists browser compatibility by feature. Certain features in Appian, such as the Process Modeler, have their own browser configuration requirements. See Web Browser Configuration for more information.
| Feature | Edge | Internet Explorer 11 | Internet Explorer 11 (tablet) | Mozilla Firefox | Google Chrome | Apple Safari |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tempo | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sites | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Embedded Interfaces | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Appian Designer | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Administration Console | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Process Modeler | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Web Content Component | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Portal Interfaces (deprecated) | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
All supported versions of the Appian mobile app are listed in the Product Release History.
The latest version of the Appian mobile app is always backward-compatible with previous Appian versions, so we encourage you to upgrade to take advantage of new features and enhancements.
Web parts for news, tasks, and actions are supported for Microsoft SharePoint 2013 using the Appian for SharePoint 2013 module.
Network File System (NFS) protocol is supported.
Server Message Block (SMB) protocol is unsupported.
