A lot of our clients ask us whether they should use Nintex or InfoPath for their forms and workflow needs. I thought I would write a quick summary comparing them. Before I start, as a general rule imason now recommends Nintex. Microsoft has announced that InfoPath is being retired. InfoPath will still be supported and will be part of SharePoint 2016, but no new features will be added post InfoPath 2013. Microsoft has not yet announced its replacement. A year ago I wrote a post on why at imason we now use and recommend Nintex to our clients. Given this information, should you choose InfoPath or instead invest in Nintex?
Quick comparison guide for Nintex vs InfoPath
| | Nintex | InfoPath |
| Roadmap | Strong | InfoPath support will continue, but Microsoft has not announced its replacement. |
| Price | Separate license purchase per front-end server for on-prem, or a flexible per-user or per-workflow licensing model Office 365. Can work on top of all SharePoint editions and Office 365 SharePoint Online Plans. | SharePoint Foundation, Standard and Office 365 SharePoint Plan 1: the forms will open in the MS InfoPath client installed on the user’s computer [4].SharePoint Enterprise and Office 365 SharePoint Plan 2: the forms can open in the browser and in the MS InfoPath client. If you want to embed C# code-behind in the form then you need SharePoint Enterprise. You cannot have C# code in Office 365. |
| Flexibility | Forms and workflow administration is web-based and more user-friendly for business users. Workflows work on top of OOTB SharePoint workflows, but with a different user interface from SharePoint Designer. No downtime is needed to publish new forms and workflows. C# code cannot be embedded as the form’s code-behind. | InfoPath Designer and SharePoint Designer need to be installed and used by business users to administer the forms and workflows. Upgrading the forms in the future could break older forms if the proper upgrade pre-requisites are not taken. C# code can be used as the code-behind of the form. If the form is administrator-approved (with C# code) then there could be downtime during the publishing of the form. |
| Performance | Similar to InfoPath. There are a number of things that can affect performance when designing Nintex forms. High number of controls, validations or rules, custom JavaScript, etc. can all have a negative impact. See this article about best practices when designing Nintex forms. | Similar to Nintex. Too many rules, validations, and fields can have a negative impact. For example, forms that have over 30 fields on one screen with multiple show/hide rules can be sluggish, especially if it is a browser form. Design your forms carefully! |
| Workflow | Nintex Workflows work on top of SharePoint OOTB workflows and have a very user-friendly in-browser user interface. They can easily connect to 3rd party endpoints and SharePoint web services. | InfoPath does not have workflow; if you need workflow you would be using SharePoint OOTB workflow capabilities. SharePoint Designer is needed to customize whatever OOTB does not provide. Integrations with 3rd party web services and endpoints is trickier. Nevertheless, SharePoint Designer is still a powerful tool for customizing and extending what OOTB SharePoint workflows don’t provide. |
| Office 365 | Nintex has a SharePoint App that can be activated per site which will allow you to create forms and workflows. The features for Office 365 are limited when compared to Nintex’s on-prem offering but still quite powerful. You can use this with all O365 SharePoint 2013 plans. | You can create and use InfoPath forms in Office 365, but you will not be able to deploy administrator-approved forms which contain C# code-behind. |
| Integration | Easy to connect with many 3rd-party endpoints like AWS, Yammer, CRM, etc. Cannot embed C# code-behind. You can write custom web services that the forms and workflows can call, or code JavaScript as part of the form, but you cannot embed C# code-behind directly in the forms. | If you have SharePoint Enterprise then you can use C# code-behind right inside the form which can be extremely useful.Can connect to 3rd party endpoints to other SharePoint web services with the concept of “data connections”, which whilst feasible can be difficult and tricky for some business users. |
| Mobile | Nintex has a mobile app which can load the forms. It is very tailored to the mobile experience and includes offline storage of data. You can explicitly set views depending on the mobile device when creating the forms. | Poor. No explicit catering for mobile. You can access the forms with your mobile browser through the SharePoint interface and hope that the form looks usable. |
If you have more questions about which option is better for you don’t hesitate to contact us or take a look at our Nintex solutions page.