Parsware Platform and Power Apps

We make two products, and one of them runs inside Power Apps. So we get asked the obvious question: if you're choosing a platform for business applications, why would you pick Parsware Platform over Power Apps, or the other way round?

This article is our honest answer. It compares the two for teams choosing a platform. If you already run on Power Apps and want better documents or drawn screens, you don't need to choose: that's what Parsware for Power Apps is for.

What they have in common

Both are app platforms built on the same ideas, and a maker who knows one will recognise most of the other:

• Tables, forms and views, turned into model-driven apps.
• Solutions that carry an application from development to test to production.
• Security roles, record ownership and teams, decided on the server.
• Business rules and server-side logic when a record is saved.
• Screens you design yourself, when a form isn't enough.

The differences are in where it runs, what it costs, and what it connects to.

Side by side

	Power Apps	Parsware Platform
Runs on	Microsoft's cloud, in your Microsoft 365 tenant	Hosted by us, or on your own servers (Enterprise)
Data	Dataverse	PostgreSQL, with a separate schema for each environment
Priced by	User: Power Apps Premium per user per month, or pay-as-you-go per active user per app	Environment: three included, unlimited users
Connects to	Hundreds of connectors, and the whole of Microsoft 365	Custom APIs, and calls to outside services from scripts
Logic	Power Fx, Power Automate flows, and .NET plug-ins	One language, BS Lang, for form rules, server rules, processes and custom APIs
Approvals and processes	Power Automate, including approvals	A swimlane process designer and engine with human tasks
Printed documents	Power BI paginated reports, a separate service and licence	Reports drawn and printed inside the platform
Mobile	The Power Apps mobile app, with offline support	In the browser, with screens drawn for phones; no offline app
AI	Copilot across the makers' tools and in apps	Newer, and not what we'd ask you to choose on
Right to left	Supported in model-driven apps	Persian and Arabic throughout, with Persian calendars

Where Power Apps is the better choice

We'd rather say this plainly than have you find it out later.

You live in Microsoft 365. If your people work in Teams, Outlook, SharePoint and Excel all day, Power Apps sits inside that world. Sign-in, sharing, licences and admin are already in place, and apps can surface where your people already are.

You connect to many systems. Power Apps and Power Automate reach hundreds of services through ready-made connectors. Parsware can call any service with an API, from a script or a custom API, but somebody writes that call.

People work offline, on phones. The Power Apps mobile app runs apps offline and uses the camera and other device features. Parsware apps run in the browser.

You need a very large vendor. Microsoft's compliance certifications, regions, partner network and support organisation are on a scale a small company can't match. For some buyers, that settles it.

You already have the licences. If your users already have Power Apps Premium through an agreement, the cost argument below doesn't apply.

Where Parsware Platform is the better choice

You want to price by environment, not by person. Power Apps Premium is priced per user per month, and pay-as-you-go per active user per app. Parsware is priced per environment, with unlimited makers and users. A team of 200 people on Power Apps Premium is 200 licences every month. On Parsware's hosted Business plan it's $499 a month for three environments, on a server sized for about 300 people. (Prices change; check both before deciding. Ours are on the pricing page.)

Your data has to stay on your own servers. On the Enterprise plan, Parsware runs on servers you choose, including your own. Each environment's data sits in its own database schema, so even a bug can't mix data between environments.

Processes with people in them. Parsware has a swimlane process designer, one lane per role, and an engine that runs it: tasks land in people's task lists, branches follow your data, and you can see where each run is. See A two-step approval.

Documents that print exactly, without a second product. Reports are drawn in the platform and read your tables directly. There's no separate reporting service or licence.

One language for all of the logic. Form rules, server rules, process conditions and custom APIs are all written in BS Lang, in one editor with completion and errors as you type. On Power Apps, the same jobs are spread across Power Fx, flows and .NET plug-ins. See BS Lang in ten minutes.

Persian and Arabic, properly. The whole platform runs right to left, in Persian and Arabic, with Persian (Jalali) dates on forms, views and reports.

Everything inside is permissively licensed open source. Nothing we build on charges per seat, per server or per deployment, so nothing can add a bill later.

What moving would mean

If you're on Power Apps today, moving isn't free, and we won't pretend otherwise. Tables, forms and views map closely, because the concepts are the same. Power Fx, flows and canvas apps don't move: they would be rewritten, in BS Lang, as processes, and as Studio screens. Connectors you rely on would become API calls.

That's why most Power Apps teams who talk to us end up adding Parsware for Power Apps rather than moving. It brings the reports and drawn screens into the platform they already have, and nothing leaves their tenant.

How to decide

• Choose Power Apps if you're deep in Microsoft 365, rely on many connectors or offline phones, or already have the licences.
• Choose Parsware Platform if per-user pricing is the problem, the data must be on your own servers, your work runs on processes and printed documents, or you work in Persian or Arabic.
• Already on Power Apps? Keep it, and add Parsware for Power Apps where forms and Power BI fall short.

The best way to find out is to try it. The platform overview shows a whole application, and the pricing page has a 30-day trial.

Next

This is the last article in the Parsware for Power Apps series. The whole series is in the reading list, and the Parsware Platform articles start at Start here.