Radware (NASDAQ:RDWR) vs. Appian (NASDAQ:APPN) Critical Analysis

Appian (NASDAQ:APPN) and Radware (NASDAQ:RDWR) are both small-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, profitability, risk, earnings, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Appian and Radware”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Appian	$726.94 million	2.08	$1.23 million	$0.01	2,063.00
Radware	$301.85 million	3.92	$20.26 million	$0.43	65.44

Radware has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Appian. Radware is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Appian, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Appian and Radware’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Appian	0.12%	-26.12%	2.16%
Radware	6.28%	7.69%	4.44%

Volatility and Risk

Appian has a beta of 0.9, indicating that its share price is 10% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Radware has a beta of 0.85, indicating that its share price is 15% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

52.7% of Appian shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 73.1% of Radware shares are held by institutional investors. 43.0% of Appian shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 21.6% of Radware shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Appian and Radware, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Appian	2	4	1	0	1.86
Radware	1	2	2	0	2.20

Appian presently has a consensus price target of $26.00, indicating a potential upside of 26.03%. Radware has a consensus price target of $30.00, indicating a potential upside of 6.61%. Given Appian’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Appian is more favorable than Radware.

Summary

Radware beats Appian on 9 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 Radware

Radware Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, and markets cyber security and application delivery solutions for cloud, on-premises, and software defined data centers worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Radware’s Core Business and The Hawks’ Business. It offers DefensePro provides automated DDoS protection; Radware Kubernetes, a web application firewall solution; and Cyber Controller, a unified solution for management, configuration, and attack lifecycle. The company also provides Alteon, an application delivery and security solution that manages application traffic across cloud and data center locations for optimizing availability and performance; and LinkProof NG, a multi-homing and enterprise gateway solution. In addition, it offers ERT Security Updates Subscription that provides protection from network elements, hosts, and applications; ERT Active Attackers Feed, a threat intelligence feed to protect against DDoS threats; ERT Protection Packages; Alteon Global Elastic License, a purchasing and deployment subscription; MSSP Portal, a DDoS detection and mitigation service portal; Location-based Mitigation that enables network traffic based on the geolocation mapping of IP subnets; and Cloud DDoS Protection Service, which offers a range of enterprise-grade DDoS protection services in the cloud. Further, the company provides Cloud Web DDoS Protection, Cloud WAF Service, Bot Manager, Cloud-Native Protector, and Cloud Application Protection Services, as well as technical support, professional, managed, and training and certification services. It sells its products primarily to independent distributors, including value added resellers, original equipment manufacturers, and system integrators. The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel.