Celigo vs Workato: Which iPaaS Is Right for Your Australian Business?

One of the first questions I get from businesses looking to connect their systems is "which platform should we use?" And fair enough — it's a big decision. You're committing budget, training time, and your integration architecture to a platform that'll be running your critical data flows for years.

I've worked extensively with Celigo, Workato, and Boomi. I'm not going to pretend one is universally better than the others. They each have strengths, and the right choice depends on what you're actually trying to do.

Here's how I think about it.

Celigo — best for ERP-centric integrations

If your world revolves around NetSuite, Celigo is hard to beat. They started as a NetSuite integration specialist, and it shows. The NetSuite connector is deep — it understands saved searches, custom records, SuiteScript, and the quirks of NetSuite's data model in a way that other platforms just don't.

Pre-built integration apps for common scenarios — NetSuite to Shopify, NetSuite to Amazon, NetSuite to Salesforce — can save you weeks of build time. They're not perfect out of the box, but they give you a solid foundation to customise.

Celigo's UI is straightforward. You don't need to be a developer to understand what a flow does, which matters when your team needs to troubleshoot at 7am because the overnight order sync failed. The error management is genuinely good — you can see exactly which records failed, why, and retry them individually.

Where Celigo is less strong is complex orchestration. If you need multi-step workflows with conditional branching, parallel processing, and human approval steps, it can feel a bit constrained.

I'd choose Celigo when: Your ERP is NetSuite, your integration needs are primarily data sync (orders, inventory, customers, financials), and you want your team to be able to manage flows without heavy developer involvement.

Workato — best for complex workflows and automation

Workato thinks differently. It's not just an integration platform — it's a workflow automation platform. The recipe-based approach lets you build sophisticated multi-step processes that go well beyond moving data between two systems.

Where Workato shines is when you need to orchestrate across multiple systems with business logic in between. Think: an order comes in, check inventory in the ERP, if it's below threshold trigger a PO to the supplier via their API, notify the warehouse team on Slack, and update the customer's expected delivery date in the CRM. That kind of thing is natural in Workato.

The connector library is massive. Pretty much any SaaS tool you're using will have a Workato connector, and they're generally well-maintained. The community recipes are useful too — they give you a starting point even for niche integrations.

The trade-off is complexity. Workato is powerful, but that power means more decisions to make. The learning curve is steeper, especially for non-technical team members. And the pricing can escalate quickly depending on your task volumes.

I'd choose Workato when: You need to automate complex business processes across many systems, your team has some technical capability, and your integration needs go beyond simple data sync.

What about Boomi?

I should mention Boomi since it comes up in conversations. Boomi sits somewhere between the two — it's a solid enterprise iPaaS with good connectors and decent workflow capabilities. It's particularly common in organisations already invested in the Dell/SAP ecosystem.

For mid-market Australian businesses though, I find it's often overkill. The setup and maintenance overhead is higher, the pricing reflects its enterprise positioning, and most of the businesses I work with don't need that level of infrastructure.

That said, if you're already on Boomi and it's working, there's no reason to switch. It does the job well.

The questions that actually matter

Forget the feature comparison matrices for a moment. In my experience, the right platform usually comes down to these questions:

What's your ERP? If it's NetSuite, Celigo has a genuine advantage. If it's Business Central or SAP, the playing field is more level.

How complex are your workflows? If you're doing point-to-point data sync, Celigo is simpler and faster to deploy. If you need multi-system orchestration with business logic, Workato gives you more room.

Who's going to manage this day-to-day? If it's a business analyst or operations person, Celigo's simpler interface is an advantage. If you have developers on the team, Workato's power is an asset.

What's your budget model? Celigo's pricing is generally more predictable for data sync scenarios. Workato's task-based pricing can surprise you if volumes spike.

Are you already using either platform? If you've got existing flows on one platform, there's a real cost to switching. Migration is never as simple as vendors make it sound.

My honest take

For most of the Australian mid-market businesses I work with — retailers, wholesalers, and e-commerce brands running NetSuite or Business Central — Celigo is where I start the conversation. It's faster to deploy, easier to maintain, and the ERP connectors are excellent.

But I've absolutely recommended Workato for clients whose needs lean more towards process automation than data integration. There's no point forcing a data sync tool to be a workflow engine, or vice versa.

The worst thing you can do is pick a platform based on a vendor demo. Those demos always look great. What matters is how the platform handles your specific data volumes, your specific edge cases, and your specific error scenarios. That's where real-world experience matters.