Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) & Appian (NASDAQ:APPN) Critical Contrast

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

Volatility and Risk

Backblaze has a beta of 1.71, suggesting that its stock price is 71% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Appian has a beta of 0.9, suggesting that its stock price is 10% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Backblaze	-14.97%	-20.54%	-8.90%
Appian	0.12%	-26.12%	2.16%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for Backblaze and Appian, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Backblaze	2	1	6	1	2.60
Appian	2	4	1	0	1.86

Backblaze presently has a consensus price target of $8.00, indicating a potential downside of 3.50%. Appian has a consensus price target of $26.00, indicating a potential upside of 14.04%. Given Appian’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Appian is more favorable than Backblaze.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Backblaze and Appian”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Backblaze	$145.84 million	3.42	-$25.61 million	($0.39)	-21.26
Appian	$726.94 million	2.30	$1.23 million	$0.01	2,280.00

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

Insider & Institutional Ownership

54.0% of Backblaze shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 52.7% of Appian shares are owned by institutional investors. 4.2% of Backblaze shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 44.0% of Appian shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Appian beats Backblaze on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Backblaze

Backblaze, Inc., a storage cloud platform, provides businesses and consumers cloud services to store, use, and protect data in the United States and internationally. The company offers cloud services through a web-scale software infrastructure built on commodity hardware. It also provides Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage, which enables customers to store data, developers to build applications, and partners to expand their use cases. This service is offered as a consumption-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and serves use cases, such as public, hybrid, and multi-cloud data storage; application development and DevOps; content delivery and edge computing; security and ransomware protection; media management; backup, archive, and tape replacement; repository for analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning; and Internet of Things. In addition, the company offers Backblaze Computer Backup that automatically backs up data from laptops and desktops for businesses and individuals, which provides a subscription-based Software-as-a-Service and serves use cases, including computer backup, ransomware protection, theft and loss protection, and remote access. It serves the public cloud IaaS storage and Data-Protection-as-a-Service markets. The company was incorporated in 2007 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California.

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.