What is Frends?

BPMN on the surface, C# underneath

Frends is assembled from standard parts, and that is a large part of its appeal. Its Process Editor uses a subset of BPMN 2.0 "enhanced with C# to represent integration flows as diagrams that are both executable and human-readable". Every Process compiles to C# and runs on an Agent. Frends calls itself .NET native, and that's your first fit test: a Microsoft shop gets a platform its developers can read on day one; everyone else should budget for C# skills. The 6.3.0 release notes (4 June 2026) target .NET 10, the Technologies page, read 14 September 2026, still says .NET 8, and from 6.3.1 self-hosted cross-platform Agents need .NET Runtime 10.0.7 or newer.

Where it runs depends on what you buy

frends.com/pricing, read 14 September 2026

Read the table as a ladder of commitment. Growth is Frends-hosted only; its service description says "No hybrid-deployment support". Hybrid arrives on Business, high availability on Enterprise, air-gapped on Enterprise Infinity. Frends' compliance documentation, read 15 September 2026, states ISO 27001:2022 certification and links a DNV Cyber attestation labelled February 2026.

BPMN gets diagrams in, not integrations out

This is the point most summaries miss. Frends' Process reference, read 15 September 2026, says unsupported shapes in an imported BPMN 2.0 diagram "will either not be imported, or will be replaced by their more simple form". Exports carry "none of the Frends Process functionality" and are "solely for including the BPMN in documentational use cases"; working Processes move as proprietary JSON with their C# code. Executable integration logic rarely travels well between platforms, so this is no scandal. Think of it as flat-pack: the parts are standard, but the assembled Process is Frends'. The BPMN is a picture of your integration, not a copy of it. Plan any exit as a rewrite.

Frends MCP opens the whole platform to AI clients

Enterprise MCP, the MCP Trigger plus the AI Connector, shipped with Frends 6.3.0 on 4 June 2026 and lets a single Process act as an AI tool. Frends MCP, launched on 15 September 2026, works a level up: it "connects a Frends environment to Claude, ChatGPT or any AI client", so a developer can ask for a Process draft or ask why a run failed. Drafts are approved in the Frends interface before they run, and every action is "tied to a named user by a personal token that cannot be shared". Frends says it used the capability "in customer delivery ahead of the launch". Named, non-shareable tokens are exactly what your auditors will ask about.

Who stands behind it

Frends' 2 January 2024 demerger release says Frends remained a wholly owned subsidiary of HiQ International AB, and HiQ's website, read 15 September 2026, says Triton has owned HiQ since 2020. Frends dates its origin to 1988 and HiQ's acquisition to 2010, and says Gartner placed it as a Niche Player in the 16 March 2026 Magic Quadrant for iPaaS. Its own pages disagree on scale: 6,000+ customers on the About page, more than 4,000 companies and organisations on its company-story page (both read 14 September 2026). For a platform you'll live with for a decade, ask what your contract says if ownership changes.

What it costs, and who should look elsewhere

• frends.com/pricing (15 September 2026): tier limits and quote buttons, no tier prices.
• Azure Marketplace, Finland (EUR a month, 15 September 2026): Growth 790, Business 2,000, Enterprise 5,000, plus per-process charges.
• Pricing-page estimator code (read, not run, 14 September 2026): 800, 2,000, 5,000 and 7,000 for "Enterprise On-Premise", no currency.
• Vendor-supplied to AutomationAtlas, 11 August 2026: starting at EUR 800, 2,000 and 5,000 a month for small businesses, mid-size companies and enterprises.

The pricing page at frends.com/pricing shows no tier prices; Frends supplied the last set of figures to AutomationAtlas directly, with permission to publish. Those figures name company sizes, not tiers. Skip Growth if you need self-hosted or high-availability Agents; its service description (v1.0.1) excludes both. Think twice if nobody on your team writes C#.

Editor's Note: The word BPMN does a lot of work in how Frends is described, so I recently read what Frends' own Process reference actually promises. Import is real: BPMN 2.0 diagrams come in as text, XML or .bpmn files, though unsupported shapes are dropped or simplified. Export is not what most buyers assume: it carries "none of the Frends Process functionality" and exists "solely for including the BPMN in documentational use cases". On a multi-year Frends contract, price your eventual exit as a rewrite, and value BPMN as the on-ramp for your analysts' diagrams, which is still worth having. The caveat: we haven't run an import-and-export round trip on a live tenant, so I can't yet say how much of a real diagram survives. — Rafal Fila, ShadowGen