If your business runs on SharePoint and Nintex, the pressure is on. Microsoft retired the SharePoint 2013 workflow engine in Microsoft 365 on April 2, 2026, along with the SharePoint Add-In model. Nintex Workflow for Office 365 lost mainstream support back in December 2025. The next big date is July 14, 2026, when SharePoint Server 2016 and 2019 reach the end of support, roughly eleven weeks from now.

Read that timeline again. Some Nintex workflows have already stopped working as tenants are switched over. Others are running on a clock. Not “deprecated.” Not “limited support.” Stopped, or stopping soon.

If you have been searching for ways to handle SharePoint workflow automation without Nintex, or for a SharePoint workflow tool that holds up in 2026, this guide is meant to help you make a decision that works after the deadlines, not just before them.

Why teams are moving off Nintex right now

Three things are pushing IT and operations leaders to look beyond Nintex.

The deadlines are not theoretical. Nintex confirmed earlier this year that workflows built on the SharePoint Workflow Add-In and forms built on the SharePoint Forms Add-In would stop functioning as Microsoft disabled the Add-In model. That rollout has already started across tenants. When it hits yours, clicking the Nintex Add-In returns a generic Microsoft message that the service is no longer available. The next deadline, July 14, 2026, is the harder one: SharePoint Server 2016 and 2019 reach the end of support, with no extensions promised.

The economics have shifted. Many Nintex licensing models charge per workflow, per form, or per execution. As organizations digitize more processes, those line items grow faster than the value of any single workflow. Finance teams keep asking why automation costs scale linearly with adoption.

The on-premises path is narrowing. Customers in regulated sectors, government, healthcare, banking, and defense do not always have the option to run workflows in someone else’s cloud. Nintex’s modern direction is cloud-first. That leaves on-prem teams looking for tools that still treat on-prem as a first-class deployment.

If any of those three reasons sound familiar, the question is no longer whether to replace Nintex. It is what to replace it with, and how.

What “SharePoint workflow automation without Nintex” actually means

You have four real options once Nintex is out of the picture.

  1. Microsoft Power Automate. Cloud-native, included in many Microsoft 365 plans, but does not run in SharePoint on-premises. Premium connectors and per-flow licensing add up quickly for high-volume use cases.
  2. Custom development on SharePoint Framework (SPFx) and Azure Functions. Powerful, but requires developers. The people closest to the process, in HR, finance, and IT operations, cannot build or maintain anything themselves.
  3. A purpose-built no-code/low-code SharePoint workflow tool. A platform that runs inside SharePoint and treats forms, workflows, approvals, dashboards, and portals as one unified system.
  4. Do nothing and accept the risk. Rarely a real option once auditors and CISOs see the dates.

If your criteria include a citizen-developer model, on-premises support, and flat licensing, option three is the one most organizations choose.

A practical 5-step framework to migrate off Nintex

This is the sequence that works for IT leaders who replaced Nintex without disrupting the business.

Step 1: Inventory every workflow and form

Pull a complete list of Nintex workflows and forms across every site collection. Note the SharePoint version, the Nintex edition (Add-In, on-prem, or Automation Cloud), the number of users, and the business owner. Spreadsheets are fine. The point is to see the surface area honestly.

Step 2: Classify by criticality and complexity

Group each workflow into one of four buckets:

  • Critical and simple. Approval chains, leave requests, purchase requests, IT tickets. Migrate first.
  • Critical and complex. Multi-system workflows that touch finance or compliance systems. Plan carefully.
  • Non-critical and simple. Often unused or duplicated. Retire instead of migrating.
  • Non-critical and complex. Question whether they should exist at all.

You will often find that a meaningful share of legacy workflows can be retired rather than migrated.

Step 3: Define your deployment requirements

Before picking a replacement tool, get clear on where your data has to live. SharePoint Online is fine for some teams. Government and defense customers may need GCC or GCC High. Banking, healthcare, and air-gapped environments often need on-premises or fully disconnected deployments. The right tool should support all those environments without you rewriting workflows for each one.

Step 4: Pick a no-code/low-code SharePoint workflow tool that matches your reality

Use these criteria when evaluating any 2026 SharePoint workflow tool:

  • Native to SharePoint and Microsoft 365, not a separate cloud you bolt on
  • No-code/low-code form designer with conditional logic, validations, and column-level permissions
  • Workflow engine with approvals, timers, SLAs, and custom actions
  • Reports, dashboards, and portals built on the same platform
  • Flat-rate pricing that does not penalize you for adding workflows
  • Real on-premises and air-gapped support, not just a hosted cloud

Step 5: Migrate iteratively, validate weekly

Move the highest-value workflows first. Run them in parallel with Nintex for one or two weeks. Train the business owners to edit forms themselves. That single habit is the difference between “migration done” and “migration adopted.” Decommission the old workflow only after end users sign off.

Where NITRO Studio fits

Crow Canyon Software has been building automation on SharePoint for over 27 years as a Microsoft Solutions Partner. NITRO Studio is the no-code/low-code platform built for exactly this moment.

It runs inside your existing Microsoft 365 or SharePoint tenant. Your data stays where you already manage it. There is no separate vendor cloud to authorize, no new identity model to set up.

Five deployment environments are supported:

  • SharePoint Online
  • SharePoint On-Premises (2016, 2019, Subscription Edition)
  • GCC
  • GCC High
  • Air-Gapped On-Premises (NITRO Secure)

The platform includes:

  • Forms Designer with conditional logic, validations, and column-level permissions
  • Workflow Manager with approvals, timers, SLAs, and custom actions
  • Reports and dashboards
  • Portals for external users and contractors
  • NITRO Copilot for AI-assisted email replies, knowledge base lookups, and form suggestions

Pricing is flat. NITRO Studio starts at $5,988 per 100 users per year. It does not charge per workflow, per form, or per execution. As you build more processes, your bill does not change.

That last point matters most when you compare to Nintex’s per-form and per-workflow models. Predictable cost is what lets a citizen developer add a new vacation request workflow without triggering a finance review.

What customers usually rebuild first

These are the workflows organizations move to NITRO Studio in their first 90 days:

  • Employee onboarding and offboarding
  • Leave and time-off requests
  • Purchase requisitions and approval chains
  • IT incident and service request management
  • Compliance forms and regulatory submissions
  • Asset and equipment provisioning
  • Contract intake and document review

In government and housing authorities, compliance forms and onboarding move first. In healthcare, audit and credentialing forms tend to lead. In banking, purchase requisitions and approval chains usually come first.

Where to go from here

Replacing Nintex is not a tool swap. It is a chance to clean up workflows that have been running on autopilot for years, retire what nobody uses, and put the business owners back in control of their own processes.

Start with the inventory this week. Classify next week. Make a tooling decision in May, not June. With July 14, 2026, just weeks out, the deadlines are not moving.

If you want to see what SharePoint workflow automation without Nintex looks like in your environment, with your deployment constraints and your data residency requirements, the fastest way is a working walkthrough.

Book a Demo to see NITRO Studio running inside SharePoint, with the deployment environment that matches your reality (SharePoint Online, on-premises, GCC, GCC High, or air-gapped).

Frequently Asked Questions

Inventory your existing workflows, classify them by criticality and complexity, define your deployment requirements (cloud, on-prem, GCC, GCC High, or air-gapped), pick no-code/low-code SharePoint workflow tool that runs natively in your environment, and migrate the highest-value workflows first while running them in parallel with Nintex.

Many already have. Microsoft retired the SharePoint 2013 workflow engine in Microsoft 365 and the SharePoint Add-In model on April 2, 2026, which means workflows and forms built on those frameworks no longer run once the change reaches your tenant. Nintex Workflow for Office 365 lost mainstream support on December 31, 2025. The next major date is July 14, 2026, when SharePoint Server 2016 and 2019 reach the end of support.

Yes, if you choose a tool that supports on-premises deployment. SharePoint Server Subscription Edition is Microsoft's supported on-prem path going forward. NITRO Studio runs on Subscription Edition, on existing on-premises versions during your migration window, and in fully air-gapped environments.

No. The point of a no-code/low-code SharePoint workflow tool is that business owners (HR, finance, operations, IT admins) can build and maintain workflows themselves. NITRO Studio is built around the citizen developer model, with a low learning curve and no scripting required for most use cases.

Not for every customer. Power Automate is cloud-only and does not run in SharePoint on-premises. For high-volume environments, premium connectors and per-flow licensing can add up quickly. It is a fit for some teams, but not for regulated, on-prem, or cost-sensitive workloads.