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Appian RPA vs Blue Prism comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Appian RPA
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
19th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (25th)
Blue Prism
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

MikahSellers - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient automation with substantial ROI and innovative UI enhancements
We were automating customer experience workflows for the contact center, including systems like CRM, service desk solutions, CCaaS solutions, and pulling data from ERPs It allowed us to reduce the level of effort to complete contact processes from one hundred fifty seconds to ninety seconds,…
Mohamed Salah Baccouche - PeerSpot reviewer
Way more efficient for debugging than other tools but the UI is complicated
The UI is more complicated than other tools. In Power Automate, it doesn't even feel like you are working because the tool does the job for you. But in the solution, there are studio, process, and object interfaces and you have to decode your own objects. The free objects that are predefined are not good compared to other tools. There is still a lot of work to do on the solution's intelligent automation part.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Appian RPA is super easy to use, offering low code, no code capabilities."
"We find many of Blue Prism's features valuable. One recent one we're using is Decipher IDP. We're also looking at a couple of other tools and working on proofs of concept. Decipher IDP helps us create templates to extract data from images and PDF files, which is especially useful for processing invoices accurately and feeding that information into our systems."
"It is not just for coders, as you can have a diagrammatic representation of the process."
"One of the most powerful features in Blue Prism is exception handling. It's one of the features that really differentiates it from other platforms."
"Being able to create an object and use it for multiple processes has been very useful for us."
"The most valuable feature is that people with zero coding knowledge can use Blue Prism very well."
"The entire tool is valuable because it is an enterprise tool. It is on par with other tools like Automation Anywhere or UiPath with the OCR/ICR facilities, analytics, and the entire package for enterprise-level security. It has the highest level of security as compared to any other tool."
"I like the solution’s simplicity in process and objects. The solution has very clear guidelines and demarcation on processes and objects which is not present in other tools. The tool’s architecture is also very simple and clear. The product’s licensing model is also very simple. Other tools do not have such a simple licensing model."
"Blue Prism MAPIEx and the Java Bridge are really great features provided for automating Java-based applications and for allowing mail to send and receive smoothly."
 

Cons

"There are not any areas that need improvement off the top of my head."
"I would like to see wider integration with other products."
"We had a lot of challenges managing authentication and reusing or using external authentication providers."
"Blue Prism features two layers of documentation. If we could make it in one layer, then it would be easy to develop, and it would take less time for developers to complete the task."
"Navigation within the UI could be improved."
"There are many reasons why many companies don't go for Blue Prism. It is not open, and the community addition is not available. Blue Prism provides support through partnership. You need to do a partnership with them, which is a major disadvantage. You contact a Blue Prism team, and they will schedule a meeting with you. They will give you a demo and help you set up everything, whereas with UiPath and Automation Anywhere, you can try the community edition, and if it fits your needs, you simply buy a license for that. The initial setup of Blue Prism is complex. They simply provide a PDF or documentation for you to go through it, whereas, if you go with UiPath or Automation Anywhere, they have several videos and community support to guide you. The documentation of Blue Prism is static. They don't have any sort of videos or open forums. Other tools have got a lot of community support, but Blue Prism doesn't have that. Its training is also hard to attain, and they also don't provide any certification."
"Blue Prism is lagging in terms of artificial intelligence. There is no artificial intelligence in version 4 or 5, which most people are still using as far as I'm aware. To be fair, they do have AI in version 6. Still, it's lagging terribly. Blue Prism is the inventor of the name of the term "RPA," and it's disappointing to see they are sitting around... Cognitive learning, for example, where it can actually follow your movements on the screen, is not there in Blue Prism."
"There are some security issues in Blue Prism. The German vendor Servicetrace is way better. This is also reflected in the Gartner report where Servicetrace is mentioned as the tool of choice in high-security environments. So, security, particularly in terms of administration, needs to be improved. We must have the possibility to prevent the administration from taking a look at the ongoing process. When we have restricted data flow, the operations team should not be able to take a look at the data that is processed."
"We didn't find it much useful for unstructured data. It is not easy to do the automation with Blue Prism if you have unstructured data. It should have better automation processes or connectors for unstructured data such as PDFs or pictures. It has a connector for different applications, such as SAP, but we use a few other applications for which it doesn't have a connector. It should have a more comprehensive dashboard that we can use to see the processes that are running and control the parameters."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Blue Prism is pretty steep compared to the others, much more than Automation Anywhere."
"Licensing is on a yearly basis."
"The pricing is really good for an enterprise-level solution. It's quite scalable and it's quite comparable with the market."
"Its price should be lower."
"Its price is sometimes higher."
"It's an expensive product. For what they are providing in terms of capabilities and features for the price, I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten."
"Blue Prism has a higher cost with respect to RPA enablement, particularly if you are trying to start with RPA."
"The solution is enterprise software so we will try to maximize our usage during the available slots. We will get ROI with the high price since there will be some value added with automation. I think that after doing a cost-benefit analysis, we are on the positive side."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Appian RPA?
I didn't handle payments or costs. We recommended infrastructure stacks to our clients, who implemented them, and we provided ongoing consulting services.
What needs improvement with Appian RPA?
There are not any areas that need improvement off the top of my head. It has been 18 months since I worked with the environment, and they've made UI enhancements and implemented AI, including featu...
What is your primary use case for Appian RPA?
We were automating customer experience workflows for the contact center, including systems like CRM, service desk solutions, CCaaS solutions, and pulling data from ERPs.
Should I choose Blue Prism or Microsoft Power Automate?
Hello Netanya, it depends on your needs and your expertise. In my humble opinion you can start a big RPA project implementation with Blue Prism which is stable and mature software, in order to ser...
I am evaluating Blue Prism and UiPath for RPA for my company. Which one do you recommend?
I'm very familiar with UiPath and the RPA industry: was hired by Daniel Dines in 2015 when there were 35 employees and left in 2019 when there were 3K+. I'm a big believer in the product, leadershi...
 

Also Known As

Jidoka RPA
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

empark, talan, liverpool, ayesa, aeromexico, teknei
Coca-Cola, Walgreens, American Express, Royal Bank of Canada, Pfizer, Shop Direct, O2, Siemens, Ascension Healthcare, Jaguar Land Rover
Find out what your peers are saying about UiPath, Microsoft, Automation Anywhere and others in Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Updated: November 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.