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Appian RPA vs Blue Prism comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Automate
Sponsored
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Appian RPA
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
16th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (23rd)
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
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automate is 1.5%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Appian RPA is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Blue Prism is 10.5%, down from 12.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
 

Featured Reviews

Anabel Marco - PeerSpot reviewer
Automates processes efficiently with cost-effective scaling and robust customer support
Web scraping is quite good since it offers a lot of possibilities. Another important feature for me is its compatibility with MBI, the Power that is ISEQUADO Centers. I appreciate the ability to scale and increase the number of bots or studios without additional expense. Automate's non-reliance on additional orchestrators makes it quite cost-effective.
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

"It's very easy to use. That's a big selling point for it. It has got a drag-and-drop interface, so you can quickly deploy bots."
"Fortra's Automate has effectively replaced the workload of an entire employee, saving us significant time and money."
"A great feature that you seldom see in these kind of systems is the ability to use a database as trigger to launch a task. This is something I asked for a few years ago and that was added."
"I would rate the technical support as a nine out of ten because it is quite fast and courteous."
"The most valuable features of Fortra's Automate include its FTP functionality and file manipulation capabilities."
"This product is quite easy to install, learn, and use, with our new employees being able to start using it in projects for clients after only two weeks of internal training."
"I find the ease of use from a programming perspective very valuable."
"The ability to connect to websites and pull data is the solution's most valuable feature."
"Appian RPA is super easy to use, offering low code, no code capabilities."
"Mostly we use the Design Studio to develop the automation. It's great. We put them into deployment and have the automated process running. It's essentially the Design Studio for Blue Prism and the entire methodology of delivery that is the most useful or valuable to us."
"The performance is very good and it is a valuable feature."
"From technical perspective, Blue Prism is pretty good. Overall, it's a stable and scalable solution. Installation is straightforward as well."
"Blue Prism is highly scalable and reliable."
"The solution enables process creation and is object oriented."
"It's quite easy to use and easy to understand the process studio."
"The solution is way more efficient for debugging than other tools."
"Blue Prism is stable enough."
 

Cons

"Error messages should be better. For error status, there should be better documentation because a lot of times, error messages that you get are quite vague. For example, you get a message saying that the workflow has run into an unknown status, which is vague. It just tells you that it failed, but you don't know how or why it failed. It makes debugging difficult."
"The interface could be more user-friendly and easier to navigate."
"It would be an improvement if Automate had better stability tools, whether by recommending a certain amount of memory because it can be a memory hog at times."
"The workflow for variables could be better. The input and output of task-level variables could be made a little clearer in terms of passing those around from one task to another upon success, etc. Things like that could be a little easier potentially."
"The documentation is not that great."
"The technical support could be better. We suffer from language barriers, as we are in Argentina."
"I would prefer not having to log in to update a ticket; being able to respond via email would be beneficial."
"They do not encrypt passwords, so this is an issue with HIPAA compliance."
"There are not any areas that need improvement off the top of my head."
"The deployment of the bots should be much faster and more intuitive."
"Blue Prism can improve on the ease of use of its graphic user interface(GUI)."
"They should add more OCR engines to it."
"I don't like that it is so limited, anything that you do feels limited in your capabilities."
"The initial setup and deployment could be simplified."
"In the next release of this solution, I would like to see support for attended robots."
"I would like to see a cloud version of Blue Prism available. Both cloud and on-premise options would be beneficial, as they would reduce maintenance costs. I'm using the Blue Prism desktop, which is still in the initial stages. I want enhancements in the Object Explorer and Application Model features to ensure stability in upcoming versions. I have suggested a few ideas, such as incorporating triggering mechanisms, but I haven't seen them implemented yet."
"The control room is still the desktop version, which restricts access. You can't really access it from anywhere."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost."
"Once you buy the software, you just pay for the support for backend help."
"While solutions like UiPath and Blue Prism cost around $11,000-$12,000 for each license, this product costs around $7,000 and you can keep it forever."
"I believe the price falls within a reasonable range, which significantly influenced our decision regarding the product. This aspect is crucial for any technological solution, especially in our country where enterprises might be hesitant to invest heavily in something untested or uncertain about its practicality and potential returns."
"It comes with a package that costs approximately $20,000 USD per year."
"From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point."
"It has gone up in price. The price of Fortra's Automate has increased since we first started using it. It does a lot but also costs a lot. It was a lot more affordable before Fortra owned the software."
"The cost is a bit high for a small business like ours, but we manage with Fortra's Automate."
Information not available
"I don't have an idea about Blue Prism, but I have an idea about UiPath. UiPath is scaling its business in different products. It has got products for intelligent document processing (IDP) to test or log integrations for chatbots. If you want to work on something like a true test automation, you have to buy a test book. In such cases, they have a predefined way of working with, implementing, or running things. This is where I see that UiPath might be a bit costly or expensive when compared to Blue Prism because UiPath charges for each and every product."
"The price is on par with other products in the market."
"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."
"The licensing is approximately $1,100."
"They work on a big partnership kind of program with our organization, and they also give us a lot of discounts. Its price is pretty much comparable to the other solutions like UiPath and Automation Anywhere."
"The license for Blue Prism is very straightforward, we only need one license."
"We really don't bear the costs. The cost is borne by the customer. It runs into about $100,000 per year per customer for Blue Prism. We normally budget around $30,000 for the first year for the hardware, setup, and people cost."
"The tool’s licensing is on a monthly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
No data available
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about HelpSystems AutoMate?
We use it for specific cases, mainly secure file transfers, which are vital for us. And it works for us.
What is your primary use case for HelpSystems AutoMate?
I am a consultant and I am making a lot of processes in human resources, payroll, certifications, trainings, web scra...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?
The pricing is quite good compared to its competitors. Competitors are often more expensive than Automate. I would ra...
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 ...
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 e...
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 sol...
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 imp...
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 an...
 

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate
Jidoka RPA
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aldergrove Financial Group, Preferred Health Professionals, Mindbeam Technologies, First Credit Union in British Columbia, Vestcom International, Prime Liberty Benefits, University of Tampa, CNLBancshares, World Precision Instruments, BJ's Restaurants, Globe Pequot Press, Accudata Technologies, Norton Healthcare, Pacific Toxicology Laboratories
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, Automation Anywhere, Microsoft and others in Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.