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Automation Anywhere vs Fortra's Automate comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Automation Anywhere
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
525
Ranking in other categories
Process Mining (1st)
Fortra's Automate
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automation Anywhere is 11.7%, down from 15.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's Automate is 1.3%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
 

Featured Reviews

Nelson F. Guerrero - PeerSpot reviewer
Saved us half a million dollars and 10,000 hours in the first year
There have been numerous improvements in the organization. We have saved hours and time and hard dollars. In the first year, we saved over half a million dollars. That was about six months of time. After that, we have done at least three million year over year, and we have increased that very much. As far as time saved, it is well over 10,000 hours in the first year alone, and we continue to grow. This year, we are projecting 30,000 manual hours saved. Prior to the implementation of Automation Anywhere, we had lots and lots of manual work. People would go into Excel and copy data from one master sheet to many sheets. They would compile data. They would take lots of time to do these things. Today, they can go in, press a button, and launch it. They can download hundreds and thousands of invoices, whereas previously, they used to do it manually. One of our use cases saved two people four days a week of time, which is 32 hours each. We now do that automatically in six hours. The learning curve is initially a little daunting, but after you are in there and you understand how it works, it is very seamless. It is very easy to pick up and very intuitive, and then from there, it is pretty much you go and get your hands dirty. The tools that we integrate with Automation Anywhere so far have been Python scripts and PowerShell. We have got Power Automate and Power Flows from Microsoft. We are starting to do some cognitive RPA. We are implementing OpenAI through Azure. We have got a lot of that going right now. The integration with all of the documents and APIs is very seamless. There are packages available in the store if you do not have the integration built-in out of the box. They are available to everyone. Everything that we have been able to use has been just drag and drop. We can just pop in our credentials and be done. Automation Anywhere has affected us in a positive way in terms of employee capacity and compliance. We have not had to backfill roles. We have not necessarily replaced people, and that is by intent. We did not want to replace people, but we also did not want to have to backfill people. We wanted people to focus on things that they value and be more productive instead of doing mind-numbing things that get no value, but they just have to do it. Our time and cost savings have been immense since the beginning. In our first year, after we started launching the bots in June or July of 2019, we saved half a million dollars and 10,000 man-hours. Since then, we have grown more than 70% year over year. This year, we are on track to go up to about 40,000 man-hours saved and more than three million hard dollars saved. They have been able to provide automation at scale pretty well. We fired up and started off with only three production machines. We are now up at five. Officially, we were going up to seven as of next week. We have heard about people here at the Imagine conference who, for example, have hundreds, so the point is proven, and the facts are there. They can scale up very quickly. The main Automation Anywhere Program offering we use is Pathfinder. We have not utilized our partner services or anything like that, but Pathfinder has been great. Their user groups have been great. To be able to focus and see the product launches beforehand has always been advantageous. The ability to see that has been good.
Anabel Marco - PeerSpot reviewer
Can automate several processes with only one bot and is easy to implement, administer, and use
We have tried other RPA solutions like UiPath or Automation Anywhere. They are fantastic products but complex, and it's hard to understand everything. It would be best if you had a skilled developer or several. Automate is easy to implement, administer, and use. It's appropriate for us because our cases are simple and easy to automate. We don't need complicated tools with many features; We prefer to get a significant ROI quickly. We can automate several processes with only one bot, so it's much cheaper than other products where you need to buy additional licenses. We need a good value for our automation. The other solutions might be more robust, but Automate is perfect for us because we're not a large enterprise.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The integrations with the OCR engines in Automation Anywhere are quite powerful. It has helped us in many projects."
"The ability for it to be able to be scaled rapidly. For us, it has certainly provided a range of flexibility that we hadn't appreciated before we started. This means that in times of high demand for processes to be completed, we're able to quickly scale up on demand. That gives us that additional flexibility without the need to potentially consider contingent labor increases. So, it's sort of a head count avoidance increase. So, that's proved very useful for us."
"I love the Bot Store. I encourage a lot of my staff to use it, because it changes the game and the time that it takes to build automation. It has a lot of reusable things that you can use off the bat."
"The most valuable feature is the screen recorder, which helps to automate processes easily."
"The biggest benefit of Automation Anywhere is that it makes our processes error-free. Accuracy is how you build efficiency within the system and increase productivity."
"The drag-and-drop feature is valuable."
"By using its AI & ML capabilities, we have solved many problems for our clients."
"The best part about Automation Anywhere is the easy to use UI. It's very user-friendly. You have everything that you want in front of your eyes. You just have to drag and drop, then build your logic accordingly."
"The most valuable features for my client are timing and scheduling."
"The product effectively handles all the tasks we require."
"We have tried other RPA solutions like UiPath or Automation Anywhere. They are fantastic products but complex, and it's hard to understand everything. It would be best if you had a skilled developer or several. Automate is easy to implement, administer, and use. It's appropriate for us because our cases are simple and easy to automate. We don't need complicated tools with many features; We prefer to get a significant ROI quickly."
"The ability to connect to websites and pull data is the solution's most valuable feature."
"I actually quite liked the no-coding functionality."
"The most valuable feature is the drag-and-drop interface, which is very Windows-like."
"This tool has machine learning and voice recognition and computer vision, which are both quite useful aspects. These aren't available in other tools. It's a good addition to this tool and it gives the solution an edge on the market."
"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."
 

Cons

"It is not able to use OCR effectively and has limited usability."
"Some NLP AI is required to work in combination with RPA, especially for reading unstructured emails."
"It may sound a little funny or weird, but one thing that we are thinking is we have to go to various websites and pick up relevant data from various websites using the bot. That is something we have seen that none of the bots have been able to really do it because the back-end of those websites do not allow bots to scrap through all these websites and get the relevant data in one place. We would like to see how the bot companies would crack this idea. But, that's why I said, this look weird because of the legal reasons why this cannot be done. This is something that I am looking forward to."
"The price has room for improvement."
"Automation Anywhere could enhance its services by establishing a local office in our region to provide better support."
"When dealing with a large number of variables, uploading them directly from an Excel sheet to Automation Anywhere is not supported."
"We want it to work with more APIs. It needs to integrate with multiple APIs. That would be something that I would like going forward."
"The stability could be enhanced."
"The documentation is not that great."
"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 for errors needs improvement as many of the error messages we receive are very vague."
"We really need a free development environment for customers. Building and testing automation on production isn't ideal."
"The interface could be more user-friendly and easier to navigate."
"Sometimes when we communicate with the ERP system and there is an issue, we are not always aware of the specifics of Automate and the source of the problem."
"The intelligent automation feature could be improved. It's interesting because it's simple, but the automation quality isn't always good. It's easy to use, but sometimes you need to make a slight improvement to the automation, and that's not so easy."
"While this solution is continually improving, as it is now, the user interface could use improvement when I compare it to a product like UiPath."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are currently negotiating a contract. Depending upon that, we will definitely look at increasing usage."
"The licensing cost is approximately $4,000 USD, which is a seed license."
"If you look at the capital expenditure, Automation Anywhere is number two to UiPath. But if you take a long-term view, on a scalable model of a large number of bots coming out, it slowly goes on to become the costliest tool. There is something they can do about that. The capital expenditure goes out right at the point of buying the tool. For Automation Anywhere, I would need to spend $20,000. UiPath can give me something for $6,000, while Blue Prism will come in at $300,000."
"It is subscription-based. They have different schemes. The price depends on how you negotiate with the local partner or local representative in your country."
"Automation Anywhere is expensive."
"I would like them to have better license management."
"The product’s pricing is reasonable."
"They're very flexible around pricing and licensing."
"From a distributor's side, one of the biggest selling points is its price point. Without going into any numbers, compared to UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and Blue Prism, we're significantly cheaper. The main difference is that other competitors usually charge you per process. However, in Automate's case, it's priced per bot. So, a bot can run multiple processes at the same time, but you are only priced for a single bot."
"From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point."
"I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost."
"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."
"The pricing is quite reasonable. We can run the process with one bot. The limitation is at the server level because they have some resources, and sometimes that is enough. It isn't too expensive, so you can get a good return off of one, and you can also have a pack of five bots that is quite competitive."
"Once you buy the software, you just pay for the support for backend help."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
5%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Healthcare Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is very good in certain situations but lacks in others. For me, it's more the team tha...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applications that AA has limitations for, such as the Oracle. For web-based applicatio...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.
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?
We used the platform primarily for task automation, including transmitting EDR files. Additionally, we've utilized it for repetitive tasks, such as downloading web-based reports using the browser a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?
The starter pack was all we needed and was reasonable. Others were either more expensive or didn't do all that I wanted to do without an addon.
 

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise
HelpSystems Automate, Automate
 

Learn More

Video not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Automation Anywhere vs. Fortra's Automate and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.