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Automation Anywhere vs Blue Prism comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

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

Fortra's Automate
Sponsored
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
Automation Anywhere
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
526
Ranking in other categories
Process Mining (1st)
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 January 2025, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Fortra's Automate is 1.4%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Automation Anywhere is 11.4%, down from 15.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Blue Prism is 12.4%, up from 11.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
 

Q&A Highlights

reviewer1373997 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 29, 2021
 

Featured Reviews

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.
IPSIT JANA - PeerSpot reviewer
Terminal emulator enhances efficiency while error handling needs improvement
There are improvements needed in error handling processes, as currently, they rely on start and end error commands. A more strategic approach could enhance efficiency. While the implementation of a structured development approach has been introduced, further enhancements could be made to accommodate non-technical users better, perhaps by making the platform more accessible and user-friendly through a flowchart or diagram-based setup. Automation Anywhere can be moderately challenging for business users without technical skills. While the platform offers some drag-and-drop functionality, building automation requires a strong understanding of logical operations and scripting. To become proficient, users may need to invest time in learning basic coding concepts or pursuing relevant certifications. This learning curve can mean that users typically require a few months of training before they can effectively build and implement automation.
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

"The product effectively handles all the tasks we require."
"The solution is continuously adding more integrations to help with workflows and bot and task creation."
"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."
"The ability to connect to websites and pull data is the solution's most valuable feature."
"The best feature of Automate is its ease of use, which is a major selling point."
"The most valuable features for my client are timing and scheduling."
"We are still in the process of rolling it to production and tweaking it (our AD groups are a mess), but the improvements are priceless. Having users ID's created the same way every time without human error is the best part. We don't need to worry about why groups were not added, user rights not set to folders or missing a private folder being created, typos or just even knowing when things are done and logged."
"The pricing is excellent. I would give them perfect marks in that regard."
"Bot Insights is neatly integrated into the platform, which enables us to develop rapidly and train the learning instances using pre-defined domains over the purchase orders, forms, and invoices that need to be processed."
"It is easy to use and very scalable."
"The ability to build automation without coding is its most valuable feature."
"The development tools are very good. It's very user-friendly and easy to develop and deploy with Automation Anywhere. Ordinary people, within a few weeks, can develop a bot using the tool."
"Our bots have automated time consuming tasks and completely freed up one person to do real work."
"The overall developer client has an easy-to-use UI."
"We have seen AA bringing immense value to the clients once operational. Bot deployment is easy and controlling Access is easy with RBAC With Recent additions. User groups and user management is on par with tools like Blue Prism & UiPath."
"In particular, with our requirements, we have seen reduced dependency on the workforce and we had proper execution of our business process."
"Blue Prism provides both on-premises and cloud versions."
"It is a stable solution."
"If there is a task that Blue Prism cannot do out of the box, Blue Prism provides me the facility of designing one and integrating it into the application. This process is called Visual Basic Objects."
"Blue Prism is a mature, stable product with lots of built-in features."
"RPA processes are helpful when we need interaction with different applications and close the technical gaps between them. In one of the use cases that we evaluated, there was a single Excel template from a vendor. The Excel file has 7,000 objects, and it included information about the part numbers, prices, and some of the details about each object of the aircraft. This file had to be input to SAP, so a human had to enter these 7,000 objects one by one, which is a pretty mechanical and uninteresting task. The RPA bot was easily able to import this file. Without RPA, this import had to be done by a person who had to do the same task 7,000 times just to import one contract."
"This solution has increased the speed, accuracy, and happiness of staff involved in the activities for which RPA has been deployed."
"It is not just for coders, as you can have a diagrammatic representation of the process."
"The multi-bot architecture is very flexible."
 

Cons

"It's possible that they could use a stronger community for seeking guidance and help."
"The documentation for errors needs improvement as many of the error messages we receive are very vague."
"Fortra's Automate is not as reliable as I would like it to be."
"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."
"I believe we need to test various OCR tools that assist in evaluating, let's say, six different customer resyncs. We analyze their spending patterns and documentations, but current OCR support has limitations, requiring highly standardized documents, which isn't always the case. With a more advanced OCR system, we could improve processes related to credit risk management and legal matters. We're exploring how to integrate Fortra's Automate with our CRM platform, taking cues from instances where Salesforce seamlessly merged with Automate. However, we use a different CRM, Insight for New Enterprise, and we're seeking ways to connect the automation process within our CRM. We aim for the automation to continue smoothly, even in instances where traditional automation methods might face hurdles."
"They do not encrypt passwords, so this is an issue with HIPAA compliance."
"We really need a free development environment for customers. Building and testing automation on production isn't ideal."
"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."
"We would like to have a better debugging facility."
"Integrations should be included with the analytics platforms and third-party SAP, enterprise-level applications, as well as if there are any built-in connectors where you can connect with the ERPs to automate the required teams."
"Intelligent automation is currently a buzz and I would love to see more innovation in this segment."
"We encountered issues during the upgrade of the framework. We were using the older framework of version 10.3.5. When we were upgrading, we were having a few issues in terms of getting the proper hardware and software prerequisites. For some things, like getting the controls of some of the application's tools, we were getting Automation Anywhere's help."
"Migration is probably our biggest challenge. When we were trying to do the migration to the new version, it was a little bit painful. We didn't have that many bots, and I can't imagine the level of effort that some of the bigger customers have to put in for that. The product is stable, but moving from one release to the other was the issue."
"In the last two years, with the help of IQ Bot, and what I learned today about this Attended Automation 2.0, I think they are addressing vital key challenges that we have faced so far."
"They need to make the solution more robust."
"When a bot is in production, sometimes the keystrokes will not work. I am not sure why, and we have tried to contact technical support. They said that they don't have an answer for this. It happens in the the remote environment when we are deploying a bot into AWS machines. So, technical support said this happens in AWS machines sometimes: If the bot is running and the machine is locked, then at that time, the key strokes will not work. They have provided that solution, but we are trying to avoid keystrokes now."
"We would like to see intelligent process automation that integrates RPA and machine learning."
"Blue Prism develops its own tools and process automation, but the documentation is unclear and incomplete."
"For developers, they should have some kind of recording feature."
"Blue Prism is a little behind Automation Anywhere in the topics related to maintenance and report building."
"Though Blue Prism has now come up with features like decipher and computer vision, it is still not able to address most of the issues, making it an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The control room is its worst feature. It can be laggy, and it is not as user-friendly. We're with staying Blue Prism, but we're moving it from on-premises to Microsoft cloud for cost savings. We looked into Blue Prism cloud. It has a lot of features, but it comes with a lot of costs. Right now, we have six spots, and we're only at 13% utilization. The cost didn't really weigh out for us for moving to Blue Prism cloud, but on-premises, it is working for what we need."
"The upgrades could be managed better. I would also like to see more true AI development and machine learning."
"If this solution had a framework for exception handling then it would be very helpful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 like the way this solution is priced because you can buy a license, or you can buy the software outright."
"The cost is a bit high for a small business like ours, but we manage with Fortra's Automate."
"It comes with a package that costs approximately $20,000 USD per year."
"Once you buy the software, you just pay for the support for backend help."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing for Automation Anywhere is reasonable."
"We just did a round of price comparison on a global scale and found it's so hard to compare the license prices. But, Automation Anywhere, in general, is on the same price level as the other vendors, a bit lower in some cases."
"We have seen about a 10 percent monetary savings."
"Time and monetary savings can range from 20 to 90 percent."
"They have a ridiculously expensive bot licensing structure, especially for the Asian region."
"It saves me around $100,000 a year."
"Automation Anywhere might have a higher upfront cost than some competitors, but its extensive features and seamless integration with other tools can save organizations money in the long run."
"In terms of pricing, this is a good product."
"There is a one-time purchase fee for this solution."
"Blue Prism is less expensive than some of the other RPA solutions."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $5,000 USD per year."
"The tool’s licensing is on a monthly basis."
"The solution is not that expensive and a five-year license costs about 20k euros."
"Blue Prism has a really simple licensing model, where the licenses are not confusing and there are no hidden costs the way there are in UiPath."
"I don't recall what it was. Initially, we had our licensing through the consultant, and when we stopped using them, we renegotiated licensing. Blue Prism gave us temporary licenses during the negotiation. When all things were said and done, it came out to a decent price even without the vendor. So, our management has been happy with that."
"Its price should be lower."
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Answers from the Community

reviewer1373997 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 29, 2021
Jun 29, 2021
@reviewer1356150 @Nilesh Pawar @reviewer1390509 @Alex Yuan @Hayaa Kayasseh you've all recently written reviews for one of these products. Do you have any insight to share with @reviewer1373997 about governance and business continuity requirements for these products?
See 2 answers
Rony_Sklar - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 20, 2020
@reviewer1356150 @Nilesh Pawar @reviewer1390509 @Alex Yuan @Hayaa Kayasseh you've all recently written reviews for one of these products. Do you have any insight to share with @reviewer1373997 about governance and business continuity requirements for these products?
Mohammed Tafazal - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 29, 2021
For any RPA tool it required have a generic /universal governance model where  1. sponsor or Head of RPA implementation 2. Business analysts 3.Architects(solution/technical) 4.Developers ( Full stack - Build, Test and SIT) 5.Scrum master or Sprints head or Project manager 6. QA ( Test automation) - optional Above generic governance model/structure roles for handling any kind of RPA process. One proven way to implement centralized automation management is via a CoE. The best practices of Robotic Process Automation states that the use of bots doesn’t increase negative risks for the organization in the development of reusable solutions. The responsibilities of a Centre of Excellence will depend on the exact governance model used. The most common activities include the following: Drive RPA in the business, training teams, and increasing awareness of RPA in those. Calculate the criticality and quality of the developed solutions, ensuring the application of best practices. Monitor the operation of bots and guarantee that execution SLAs (service-level agreement) are met. Follow and report the main development stages. Guarantee the execution of established governance processes. Guarantee the continual improvement of processes and tools. Business Continuity Requirements: To have backup or disaster recovery machines for the critical RPA processes with load balancing using central orchestration in different clusters. For any of the RPA there is orchestration tool which handles all the initiation and processing from one location have it maintained well from risks and disasters with load balancing. This will helps in business continuity.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
15%
Healthcare Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
We used the platform primarily for task automation, including transmitting EDR files. Additionally, we've utilized it...
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 want...
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 ver...
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 applic...
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.
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
Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise
No data available
 

Learn More

 

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
Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
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 Automation Anywhere vs. Blue Prism and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.