Automation Anywhere vs Blue Prism comparison

Automation Anywhere and SS&C Blue Prism are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. Automation Anywhere is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.3, while SS&C Blue Prism is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.1. Automation Anywhere holds a 10.8% mindshare in RPA, compared to SS&C Blue Prism’s 11.3% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Automation Anywhere users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of SS&C Blue Prism users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism are competitors in the robotic process automation space. Automation Anywhere is often chosen for its affordability and strong support, but Blue Prism has the upper hand due to its advanced features and enterprise-grade capabilities.

Features: Automation Anywhere offers a versatile digital workforce platform that allows quick setup and scalability. Its easy integration and robust automation capabilities are notable. Blue Prism stands out with enterprise-grade security and comprehensive governance features, ideal for organizations with extensive compliance requirements.

Room for Improvement: Automation Anywhere could enhance its modular functionality as its linear code structure can be hard to maintain. It might also improve on providing advanced automation capabilities similar to Blue Prism. Blue Prism can work on simplifying its deployment process and improve accessibility for non-technical users, which could enhance its implementation speed.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Automation Anywhere is known for easier deployment and extensive customer support, making it suitable for quick implementations. Blue Prism, while having a more complex deployment, offers in-depth documentation and robust support options, which appeal to organizations requiring thorough setup procedures.

Pricing and ROI: Automation Anywhere is generally more affordable with lower initial costs, leading to a quicker perceived ROI. Blue Prism, despite higher setup costs, provides long-term value for enterprises needing advanced automation solutions due to its comprehensive features.

To learn more, read our detailed Automation Anywhere vs. Blue Prism Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Automation Anywhere vs. Blue Prism

January 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Fortra's Automate is 1.3%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Automation Anywhere is 10.8%, down from 15.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Blue Prism is 11.3%, down from 11.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Q&A Highlights

reviewer1373997

Analyst, Intelligent Automation at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Jun 29, 2021

RPA Governance and Business Continuity requirements for a large multi-national corporate financial services provider

@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?

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Featured Reviews

Anabel Marco

Account Director at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

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.

Read full review

Vatsal Mehta

Co-Founder & CEO at HEDEHI Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

Accommodates diverse use cases and effectively meets customer requirements

AI agents need further improvements. AI agent technology in agentic process automation is still evolving. We have only scratched the surface, and there are many potential use cases yet to be explored. As technology advances, I believe it will enable us to implement more comprehensive automation solutions. Document Automation has issues related to speed. When I compare Document Automation with IQ Bot, IQ Bot is faster than Document Automation. My understanding is that they are still evolving Document Automation, and this issue of slowness will be resolved in the upcoming .35 version, so we are good with that. They are working on signature identification and validations for handwritten documents. Currently, we are able to extract data out of scanned but digital images, but there is still scope for improvement for handwritten documents.

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Mohamed Salah Baccouche

Robotic Process Automation Consultant at Ernst & Young

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"I actually quite liked the no-coding functionality."

"The most valuable feature is the drag-and-drop interface, which is very Windows-like."

"It gives us a central place to schedule tasks and run them distributed."

"The best feature of Automate is its ease of use, which is a major selling point."

"Web scraping is quite good since it offers a lot of possibilities."

"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."

More Fortra's Automate pros

"The technical support is fine. As soon as we raise an issue, we can get the technical support that we need. They provide the solutions to our issues."

"Speed is the most valuable feature. E.g., for a human, it could take around 60 minutes to create a report with a few errors. Occasionally, a person will miss something. With this bot, we can get the work done in around five minutes. So, it takes only five minutes for a report to scan and be created with fewer errors."

"The tool is now more stable, with more opportunities and new commands, like recording for the UI or advanced Excel features."

"Automation Anywhere offers valuable features, including command packages for PDF, Windows, XML, and Excel, as well as universal recording capabilities."

"We have automated the equivalent headcount of 500 FTEs since we started. Those people haven't been laid off. They are just doing different types of work activities."

"Business analytics provides real-time data that's something other competing companies lack. It uses statistics and graphs to show the performance of the bots which processes are lagging behind and if you need to give priority to certain tasks."

"Before switching to the cloud version of Automation Anywhere, I worked with v10 and v10, so I appreciate the core functionality and the fact that it's a low-code solution. That is one of the key elements that differentiates Automation Anywhere from other platforms and one of the reasons we have been able to achieve success."

"Excel automation is one of the best features in Automation Anywhere. If we have to work with multiple excel sheets with lots of rows and columns, it gets really difficult to keep track of this is done manually. But Automation Anywhere makes it really simple and error-free."

More Automation Anywhere pros

"Blue Prism provides both on-premises and cloud versions."

"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."

"It works very well for batch processing at the backend. Scalability-wise, it is very robust. It is also stable."

"The solution enables process creation and is object oriented."

"As a developer, I liked the layout and UI, specifically referring to testing. I was able to watch the process through stages."

"With Blue Prism, you automate the back-end processes. Blue Prism is more like service-side automation. It is not off-circuit automation. It is more like attended automation."

"The new features that have come out have been great."

"The multi-bot architecture is very flexible."

More Blue Prism pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

"It's possible that they could use a stronger community for seeking guidance and help."

"I find that most important features are strong, however, there is a lack of good development for artificial intelligence, such as machine learning."

"The documentation is not that great."

"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."

"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."

More Fortra's Automate cons

"The Insight feature could be improved. I don't think there's a lot of information about how to use Insight, so you have to try different scenarios to understand that feature better."

"We are still hoping to see improvements in its ability to have the client answer automatically and reconnect when Windows updates are applied."

"If the option were available to use the old generic-style variable type, it would be helpful."

"We had initial hiccups, like any new process. It took us six to eight months to sort the product out."

"I would like if the IQ Bot could read hand-written documents, otherwise, Automation Anywhere is fabulous to work or develop processes for customers."

"We have had some quirkiness happen when integrating the Automation Anywhere with other solutions, such as weird Excel issues or temperamental legacy system issues."

"Automation Anywhere's current requirement for upfront annual payments limits flexibility for customers."

"It needs to have more options for integrating with other tools."

More Automation Anywhere cons

"Blue Prism can improve on the ease of use of its graphic user interface(GUI)."

"Blue Prism needs to provide better customer support because there are some bugs in the product that make implementation tricky. Blue Prism is designed more for operational than transactional processes. If Blue Prism incorporated a lot of IQ bots and cognitive processing, then it might be of better value at a lower cost. The issue of the cost of the tool needs to be addressed. To become a Blue Prism partner, it's costly. I think that this is one of the negative aspects of using Blue Prism."

"Blue Prism could be compatible with Oracle's suite of ERPs. We have seen some issues related to this. They could do much better with their intelligent document processing solution. They're pretty behind and don't have attended bots."

"The upgrades could be managed better. I would also like to see more true AI development and machine learning."

"We would like to see some desktop automation, although we have been told that the product is not going to be taken in that direction."

"The control room is still the desktop version, which restricts access. You can't really access it from anywhere."

"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 recording of the transaction is missing in this solution."

More Blue Prism cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I like the way this solution is priced because you can buy a license, or you can buy the software outright."

"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."

"Compared to other products, the pricing model for this solution is much more convenient, flexible, and adaptable to the Portuguese reality."

"It comes with a package that costs approximately $20,000 USD per year."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The cost is a bit high for a small business like ours, but we manage with Fortra's Automate."

More Fortra's Automate pricing and cost advice

"Whatever investment, licensing, and resource costs together are put in for development and delivery, we are still at an ROI of 250 percent."

"Considering the cost, it is a bit high, but worth the price because the output accuracy is high."

"We purchase on a bot basis. Our costs are approximately $5,000."

"It looks like it will be right around $115,000, not counting IQ Bot, which we won't renew until later."

"They're very flexible around pricing and licensing."

"Regarding the price, licensing, and maintenance, Automation Anywhere provides its customers with its best and affordable value."

"It depends. For example, for my group, we are centralizing the infrastructure in Paris. Our contract is signed with Automation Anywhere in France. The currency and the pricing of Automation Anywhere in France can appear beneficial and interesting for Germany and Scandinavian countries, but when we share our infra and are internally charging other countries such as Poland, Brazil, or some other country with a lower currency value as compared to Euro, it becomes less beneficial. They would prefer to sign the contract directly with Automation Anywhere because they will benefit from a price that is as per their local market."

"The ROI is really good. We have saved time and money."

More Automation Anywhere pricing and cost advice

"The licensing is approximately $1,100."

"The licensing fees are low compared to other tools."

"Its license is costlier than UiPath and AA. They should improve its price. We have a two-year contract with them."

"Blue Prism is pretty steep compared to the others, much more than Automation Anywhere."

"In the Philippines, fewer companies are using Blue Prism because of its cost. I don't know the price, but I know that its price is higher than UiPath."

"The billing is on a yearly basis. They send us the bill every year. My business unit is billed by the technology team, so I don't know exactly how much they pay. In my business unit, we have our first-year license costs, and then we have our ongoing costs. Our bots cost projected per license is $8,600. Our projected support cost for every year is about $38,000. Our operation agent costs anywhere between $50,000 to $55,000, so the saving is there, but it is still kind of expensive for us, but I'm looking at it from the technology kind of billing us for it. This is the cost that we have for our technology team, which is different from the licensing of Blue Prism."

"Other than your infrastructure, in terms of servers that you have to set up, I don't think that there are any costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"Licensing is on a yearly basis."

More Blue Prism pricing and cost advice

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Answers from the Community

reviewer1373997

Analyst, Intelligent Automation at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Jun 29, 2021

RPA Governance and Business Continuity requirements for a large multi-national corporate financial services provider

See 2 answers

Rony_Sklar

Community Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Jul 20, 2020

Read full answer

Mohammed Tafazal

RPA Lead Architect and Manager at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees

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.

Read full answer

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

14%

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

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.

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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.

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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...

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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...

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What do you like most about Blue Prism?

It is a stable solution.

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Power Automate vs Fortra's Automate

Compared 50% of the time

UiPath vs Fortra's Automate

Compared 37% of the time

More Fortra's Automate Competitors

Microsoft Power Automate vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 32% of the time

UiPath vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 22% of the time

Tricentis Tosca vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 4% of the time

Python RPA vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 4% of the time

SAP Intelligent RPA vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 3% of the time

More Automation Anywhere Competitors

Microsoft Power Automate vs Blue Prism

Compared 37% of the time

UiPath vs Blue Prism

Compared 33% of the time

Pega Robotic Process Automation vs Blue Prism

Compared 4% of the time

Blue Prism Cloud vs Blue Prism

Compared 2% of the time

More Blue Prism Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortra's Automate

February 2025

Download Fortra's Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

Automation Anywhere

February 2025

Download Automation Anywhere product report

Buyer's Guide

Blue Prism

February 2025

Download Blue Prism product report

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise

No data available

Overview

Fortra's Automate is predominantly used in HR and operational departments for automating reports, file manipulation, and data processing. Key uses include automating repetitive tasks, integrating PDFs and emails, running scripts, processing large data sets, transforming file formats, synchronizing databases, managing job schedules, and transferring files.

Users commend Fortra's Automate for its ease of implementation and user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, which requires minimal technical skills for efficient bot deployment. The software is appreciated for its effective scheduling tools, reliable integration capabilities, and a wide range of functions such as file interaction, secure file transfers, and extensive automation without the need for coding. Businesses achieve significant time savings and simplified processes, bolstered by continuous updates and robust customer support.

What are the key features?

Scheduling Tools: Enables precise control and timing for automation tasks
Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly connects with various systems and software
File Interaction: Comprehensive functions for file manipulation and transfer
Secure Transfers: Ensures data safety during file transfers
User-Friendly: Minimal technical skills needed for deployment and use

What benefits should you look for in reviews?

Ease of Implementation: Fast and simple setup process
Time Savings: Reduces time spent on repetitive tasks
Process Simplification: Streamlines complex workflows
Customer Support: Access to continuous support and updates

In various industries such as healthcare, transportation, and payroll, Fortra's Automate automates workflows like invoice generation, data retrieval, data uploading, and insurance eligibility checks, enhancing efficiency and accuracy for HR and operational tasks.

Fortra

Automation Anywhere offers a robust automation platform known for its user-friendly interface, flexible scalability, and advanced automation capabilities. It's designed to streamline operations across industries by automating manual and repetitive tasks.

Automation Anywhere empowers organizations with its easy-to-use platform that simplifies automation processes through its drag-and-drop functionality. With features like MetaBot and IQ Bot, it provides advanced automation solutions. The platform seamlessly integrates with business applications, ensuring efficient operation and data protection through security features like the credential vault. Despite its strengths, there is room for improvement in integration with source control systems and third-party applications. Enhancing UI friendliness, IDE capabilities, and licensing flexibility, along with improved support in the Citrix environment, are needed. Better OCR accuracy, AI functionalities, and Excel integration would enhance user experiences.

What are Automation Anywhere's key features?

Ease of Use: Offers a user-friendly platform that allows straightforward automation of processes for non-technical users.
Advanced Bots: Includes MetaBot and IQ Bot for complex automation tasks.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with business applications for smooth operations.
Security: Features like credential vault ensure robust data protection.
Scalability: Provides flexibility and scalability for expanding automation needs.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Efficiency: Automates repetitive tasks, enhancing process efficiency.
Accuracy: Improves accuracy in operations like finance and HR.
Scalability: Offers scalable solutions for growing enterprises.
Cost Reduction: Reduces operational costs by streamlining processes.
Flexibility: Adapts to various industry requirements allowing broad implementation.

In the finance sector, Automation Anywhere is used for tasks like accounts payable, accounts receivable, and invoice processing. In HR, it's implemented for onboarding, payroll, and attendance verification. Its deployment also extends to supply chain, compliance, and customer service, providing streamlined operations by automating complex business processes.

Automation Anywhere

Blue Prism is an intelligent, business-developed, no-code automation platform for SaaS deployments as well as for on-premises, public cloud, multi-cloud, and hybrid environments. Unlike other automation technology, Blue Prism combines robotic process automation with expanded artificial intelligence and cognitive capabilities. Blue Prism gives users instant access to the tools you need for building and delegating automations, as well as a digital workforce that is already AI-equipped.

With Blue Prism’s code-free RPA, deployed through use of their Robotic Operating Model, your business can scale efficiently, improve customer satisfaction, reduce costs, and augment its talent to take on new responsibilities. Blue Prism helps to accelerate operational agility and efficiency by making it easy to automate the most important processes. Allocating everyday tasks to your Digital Workforce gives you immediate increased capacity and allows your teams to focus on their strategic goals. In addition, it delivers a return on investment, increases efficiency gains, and can even introduce new revenue streams.

“Workforce of the Future”

Blue Prism’s all-in-one intelligent automation platform consists of:

Design Studio with drag-and-drop process automation building, reusable “objects” across your business, and updates to objects and processes saved throughout the process library.
Control Room where you can assign processes to digital workers, scale digital worker and task volume ondemand, and gain real-time transparency of process proficiencies.
Digital Workforce of autonomous software robots that can learn and mimic business processes like humans and are equipped with six intelligent automation skills:
1. Knowledge and Insight - The ability to harvest, understand, and deliver insights from multiple disparate data sources.
2. Visual Perception - The ability to read, understand, and contextualize visual information.
3. Learning - The ability to derive contextual meaning and adapt to evolving process patterns.
4. Planning and Sequencing - The ability to optimize workloads and identify opportunities for better outcomes.
5. Problem-solving - The ability to autonomously solve system, logic, and business problems.
6. Collaboration - The ability to seamlessly work with both people and systems.

Reviews from Real Users

Blue Prism stands out for its enterprise-level functionality, which is why many companies choose it over its competitors. PeerSpot users note that the solution is easy to use, stable, and robust scalability-wise. The security is also top-notch. One user pointed out that "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." Blue Prism helps businesses with everything from compliance to quality control and error-avoidance.

SS&C Blue Prism

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

Buyer's Guide

Automation Anywhere vs. Blue Prism

January 2025

Free Report: Automation Anywhere vs. Blue Prism

Find out what your peers are saying about Automation Anywhere vs. Blue Prism and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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