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Automation Anywhere vs Broadcom Service Virtualization 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
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (5th)
Automation Anywhere
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
614
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (2nd), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (2nd), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (3rd), Agentic Automation (2nd)
Broadcom Service Virtualiza...
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
97
Ranking in other categories
Service Virtualization (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Automation Anywhere9.1%
Microsoft Power Automate16.5%
UiPath Platform16.3%
Other58.099999999999994%
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Service Virtualization Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Broadcom Service Virtualization26.2%
Parasoft Virtualize19.1%
ReadyAPI Virtualization17.5%
Other37.2%
Service Virtualization
 

Featured Reviews

Jane Rachma Kiniti - PeerSpot reviewer
Automate has streamlined workflows and increased efficiency with powerful automation
The best features of the solution are the flexible automation features, it is rich with beautiful connectors, and it is easy to use with little to no coding knowledge required to get started, so anybody can use the tool. The intuitive interface of Automate has an intuitive design, which makes it easy to learn and use even without a strong technical background, and it has a drag-and-drop interface, which makes everything so easy and straightforward. The error handling capabilities in complex automation tasks are powerful, as it handles all types of tasks, whether complex or simple. I've never faced any problems even when dealing with complex tasks, so everything is super smooth and highly reliable, even when dealing with big tasks, as it has never slowed down. Automate's compatibility with existing IT infrastructure has impacted our business operations positively by providing smooth integration with other software that we use, such as Gmail, Jira, and Microsoft 365 apps, which gives us a unified platform instead of having to keep switching from one software to another, saving a lot of time and streamlining the whole workflows. The automated analytics have helped improve our business processes since it has increased our efficiency by automating our everyday tasks, freeing up time for us to focus more on strategic activities such as analyzing data and developing new business strategies. It is also cost-saving. By minimizing manual labor, it decreases human errors that can lead to costly mistakes. By automating the tasks, it helps to save costs, and it also improves our accuracy by reducing these errors to ensure that tasks are done almost perfectly.
Venkat Sivaprakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions
Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.
DM
Can be used for the virtualization of TCP/IP protocols for third-party terminal insurance
We use it for the virtualization of third-party APIs for performance testing. Our second use case is related to the virtualization of TCP/IP protocols for third-party terminal insurance, which is used for insurance clients In the case of the virtualization of TCP/IP protocols for third-party…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of Fortra's Automate include its FTP functionality and file manipulation capabilities."
"I find it very user-friendly. Our IT department and other departments can seamlessly collaborate without requiring extensive training. As a business department, we particularly value this aspect, as our team doesn't consist of many IT users. However, we couldn't solely rely on a drag-and-drop approach to implement and utilize the solution within our departments."
"Fortra's Automate has effectively replaced the workload of an entire employee, saving us significant time and money."
"The licensing of the product is very good. You only need to license it once and then you have it forever."
"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."
"The interface is simple, user-friendly, and very intuitive."
"It gives us a central place to schedule tasks and run them distributed."
"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."
"Automation Anywhere helped our organization to get our training and implementation needs successful by providing both community edition and partner edition. Automation Anywhere seamlessly handed off exceptions to employees from Automation Anywhere bots."
"Automation Anywhere is one of the most popular RPA vendors offering powerful and user-friendly RPA capabilities to automate the business processes that are performed by humans. AA is a web-based management system that includes a control to run end-to-end automated business tasks for companies."
"The Control Room is the most valuable feature. This is where I can schedule a task. It runs 24/7, so it's a great feature that I love. If we are not in office, we can schedule something and leave, then the bot will run at the scheduled time."
"We are using Automation Anywhere for our leave approval process. We used to have three FTEs on the day shift working on this process. Now, we only have one FTE working on the leave approval process. The bot supports everything else in the process. With this bot, we are saving the cost of two FTEs."
"We did not encounter any stability issues with Automation Anywhere during the time I worked with the solution."
"Some of the really impactful features of working with Automation Anywhere are the ability to design and partner with their experts to come up with our solutions."
"At the end of the day, the effort that you put in has exponential benefits, giving you many advantages from your lines of code, which is amazing."
"The most valuable feature is the screen recorder, which helps to automate processes easily."
"There are several areas that are easily configurable."
"You can create virtual services from a live recording or convert raw traffic into request/response pairs."
"Ability to vary the responses very easily (randomize, pick-lists, etc.)."
"It's got probably the greatest amount of features, in terms of different technologies that you can automate and virtualize, out of any of the solutions out there."
"We have been using it extensively for the shift left process and testing. It helps us to accelerate and virtualize services and assets that we don't have. It enables to test faster."
"We had a number of back-end services that were not available during testing times. What this had allowed us to do is get our early life testing done while those services are not available."
"The ability to create virtual services and deploy them as Docker containers, and include them in our Jenkins build pipelines, is a valuable feature."
"Easy to understand ways of creating stubs."
 

Cons

"Regarding customer support, I face challenges sometimes. They're not always available, and you may need to wait for assistance, but overall their support is acceptable."
"Fortra's Automate is not as reliable as I would like it to be."
"There is a lack of good development for artificial intelligence, such as machine learning."
"The user interface could be slightly enhanced to make it more modern."
"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."
"I would like to see some better web automation, a wizard like the one in the product WinAutomation would be very nice."
"It's possible that they could use a stronger community for seeking guidance and help."
"There is room for improvement regarding cloud functionality; there are a few missing features, and the logging could be better, especially air logging. We can go into logging events and create our own task, but it would be nice if this were more detailed."
"One aspect I don't appreciate about Automation Anywhere is the way variables are handled. Many things seem to become a string, which makes it hard to code and keep track of items when everything's a string."
"One of the challenges that I face every now and then while working with A2019, is around the bot agent updates. Every week/alternate weeK, I receive an error while running my bots, that asks me to update the bot agent."
"The licensing model could be a lot less complex, mainly due to their different structures, which are not straightforward."
"In A2019 it does not display the exact running status, but rather it displays the previous one."
"For assisted automation, the AA bot needs the facility to be triggered through an application interface after collecting input from the user."
"The scheduling is a little difficult at times. Rather than setting up individual instances, it would be really nice if we had the ability to set repetitive jobs easily. Right now, if you want a job to run every 15 minutes, you have to schedule it a lot of times. I'd rather have the ability to just say 'run every 15 minutes.'"
"Another feature that would be cool to see in Automation Anywhere is more use of artificial intelligence. Right now, RPA is basically limited to a bot which is simply following the instructions that it was given. However, what would be really useful is if a bot was able to more flexibly respond to issues. For example, sometimes there are erroneous errors and pop ups. With good code, you can certainly build your bots to be able to handle that. However, it does take time and a bit of technical know-how to be able to do that."
"For this, we tried to automate handwritten documents, but it was not successful. I believe there is room for improvement."
"I would like to have more flexibility towards the mainframe virtualization and also in JDBC virtualization."
"It is not a stable solution."
"DevTest is pretty massive. It's hard to tell what different parts of it can be used to do different things. They should modulize it more."
"I really want to see more of the "express" kind of model, where you get a little bit for free. I'd love to be able to see you be able to edit and author tests without having to be connected to a licensed server. And then, if you want to go and execute tests, then you go and connect to the server... I think it would unblock people to be able to do a lot more work from home or from remote places, where they can't really connect to the server."
"UI should be more user friendly: better usability, more testing oriented."
"I'd like to see more of the newer technologies included in there, looking mainly from a mobile perspective, possibly, so you can virtualize some of the aspects that we're going to be doing for mobile testing."
"I would rate the tech support a nine out of ten. They need more knowledge about the connectivity to DevOps orchestration."
"One major feature I would like to see is on the user administration part. Right now, anybody can access any of the folders and any of the projects."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Once you buy the software, you just pay for the support for backend help."
"Compared to other products, the pricing model for this solution is much more convenient, flexible, and adaptable to the Portuguese reality."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"We are not receiving the right information about their features, e.g. Automation Anywhere University, or anything that they are selling. They need to improve their documentation."
"It's somewhat pricier than some of the other tools that we've used, and the breakout between the different applications is also somewhat costly. If they can make it a little more cost-effective or bundle packages a little bit more, that would be beneficial."
"Price is where I'm least satisfied. Other vendors are more willing to offer discounts."
"Currently, it stands as one of the more expensive RPA tools available."
"It is reasonable and affordable. If you consider the tasks that we can get done using this, the pricing is reasonable and affordable."
"Costs savings have been seen by employing bots for multiple shifts instead of people."
"One of the key features that we chose, the bot as a service or the BotFarm, when they launched version 11.3, they decided not to have the BotFarm anymore. This put us in a situation because we expected to have bots on demand, just like our cloud software. This would have been cost efficient for us to use. We hope to see this again being realized with A2019. I hope the scalability from an on demand basis improves."
"The price is very reasonable."
"There is a yearly licensing cost, and I would give it a four out of five."
"I think the pricing is quite fair because this solution provides a lot of functionalities, and is quite stable."
"I don't have the exact dollar amount, but we have spent close to $1,000,000 for a three-year agreement, for an enterprise level."
"There are additional fees for advanced-level technical support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Performing Arts
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
29%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Performing Arts
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business141
Midsize Enterprise81
Large Enterprise516
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise98
 

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?
My main use case for Automate is automating my everyday tasks, such as reporting, task assignment, and updating proje...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?
The pricing for Automate is affordable, even for a small organization, and it's well-packed and affordable.
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.
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Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate
Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise
ITKO LISA, CA LISA, CA Service Virtualization
 

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
Union Bank, Swisscom, Autotrader, KPN, ING Bank, Best Buy, American Family Insurance, TESCO, Telefonica, Molina Healthcare, California DMV, Aktia, City Index, Con-way, DirecTV, GRU Airport, Liquidnet, NAB, Nordstrom, T-Mobile, TIM Brasil, 
Find out what your peers are saying about UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Microsoft and others in Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Updated: September 2025.
872,837 professionals have used our research since 2012.