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Blue Prism Cloud vs Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition 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

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
Blue Prism Cloud
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Redwood Software - Finance ...
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Financial Close Software (10th)
 

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 Blue Prism Cloud is 1.4%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition is 0.3%, up from 0.3% 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.
Keith Mcdowell - PeerSpot reviewer
It helps us save on staff costs
I rate Blue Prism Cloud eight out of 10 for ease of setup. It's a cloud-based solution, so it isn't hard to set up. The deployment time is hard to quantify because I work for the government, and we need to go through all these internal reviews, but the technical part takes three to four weeks. The biggest challenge is security because we need to integrate it with Active Directory and set up VPN tunnels, security profiles, etc. We deployed Blue Prism in-house and used three people to set it up. One solution engineer is enough to maintain it.
Amarjeet Kamble - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly and enables automation in finance, HR, and SDM
There is room for improvement, considering no tools having everything inside it is right. So the room for balancing improvement lies in automation enhancement with respect to the feature areas, considering dealing directly with Excel and reviewing it to do some additional stuff for it in the end system so that reading the right thing, picking up the values, and everything. Right now, you can do it with a little bit of custom scripting in addition to eight. But rather than custom scripting, if we can have a direct feature integrated inside this tool, it will be a major achievement. So, it already has that capability, as you can do custom scripting, and you can go ahead with creating your own. But the direct functions are not available. That's where we are lagging behind. However, importing the values or importing the service can be achieved. So, that is where I can see the room for improvement. In this particular area, the entire system can be improved.

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 best feature of Automate is its ease of use, which is a major selling point."
"I would rate the technical support as a nine out of ten because it is quite fast and courteous."
"Compared to other vendors, it's the scheduling tool because a lot of vendors want to charge you extra for their enterprise-level license to have a scheduling tool built in to give you the ability to set up regular schedules to run and do certain data checks."
"It gives us a central place to schedule tasks and run them distributed."
"I actually quite liked the no-coding functionality."
"The most valuable feature is the drag-and-drop interface, which is very Windows-like."
"The most valuable features of Fortra's Automate include its FTP functionality and file manipulation capabilities."
"It automates our accounts payable process, requiring no human interaction and saving us a hundred percent of the time."
"It's easy to use, the interface, the the the the queries is which we use. It's user friendly."
"The reusability of the solution is excellent. It's a superior feature - far superior to any other tool on the market."
"It’s scalable."
"It is secure and supports unattended mode of operations."
"This product has additional functionality over Blue Prism Cloud Enterprise."
"The corporate leverage is better with Blue Prism. They just present better in a large corporation. It's easier to sell suits and ties than it is sneakers and jeans in financial institutions. That's not really about the application per se; it's the perception."
"Blue Prism Cloud is a stable solution."
"Redwood has a great feature where it logs every transaction. So, at any point, we can see every step taken for each transaction. It creates an audit trail of the entire process execution. It is a really good feature. This eliminates the need for extra coding or report generation. The audit report is readily available within the tool itself."
"So the best thing is ease of use."
"The out-of-the-box finance modules within the Redwood Finance framework help to speed up the process, versus designing and writing generic BOT code."
 

Cons

"Fortra's Automate is not as reliable as I would like it to be."
"I currently have three bugs open with them that I don't know if they are addressed in the new release."
"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."
"They do not encrypt passwords, so this is an issue with HIPAA compliance."
"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."
"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."
"The interface could be more user-friendly and easier to navigate."
"There are a few smart services that are not available in Blue Prism. For example, Excel sheets that are converted into a CS sheet have limitations with the number of columns when imported. This could be improved."
"The main issue is screen scraping with Blue Prism gives us a big challenge because we need to define which technologies are web-based have been built instead of by itself discovering the technology that it is built on."
"I think that there are some improvements in the product performance that are needed in Blue Prism Cloud...The initial setup of the product needs a lot of time and effort."
"Blue Prism should adopt a low-code approach. Most RPA vendors only provide what they call a "form builder." A low-code designer would enable us to build a custom UI."
"If Blue Prism could integrate into Azure SQL because it's essentially an on-prem code, on infrastructure as a service. So, Blue Prism has moved the infrastructure into the cloud, but they haven't necessarily moved the application into cloud-native."
"Pricing for Blue Prism Cloud is a pain as it's a little higher."
"The product’s licensing cost is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"We have limited integrations in place, and my objective is to integrate Sentinel. However, there are constraints as some individuals have only one or two options for SIM integration solutions. Given the urgency of quick resolutions in today's landscape, prevention and detection are crucial. While these measures provide significant security, it's equally important to focus on response and recovery. In the case of a ransomware attack, it's not enough to solely prevent and detect. Once detection is in place, a response model should be implemented to automate the process and minimize the time required for tasks, such as creating investigation reports. In the past, it would take approximately seven to eight days to create an investigation report for a specific attack, including writing a case study. This process can be streamlined and improved through the automation of contextual investigation reports. By saving base templates and content, including screenshots and attack details, automation can be achieved. We are currently working on integrating Microsoft WAF and Excel for this purpose, but having a built-in tool would be ideal."
"The room for balancing improvement lies in automation enhancement with respect to the feature areas, considering dealing directly with Excel and reviewing it to do some additional stuff for it in the end system so that reading the right thing, picking up the values, and everything."
"would like to see AI integration for automation in future releases. Post-automation, I envision a generative AI model. If I could ask the bot questions like the number of invoices or their current status, it should be able to provide answers directly."
"Mapping the process steps to an existing R2R process quickly would be a definite step forward."
 

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."
"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 like the way this solution is priced because you can buy a license, or you can buy the software outright."
"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 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 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."
"I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost."
"The licensing of the solution is on a subscription-based model and costs around 4,999 for one bot's license. If someone wants to increase the number of bots you want from Blue Prism, then they provide a discount."
"We found the pricing reasonable, and it aligned with our budgetary requirements."
"It is highly-priced."
"Pricing can be negotiated in situations where there will be heavy usage."
"The licensing structure is complex and the minimum contract length is three years."
"I am not sure how we are set up today, but I recall we had an annual License."
"Though I don't have many details, I think Blue Prism Cloud is an expensive product compared to the other tools in the market since you need to pay for resources like machines."
"Annual licensing costs were somewhere between $5,000 - $10,000 for the development tool. For the control tower, I think fees were about $50,000 annually."
"The licensing was purely based on the number of transactions being processed in production."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
9%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
 

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 do you like most about Blue Prism Cloud?
It's easy to use, the interface, the the the the queries is which we use. It's user friendly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Blue Prism Cloud?
If we utilize Blue Prism's full capabilities, then it is cost-effective. Otherwise, the pricing can seem high. It req...
What needs improvement with Blue Prism Cloud?
Decipher, one of their solutions, is a waste of time. Other than that, there's nothing specific I can think of.
What do you like most about Redwood Business Process Automation - Finance Edition?
Redwood has a great feature where it logs every transaction. So, at any point, we can see every step taken for each t...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Redwood Business Process Automation - Finance Edition?
The pricing is very client-specific. It's not a one-size-fits-all price. They don't have a single price for everyone....
What needs improvement with Redwood Business Process Automation - Finance Edition?
Everything seems to be working well. However, I see value in integrating AI for automation. So, I would like to see A...
 

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate
Blue Prism Thoughtonomy Virtual Workforce, Blue Prism Virtual Workforce, Thoughtonomy Virtual Workforce
Redwood Business Process Automation - Finance Edition, Redwood Robotics, Redwood Finance Automation
 

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
Cabot Credit Management, Hovis, Utilita
ArcelorMittal, Alliant Energy, Allianz, Arla, Bacardi, CPS Energy, DSM, Faurecia, Genetech, Jabil, Jumbo,
Find out what your peers are saying about Blue Prism Cloud vs. Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.