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Blue Prism vs Blue Prism Cloud 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
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
Blue Prism Cloud
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
43
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 Blue Prism is 12.4%, up from 11.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Blue Prism Cloud 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

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.
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.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"I like the interface; it makes managing automation easy. We can set different schedules and templates for each task."
"This product is quite easy to install, learn, and use, with our new employees being able to start using it in projects for clients after only two weeks of internal training."
"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."
"I actually quite liked the no-coding functionality."
"We have found the pricing to be very reasonable."
"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."
"Blue Prism is a mature, stable product with lots of built-in features."
"It has a centrally managed infrastructure, and it is secure. Our client was using it because of its ease of use. They had already identified some workflows that were trained on Blue Prism RPAs. It was much more convenient for them to preselect Blue Prism as compared to other vendors."
"The way you design the flow and configure the activities for the bot is very useful if you are working with any of the BPM or local platforms."
"The ease of use is really good because a lot of business people, who have some idea about logic and who can think in logic, can configure things, because there is no coding."
"The technical support is very good."
"The solution enables process creation and is object oriented."
"I like the cloud features such as IADA and Decipher."
"I like the error handling, it's very good."
"The solution works well overall."
"One of the most valuable features is automating manual and repetitive business processes, streamlining operations and reducing manual labour."
"Blue Prism Cloud is a stable solution."
"With Blue Prism, I like the feature that you build, I don't know the exact name now, but blocks or standards can be reduced later. You configure, for example, the CRM system, and you create a standardized manner of inputting data into the CRM system that you can reuse later. I'm not sure what that's called, but I enjoy it whether it's a feature or not."
"The ease of building automation and the development environment"
"The reusability of the solution is excellent. It's a superior feature - far superior to any other tool on the market."
"The primary focus lies in integrating the three major cloud platforms with Blue Prism Cloud: Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, and GCP. This integration goes beyond security measures for the primary template policies. It also includes addressing compliance requirements. For instance, I can incorporate specific compliance templates and policies generated in Blue Prism and integrate them with local templates for ISO 27001 and GDPR, particularly concerning software tools and headsets. This integration eliminates the need for auditing and reviewing technical details individually. Instead, I can simply examine the container report. This approach proves beneficial when clients heavily rely on container environments."
"It’s scalable."
 

Cons

"We really need a free development environment for customers. Building and testing automation on production isn't ideal."
"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."
"The product also has a limited use case in some respects."
"The vendor is currently working on a solution that allows us to automatically create a process that is based on a document that we receive via email."
"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."
"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."
"Some companies have asked for voice integration. This is likely part of the roadmap."
"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."
"Lotus Notes automation should be easier to understand."
"For developers, they should have some kind of recording feature."
"From a monitoring perspective, the way the screens are set up, or the reporting within Blue Prism, is not really user-friendly. You need a technical person to basically put that up. It's not necessarily easily viewable."
"They should incorporate more functionalities in the analytics tool."
"The OCR capability, along with the connectivity with some of the legacy tools, needs to be improved."
"Everyone uses Workday and Salesforce and all that stuff. If they had specific plugins to interact with these enterprise tools, that would be very helpful."
"Navigation within the UI could be improved."
"The assisted automation functionality needs improvement."
"It would be useful if some of the information protocols came built within the app instead having to create them."
"Blue Prism Cloud needs to improve its AI capabilities."
"I believe they need to become more competitive within the market in order to maintain their market share. We were essentially a Blue Prism shop and sold Blue Prism, but because of the price point, many clients are now looking at competitors."
"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."
"It takes a while to get up and running."
"There's a need to deal with unstructured input with RPA."
"Blue Prism might consider adding package options to allow users to come onboard in different ways that meet their needs rather than buying in to the whole package."
"The solution is unable to read some UI components in legacy systems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point."
"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."
"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."
"Compared to other products, the pricing model for this solution is much more convenient, flexible, and adaptable to the Portuguese reality."
"I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost."
"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."
"I like the way this solution is priced because you can buy a license, or you can buy the software outright."
"There is a one-time purchase fee for this solution."
"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."
"I give the price of the solution a seven out of ten."
"Its pricing is okay. Its price is pretty similar to the price of other tools."
"The price of Blue Prism is high compared to others solutions. It would be helpful if they could provide a trial version for new users to try. Other vendors provide a community or trial version. There are not any hidden costs."
"Blue Prism is less expensive than some of the other RPA solutions."
"Blue Prism is quite costly."
"The price is on par with other products in the market."
"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."
"The pricing is fine."
"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."
"I rate the platform’s pricing a seven out of ten."
"We found the pricing reasonable, and it aligned with our budgetary requirements."
"Blue Prism Cloud’s pricing is fine for commercial usage."
"The licensing structure is complex and the minimum contract length is three years."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
8%
 

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...
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...
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.
 

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate
No data available
Blue Prism Thoughtonomy Virtual Workforce, Blue Prism Virtual Workforce, Thoughtonomy Virtual Workforce
 

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
Coca-Cola, Walgreens, American Express, Royal Bank of Canada, Pfizer, Shop Direct, O2, Siemens, Ascension Healthcare, Jaguar Land Rover
Cabot Credit Management, Hovis, Utilita
Find out what your peers are saying about Blue Prism vs. Blue Prism Cloud and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
831,020 professionals have used our research since 2012.