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Blue Prism vs IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) 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
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
IBM Robotic Process Automat...
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 is 10.5%, down from 12.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is 2.5%, up from 2.4% 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.
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.
Karinne Carnevalli De Almeida - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly interface and good stability
I would recommend using IBM RPA. I would advise you to learn about your main processes to automate inside your company. So you can apply it in big and small processes depending on the investment for your company. That is an advantage or not. Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. It has some difficulty in the tool, but it's a very stable and useful tool for automating processes.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use it for specific cases, mainly secure file transfers, which are vital for us. And it works for us."
"Overall, the whole product is really nice and provides significant benefits."
"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."
"I actually quite liked the no-coding functionality."
"The product effectively handles all the tasks we require."
"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."
"We have found the pricing to be very reasonable."
"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."
"It is a stable solution."
"We have integrated the product with our centralized infra-monitoring tool, which gives us real-time insights into BOT health and also the health of the underlying resources."
"I find Blue Prism's debugging functionality to be quite useful."
"Blue Prism is highly scalable and reliable."
"The tool's user interface is very intuitive."
"The overall package from Blue Prism is valuable. I cannot pinpoint one certain part."
"Being able to create an object and use it for multiple processes has been very useful for us."
"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 good stuff about IBM is the fact that it's very easy to use, there are very nice and smart AI tools within the licensing that you don't have to pay any access. Moreover, it's more precise and more secure."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"I like the integration with Watson and the possibility to have an intelligent reading of all the customers' documents."
"It is a good tool for automation."
"If you have a business process, and once you have automated that process, you have a readily available workflow in place."
"It is easy to use. We have enabled our resources who don't have a background in automation to be certified and trained, then implement this product within a very short period of time, as it is very user-friendly."
"The solution is scalability."
"The solution's ease of use is its most valuable aspect."
 

Cons

"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 really need a free development environment for customers. Building and testing automation on production isn't ideal."
"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."
"Some companies have asked for voice integration. This is likely part of the roadmap."
"I find that most important features are strong, however, there is a lack of good development for artificial intelligence, such as machine learning."
"The technical support could be better. We suffer from language barriers, as we are in Argentina."
"The documentation is not that great."
"I would prefer not having to log in to update a ticket; being able to respond via email would be beneficial."
"Occasionally, there may be stability issues where certain nodes begin to behave erratically and produce errors."
"User interface could be improved and a web interface included for easy access to robot information."
"There are some new tools on the market that work better than Blue Prism. When Blue Prism receives information I have found other RPA solutions refresh the application better. At this moment it's not the best application."
"Blue Prism could be more scalable."
"Our primary challenge at present is that we are finding it difficult to get additional business insights into existing processes so that we can identify where we need to improve."
"I would like to see the vendor improve the efficiency of Blue Prism interaction with applications."
"If that bot is running 24/7, we have to allocate people 24/7, 24 hours a day. The cost of support can be quite high."
"Emerging technologies adoption is a challenge for every organization, especially the products which address productivity/automation."
"Stability could be better."
"The product's document readers must be improved to capture the data well."
"Extensibility is the key, especially in terms of the Recorders feature that we have. That should be browser independent. Enhance it because some people have Chrome, some have Internet Explorer, etc. Also, integration with PDFs: Not just the ability to read information from PDFs but the ability to write information from PDFs, make it secure, sign it, etc. Finally, if they can allow a token exchange inside the tool itself, that would help."
"I would like it to do pretty much everything out-of-the-box without any need for any customization. However, that is not the case right now. We absolutely have to do some amount of customization with the solution in order to use it out-of-the-box as-is."
"One of the things I would definitely like to see is more of the machine-learning and cognitive capabilities. For example, now that we're starting to automate more and more tasks, there are some things that still require us to go back and modify the robots when we need to. But if we had more of the machine-learning integrated into it, I believe it would be easier to maintain, so that we wouldn't have to go back and adjust every time."
"The users should be allowed to create folders in Control Center."
"IBM should provide specific solutions for specific problems, like templates for invoicing processes, or general templates for creating efficient processes."
"We're based in Thailand, but the documentation is not in Thai, which makes it difficult for us. If they could translate all of their documentation into our language, we'd be very grateful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost."
"It comes with a package that costs approximately $20,000 USD per year."
"I like the way this solution is priced because you can buy a license, or you can buy the software outright."
"From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point."
"The cost is a bit high for a small business like ours, but we manage with Fortra's Automate."
"Once you buy the software, you just pay for the support for backend help."
"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."
"The license for Blue Prism is very straightforward, we only need one license."
"It is a bit higher in cost as compared to Automation Anywhere and UiPath. The rate also differs from client to client. Margins are also important when it comes to costing and licensing. There are some additional costs involved besides the standard licensing costs. You have the development team cost, which includes the project manager, development team, analyst, and testers. You also need a team manager. You also have the tools cost, architecture cost, platform cost, and the licensing cost of each bot."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $5,000 USD per year."
"Blue Prism is pretty steep compared to the others, much more than Automation Anywhere."
"Licensing is on a yearly basis."
"The licensing is approximately $1,100."
"We really don't bear the costs. The cost is borne by the customer. It runs into about $100,000 per year per customer for Blue Prism. We normally budget around $30,000 for the first year for the hardware, setup, and people cost."
"Its pricing is okay. Its price is pretty similar to the price of other tools."
"IBM licensing is annual and based on Virtual Processor Cores (VPC). This provides flexibility as part of the containerization environment."
"The pricing is reasonable for this solution."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The license is paid annually."
"IBM RPA is cheaper than other tools."
"I rate the pricing ten out of ten. So, the pricing is very good for me."
"The product has a yearly licensing fee."
"There is a free trial for one month, so you can use it to run your payloads or proof of concept. After that, you can pay for the license on a monthly or annual basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
16%
Educational Organization
9%
Government
7%
 

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?
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...
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 IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?
Integrating the tool with SAP, EBS, or other ERPs is easy.
What needs improvement with IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?
The product must be promoted more. There are no promotions.
What is your primary use case for IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?
We're working with different clients from the manufacturing environment. We have implemented end-to-end solutions. We...
 

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate
No data available
IBM RPA
 

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
The Hanover Insurance Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Blue Prism vs. IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.