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Blue Prism vs IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Blue Prism
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Robotic Process Automat...
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Blue Prism is 12.7%, up from 11.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is 2.0%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
 

Featured Reviews

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

"The main automation feature of Blue Prism is the most valuable."
"The automation on offer is great."
"Blue Prism is a mature, stable product with lots of built-in features."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to do surface automation, allowing interaction with legacy systems where terminal emulation is still in use."
"We've automated web applications in the banking domain using Blue Prism. This involved automating long and complex banking processes. Every action we automate with the tool generates an audit log, which is safe within the LogRhythm environment. I do find the Decipher feature very useful when it comes to document automation."
"There are simple things you can put in place that help you understand workflow and how implementation acts."
"It is a stable solution."
"The credential manager and logs are most valuable. We are using Blue Prism for complex processes because it is easier to troubleshoot in Blue Prism, and the logs are very accurate. It provides the ability to create smaller tasks, which makes it easier to troubleshoot."
"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."
"We can connect with different database types, and they have included a different package for a terminal connection to, for example, AS400. When it comes to UI development, it's not using the drivers or anything. It's not a selector-based development like UiPath."
"I like the integration with Watson and the possibility to have an intelligent reading of all the customers' documents."
"It's user-friendly; even non-technical people can program bots using drag-and-drop functionalities."
"The initial setup is very easy."
"The solution is scalability."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"The feature I found most valuable is the TCO."
 

Cons

"Blue Prism features two layers of documentation. If we could make it in one layer, then it would be easy to develop, and it would take less time for developers to complete the task."
"The solution can improve by having a free license for evaluation purposes."
"Blue Prism is a little behind Automation Anywhere in the topics related to maintenance and report building."
"I would like to see machine learning functionality integrated with the automation."
"The control room is its worst feature. It can be laggy, and it is not as user-friendly. We're with staying Blue Prism, but we're moving it from on-premises to Microsoft cloud for cost savings. We looked into Blue Prism cloud. It has a lot of features, but it comes with a lot of costs. Right now, we have six spots, and we're only at 13% utilization. The cost didn't really weigh out for us for moving to Blue Prism cloud, but on-premises, it is working for what we need."
"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."
"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."
"The solution could be more user-friendly. I would like the see the inclusion of a recording feature as in Microsoft, SAP, and other legacy systems. Users can play the recording and use it for future use cases. The recording can help with the automation and configuration. I would rate the tool’s interface a seven out of ten. It needs to improve."
"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."
"The scalability of the solution can be challenging."
"I would like to improve the efficiency of this solution and the Surface Level Agreement."
"Stability could be better."
"IBM Robotic Process Automation should be more stable."
"I would like to have more flexibility in connecting the platform with third-party systems."
"The product must be promoted more."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's an expensive product. For what they are providing in terms of capabilities and features for the price, I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten."
"I give the price of the solution a seven out of ten."
"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."
"Our customers pay for an annual license."
"Blue Prism is an expensive solution, especially in Southeast Asia, while in Europe and the UK, it can be considered moderate in terms of cost."
"I don't recall what it was. Initially, we had our licensing through the consultant, and when we stopped using them, we renegotiated licensing. Blue Prism gave us temporary licenses during the negotiation. When all things were said and done, it came out to a decent price even without the vendor. So, our management has been happy with that."
"Blue Prism is pretty steep compared to the others, much more than Automation Anywhere."
"I don't have an idea about Blue Prism, but I have an idea about UiPath. UiPath is scaling its business in different products. It has got products for intelligent document processing (IDP) to test or log integrations for chatbots. If you want to work on something like a true test automation, you have to buy a test book. In such cases, they have a predefined way of working with, implementing, or running things. This is where I see that UiPath might be a bit costly or expensive when compared to Blue Prism because UiPath charges for each and every product."
"The pricing is reasonable for this solution."
"The license is paid annually."
"The product is reasonably priced compared to other tools."
"IBM licensing is annual and based on Virtual Processor Cores (VPC). This provides flexibility as part of the containerization environment."
"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."
"I rate the pricing ten out of ten. So, the pricing is very good for me."
"The pricing is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 implementation with Blue Prism which is stable and mature software, in order to ser...
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 and left in 2019 when there were 3K+. I'm a big believer in the product, leadershi...
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 work on web automation and automation of invoices.
 

Also Known As

No data available
IBM RPA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.