No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

BMC Helix Discovery vs Device42 comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
Automation Anywhere boosts efficiency and savings, offering dramatic time and cost reductions with rapid ROI and increased productivity.
Sentiment score
6.5
BMC Helix Discovery delivers 314% ROI through automation, operational efficiencies, and significant cost savings despite its higher cost.
Sentiment score
6.6
Device42 enhances ROI by streamlining IT asset management, application mapping, and offering insightful reports for cost-effective operations.
In terms of cost, we participated in projects achieving two to three million dollars in annual savings.
Software Developer at Boston Scientific
As a return on investment, we have achieved a 250% ROI in six to nine months, and sometimes it increases up to 380% percent.
Software Engineer Intern at a university with 11-50 employees
Automation Anywhere has helped us save money.
RPA Solution Architect at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
You should expect at least one year and a half for ROI.
Presales Manager at HCLSoftware
BMC Helix Discovery has delivered a very good return, and we cannot stop using it at this moment.
System Administrator at Porto Editora
The TCO calculations based on five years and three years have yielded a remarkable ROI compared to on-premise workload, validating the business case submission to the customer.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
I can confidently say at least 30% is the savings which we have seen.
Sr PreSales Cloud Architect at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Device42 is a fully-featured tool that includes everything we need with powerful auto-discovery and intelligent application dependency mapping.
Financial Specialist at Wells Fargo
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
Automation Anywhere's customer service is praised for responsiveness and availability, despite some delays and communication issues.
Sentiment score
6.0
BMC Helix Discovery support is praised for professionalism but criticized for slow response times, with mixed user ratings from 2-10.
Sentiment score
8.1
Device42's customer service is praised for prompt, knowledgeable support, despite occasional delays, frequently earning high satisfaction ratings.
Whenever we need help, we can reach out to them, and they help us out.
Software Developer at Boston Scientific
We also have dedicated account managers and technical experts to solve our problems related to Automation Anywhere.
Software Engineer Intern at a university with 11-50 employees
We just have to raise a ticket, after which we receive a call, email, or ping from the Automation Anywhere team.
Solution architect at Boston Scientific
When opening a severity one ticket, they respond within four to six hours, which is commendable.
Systems Integration Specialist Advisor at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Sometimes it is quite responsive, particularly when you go higher up in the organization.
Presales Manager at HCLSoftware
The response has been satisfactory, though improvements could be made in response time and overall competence.
System Administrator at Porto Editora
Customer support for Device42 is fantastic.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
Our internal teams have also leveraged the platform which is available for the customers and the partners to onboard them, have a bit of training on the tool and then ask any specific questions to either the TAM or the customer support team.
Sr PreSales Cloud Architect at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
When it comes to resolving technical issues, the support team is responsive and always available to help.
Cloud Presales Engineer at Activedge Technologies Ltd.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Automation Anywhere effectively scales projects of all sizes, integrating bots flexibly despite some complexity and infrastructure challenges.
Sentiment score
7.1
BMC Helix Discovery provides scalable, flexible solutions for diverse environments, supporting easy integration and expansion for medium to enterprise use.
Sentiment score
7.2
Device42 effectively scales for organizations, enhancing expansion with API integration and Remote Collectors, despite horizontal scaling limitations.
As we are using Microsoft Copilot for our AI agents, I look forward to integrating it with Automation Anywhere and its solutions, seeing it as a beneficial partnership as Automation progresses toward AI as the main solution.
Sr. Manager, Finance Transformation at Amkor Technology, Inc.
The centralized control room allows us to orchestrate and manage bots seamlessly.
Associate Leadership Team at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
I can scale it in terms of hundreds of bots and configure hundreds of parallel robots easily.
Director at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
It is very much scalable and allows you to design your discovery solution without facing any challenge.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
Device42's scalability works well for me; if I want to add more resources, such as a Remote Collector for a new site, I can easily connect it to the main appliance.
Senior Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The scalability is good and with the increase in the size of the environment, it has definitely grown and changed over the last couple of years.
Sr PreSales Cloud Architect at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
Automation Anywhere is generally stable with occasional issues, reliability differing based on user infrastructure, and rated 7-9/10.
Sentiment score
7.2
BMC Helix Discovery is stable, highly rated, with robust Linux architecture, resolving issues promptly, and performs well in complex environments.
Sentiment score
8.0
Device42 proves reliable with minimal downtime, easy integration, manageable resources, quick issue resolution, and high user satisfaction.
With the latest applications, there are no significant issues like freezing or crashing.
Senior RPA Team Leader at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
From a stability and reliability perspective, we can remain confident that the product performs as an enterprise solution and meets expected standards.
Director Automation CEO at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
If you have good best practices, reusable code, an effective framework, and a solid development methodology, bots can be very stable.
Intelligent Automation Engineering Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
In the past four to six years, I cannot recall encountering any bugs.
Systems Integration Specialist Advisor at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Device42 is stable and has been reliable for my organization.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
Device42 has been pretty stable.
Sr PreSales Cloud Architect at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Stability for Device42, in terms of reliability, is generally acceptable.
Solutions Architect at KAF Group
 

Room For Improvement

Automation Anywhere needs improvements in integration, cost, user-friendliness, support, performance, and enhanced features for better usability.
BMC Helix Discovery requires enhancements in cloud handling, customization, usability, scalability, integrations, and competitive pricing for improved user experience.
Device42 users seek enhanced interface, integration, pricing, with improved widgets, graphics, navigation, automation, and support efficiency.
It is better to write a Python script instead of using Automation Anywhere's package when dealing with Excel because it is buggy and tends to break.
Low Code Developer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Making the product more lightweight by reducing its dependency on infrastructure could greatly help in the long run.
Software Developer at Boston Scientific
It would be beneficial if the platform provided options for power developers to integrate seamlessly with languages like Java or C#, allowing them to write their own scripts and code.
Rpa Infrastructure Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I would like to see a lower price and better technical support.
System Administrator at Porto Editora
It uses a Berkeley database, and the query language is not easy to master for performing complex queries.
Systems Integration Specialist Advisor at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Device42 could benefit from improvements, specifically regarding the deployment of the software, which sometimes can be hectic and become time-consuming.
Financial Specialist at Wells Fargo
I foresee areas of improvement for the agent-less solution, which could be very useful for those organizations that might not allow configuring an agent in their source machines for workload discovery.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
From an ITSM and ticketing perspective, I would say if there were integrations available, that would have really been better because a lot of times what we end up seeing or leveraging is ServiceNow because they have that native or out of the box capability, and even Freshservice has that capability out of the box.
Sr PreSales Cloud Architect at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers find Automation Anywhere's pricing high, suitable for large organizations, with ROI potentially justifying initial costs.
BMC Helix Discovery pricing is mixed, with reports of lower costs than competitors but concerns over high setup and licensing.
Device42 offers cost-effective pricing for managing 1,000-2,000 devices, though addon costs and competition may affect perceptions.
It is more cost-efficient compared to all other RPA platforms.
AI/Robotics Process Automation Specialist at Bell
Automation Anywhere costs are aligned with UiPath and Blue Prism, which are also expensive.
Developer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
It is not cheap, with costs ranging between 700 to 800 dollars per month.
Director, Co-Founder & CEO at HEDEHI Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
The price is about twelve per license per year, and the support is included.
System Administrator at Porto Editora
The setup cost is on the expensive side.
Presales Manager at HCLSoftware
Compared to other competitors, it does not cost much, and I would recommend it from a cost perspective.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
For example, I felt the BMC Discovery pricing was quite high.
Sr PreSales Cloud Architect at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Device42 are relatively cost-effective and affordable.
Financial Specialist at Wells Fargo
 

Valuable Features

Automation Anywhere simplifies automation with user-friendly interfaces, AI capabilities, strong integration, security, and support to boost productivity.
BMC Helix Discovery offers intuitive, agentless application modeling with strong security, AI insights, and scalability for efficient IT operations.
Device42 excels in asset discovery, dependency mapping, and integrated IT management, enhancing security, cloud readiness, and efficiency.
I can set it up to provide users with a form to fill in all required information, and then the bot operates based on those specifications.
Low Code Developer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
For example, the email module has been enhanced over the years to support all the latest authentication technologies. That is very important as we move away from username and password and embrace multi-factor authentication.
Automation Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Automation Anywhere has undergone drastic changes over the past five years, transitioning from version 10 to A360, including desktop-based and cloud-based options.
Solution architect at Boston Scientific
This is very useful for compliance as it helps in audits by providing a comprehensive view of all assets and software.
System Administrator at Porto Editora
BMC Helix Discovery provides a lot of information that can be obtained from discovery, including the relationship between the CIs and how many CIs are orphans.
Presales Manager at HCLSoftware
The best aspect of BMC Helix Discovery is its flexibility. You can perform scanning at any time, and it provides substantial data for extraction.
Systems Integration Specialist Advisor at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Device42 has positively impacted my organization by providing granularity toward application discovery compared to other assessment tools, which is a differentiator since none of the other tools provide such granularity, leading to better decision-making for my migration to the public cloud.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
We have leveraged that to discover IT assets such as physical servers, VMs, network devices, containers, storage devices, the applications, cloud resources and their relationships or their dependencies with each other and to the outside.
Sr PreSales Cloud Architect at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Device42 has positively impacted our organization by helping us become one of the best companies for asset management and inventory for the enterprise businesses we work with.
Cloud Presales Engineer at Activedge Technologies Ltd.
 

Categories and Ranking

Automation Anywhere
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
633
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (2nd), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (1st), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (1st), Agentic Automation (1st), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (2nd), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (1st), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
BMC Helix Discovery
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (6th)
Device42
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (5th), Configuration Management Databases (2nd), IP Address Management (IPAM) Tools (3rd), Data Center Infrastructure Management (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Management Consultant at Accenture
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.
JP
Presales Manager at HCLSoftware
Comprehensive discovery has populated our CMDB and provides deep insight into asset relationships
The applicability depends on the customer environment. Usually it is straightforward to apply the policies. BMC Helix Discovery is seamless and has many plugins available. It is a good feature that they offer. I have heard about it, but I am not currently using it, though I know that they have that feature available. BMC Helix Discovery provides a lot of information that can be obtained from discovery, including the relationship between the CIs and how many CIs are orphans. The analytics capabilities are strong.
Manmohan Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
Granular discovery has ensured confident workload migration and optimized cloud move group planning
Device42 offers the best features for workload assessment, particularly useful for cloud-to-cloud workload or on-premise data center workload, especially when planning for workload migration to the public cloud. For application and infrastructure discovery, Device42 has enabled me to know the number of machines running in the on-premise environment and has managed to capture complete utilization metrics or trends of their utilization. This has benefited me in right-sizing systems for my public cloud total cost of ownership (TCO) planning, providing me granularity to right-size these systems while planning a migration to the public cloud. Device42 has positively impacted my organization by providing granularity toward application discovery compared to other assessment tools, which is a differentiator since none of the other tools provide such granularity, leading to better decision-making for my migration to the public cloud. Device42 has improved my migration projects by providing granularity around system dependencies that gave me confidence knowing which systems communicate with each other parked in a particular move group. My move group planning became so robust that I am not leaving any system behind in the on-premise data center from my planning, which saves a lot of time and effort, leading to cost optimization—a value addition.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which IT Asset Management solutions are best for your needs.
896,510 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business150
Midsize Enterprise82
Large Enterprise531
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise20
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What needs improvement with BMC Helix Discovery?
The interface is quite old and can be outdated.
What is your primary use case for BMC Helix Discovery?
BMC Helix Discovery is used for discovery of the assets and configuration items so that you can populate the CMDB.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Device42?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Device42 are relatively cost-effective and affordable. I do not know if a ...
What needs improvement with Device42?
I think Device42 can be improved by adding more features around the CMDB aspect and lifecycle management. I do not th...
What is your primary use case for Device42?
My main use case for Device42 is that we use it as a CMDB and affinity map to check out network topology or determine...
 

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
Discovery, ADDM, Atrium Discovery & Dependency Mapping
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
Windstream Communications, News UK, Mercator Group, Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR)
Computershare, Concur, Doosan, Fitch Ratings Inc., Fujitsu, HomeAway, Jasper Wireless, Mercedes-Benz, Square, Twitch, UCSB, Zayo Group Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Helix Discovery vs. Device42 and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
896,510 professionals have used our research since 2012.