IBM Datacap vs Microsoft Power Automate comparison

IBM and Microsoft are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. Additionally, 89% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Datacap and Microsoft Power Automate based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Datacap vs. Microsoft Power Automate Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Datacap vs. Microsoft Power Automate

December 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 879,371 peers since 2012

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

Featured Reviews

Jane Rachma Kiniti

IT Project Manager at Labo des histoires

Automate has streamlined workflows and increased efficiency with powerful automation

The best features of the solution are the flexible automation features, it is rich with beautiful connectors, and it is easy to use with little to no coding knowledge required to get started, so anybody can use the tool. The intuitive interface of Automate has an intuitive design, which makes it easy to learn and use even without a strong technical background, and it has a drag-and-drop interface, which makes everything so easy and straightforward. The error handling capabilities in complex automation tasks are powerful, as it handles all types of tasks, whether complex or simple. I've never faced any problems even when dealing with complex tasks, so everything is super smooth and highly reliable, even when dealing with big tasks, as it has never slowed down. Automate's compatibility with existing IT infrastructure has impacted our business operations positively by providing smooth integration with other software that we use, such as Gmail, Jira, and Microsoft 365 apps, which gives us a unified platform instead of having to keep switching from one software to another, saving a lot of time and streamlining the whole workflows. The automated analytics have helped improve our business processes since it has increased our efficiency by automating our everyday tasks, freeing up time for us to focus more on strategic activities such as analyzing data and developing new business strategies. It is also cost-saving. By minimizing manual labor, it decreases human errors that can lead to costly mistakes. By automating the tasks, it helps to save costs, and it also improves our accuracy by reducing these errors to ensure that tasks are done almost perfectly.

Read full review

DeekshithShetty

Software Development Senior Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

High-accuracy document processing with easy integration and good image enhancement

The OCR extractions are very good, almost 100% accurate now. The integration with other tools is very easy, with inbuilt actions to configure and directly export to multiple depositories. It is also good at image enhancement, including the removal of lines, which is helpful in processing and automation and ensures very little user intervention, thus saving time.

Read full review

Ayobami Shobaloju

Customer Solution Provider at Wema Bank

Automating processes has saved time and improved communication

Something frustrates me concerning Microsoft Power Automate, and that is about the integration with Microsoft Forms and Excel. The issue now is that I don't get my responses synchronized automatically, and that frustrates me a lot. If the team could take this as feedback, the synchronization of the feedback responses from the forms and the Excel sheets should be seamless. This synchronization issue happens frequently, and it causes a lot of delays in the sense that the mails that ought to go out to the agents fail at some point. I have to reload these responses so that the agents can get their responses as when submitted. What I notice is that the responses don't go out without proper synchronization, so I reload the field responses, and this works afterwards. I would say probably a seamless walkthrough process for new users would be beneficial. For those using it for the first time, a seamless walkthrough process would be fine.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is continuously adding more integrations to help with workflows and bot and task creation."

"Automate helps me reduce manual work by automating tasks such as access keys and security rotations that we were not able to automate before, diminishing human dependency, and helps minimize errors."

"We have found the pricing to be very reasonable."

"The peace of mind I have using Automate for scheduling tasks allows me to focus on other responsibilities without worrying about operational issues."

"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."

"We are still in the process of rolling it to production and tweaking it (our AD groups are a mess), but the improvements are priceless. Having users ID's created the same way every time without human error is the best part. We don't need to worry about why groups were not added, user rights not set to folders or missing a private folder being created, typos or just even knowing when things are done and logged."

"The most valuable features of Fortra's Automate include its FTP functionality and file manipulation capabilities."

"The automated analytics have helped improve our business processes since it has increased our efficiency by automating our everyday tasks, freeing up time for us to focus more on strategic activities such as analyzing data and developing new business strategies."

More Fortra's Automate pros

"The solution automates manual data entry."

"I can have all scanners accessible from my end."

"It is highly extensible, which we found to be most valuable. It is a very extensible solution because it is based on configurable rule sets. We were able to amend and adjust the solution and very easily add custom code and custom components. It does require some programming experience, but we found that not to be an issue. We liked its extensibility."

"The second thing that I like about Datacap is the fingerprint capture which is easy to configure on Datacap. From the form of the document, if a document is redundant in the same department, we can configure the capture based on the form of the documents"

"The big thing these days is really the Insight Edition component and being able to build annotators to extract from literally unstructured content: paragraphs and information where there's no start anchor point to define where that data is located. There could be a number of entities in that which you have to draw information from. Being able to extract from them is really the differentiator today between that product and many of the other products..."

"The standout feature of this intelligent product is its remarkable capability."

"Both Datacap Studio and Datacap Navigator are great features."

"One valuable feature of IBM Datacap is the OCR capability, along with its ability to read fields from documents."

More IBM Datacap pros

"Power Automate is not complex and is very easy-to-use in deploying most development projects."

"The email routing, consolidation of the reports, and management features are strong."

"Its integration with the Office 365 ecosystem is most valuable. We use a lot of ready-to-use templates."

"Third-party integrations with third-party applications are quite easy."

"The initial setup was easy. It was very easy for people to pick up. The deployment took a few hours."

"The product is very stable."

"The whole platform seamlessly integrates well."

"Power Automate Desktop allowed me to quickly visually identify parts of a screen and record it. So I can see that I know I'm going to have to click this button here, this field there, and this tab here, and I can literally go and quickly just record all of them and identify them and have them in a list that I can see and say - there's my list of things."

More Microsoft Power Automate pros

Cons

"Some companies have asked for voice integration. This is likely part of the roadmap."

"I would like the updates to be easier to deploy. Integration with Amazon S3 is somewhat lacking."

"The user interface could be slightly enhanced to make it more modern."

"The technical support could be better. We suffer from language barriers, as we are in Argentina."

"I would like to see some better web automation, a wizard like the one in the product WinAutomation would be very nice."

"Currently, there are many instances where I see empty logs, indicating that, while tasks are scheduled, commands are not executing successfully."

"Error messages should be better. For error status, there should be better documentation because a lot of times, error messages that you get are quite vague. For example, you get a message saying that the workflow has run into an unknown status, which is vague. It just tells you that it failed, but you don't know how or why it failed. It makes debugging difficult."

"The user interface could be slightly enhanced to make it more modern."

More Fortra's Automate cons

"When a client's requirement is not available in Datacap, out-of-the-box actions should be simpler to implement and not very complex."

"Reporting and analytics seem to often be something of an afterthought. With Datacap, they've started building out some dashboards, but one thing we hear from our clients a lot is, "Well, gee, we really love reports. What Datacap has is not really helpful. We'd like something better. We'd like more dashboards." That's one area where we've seen some feedback that the product could do better."

"Currently, when you are entering invoices, you have to enter multiple rows. In Captiva the multiple rows will be dynamically added. This would be a beneficial feature for IBM to add."

"The solution's scalability needs improvement."

"Datacap has performance issues when processing large volumes of documents. We're doing 18,000 pages daily. Scanning takes almost 20-30 minutes, but it normally takes one or two minutes. We informed IBM and opened a ticket for that. They forwarded the issue to developers but didn't give a specific timeline for it to be resolved. Version 8.1 is already at the end of support."

"Its weaknesses are primarily tied to the lack of available resources and expertise in the market to effectively support and provide solutions and services to each customer for seamless implementation."

"I would like better ease of use and more support options."

"Datacap's technology seems a little behind the industry. It's still using the old .NET framework. They should move to .NET Core and start integrating some machine learning. You can do some integration yourself, but you expect a solution to include the latest machine-learning approaches if you're paying reasonable money for it."

More IBM Datacap cons

"Power Automate is too complicated - it forces you to go through extra tasks instead of streamlining your workflow."

"Execution of workflows could be improved."

"This solution should be more resilient, with robots more capable of recovering after an error."

"Its licensing model should be improved. The pricing should be more visible and transparent. When you consume services, there are too many criteria to figure out how much it is going to cost you to use the product to its full extent. It should also support visual process editing, which is a standard feature for BPMN 2.0 compliance. They should improve the visual designer."

"During their merger, some key functions were eliminated which no longer allows it to run independently from the cloud as a standalone for other companies. For example, options to schedule and trigger have been removed. It would be nice to have these capabilities back. The flow and the connectivity between databases and so on is a bit complex as well."

"More OCR and AI capabilities are needed to improve the solution. Other solutions have better features, such as Blue Prism and UiPath."

"I need to have more integration capabilities from this solution."

"The stability of the product is not very good and can even fail with simple projects."

More Microsoft Power Automate cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It comes with a package that costs approximately $20,000 USD per year."

"I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost."

"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."

"From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point."

"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."

"The cost is a bit high for a small business like ours, but we manage with Fortra's Automate."

"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."

"I like the way this solution is priced because you can buy a license, or you can buy the software outright."

More Fortra's Automate pricing and cost advice

"It varies, and it depends on the client's requirements and negotiations. Nowadays, Datacap is also included in the IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation."

"You save a lot of time and money, but the benefit is you have people who are able to run the systems, check to see if there are any errors at all, and there are a lot less errors than a human system."

"This solution offers seamless integration with other enterprise products, which is my area of responsibility, focusing on government sector projects. Larger enterprise projects don't pose problems. It might be suitable for small businesses as well."

"In Egypt, we have exchange rates that change year to year, and currently, we're facing an increase in the exchange rate between our Egyptian pound and the dollar. Since we have been using IBM DataCap two years ago we had a good price, it was not expensive. However, I cannot say now if it is expensive or not because of the exchange rate. Additionally, I don't have the data of other competitors and I don't know the prices."

"This solution is the most expensive in the market."

"We were using the User Value Unit licensing, which means we get charged per active user of the system, and if I'm not mistaken, we also had it for the rule runner service. They had a PVU license model, which is a processor value unit. For each process that we have in our system, we pay a certain amount of money. We found the pricing to be quite steep. It was really an expensive solution in comparison to Kofax, which had a different licensing model and was actually cheaper overall because they charge per page and not per user and per process."

"If you want IBM Datacap on cloud, which is a service run by IBM, the price can be quite expensive, but if you want to just purchase the licenses and own those yourself, then the price is very competitive."

"Pricing depends on how much we use it. We pay per bulk quantity. We pay as you go. Therefore, it sort of depends on our usage of it."

More IBM Datacap pricing and cost advice

"Microsoft is providing an automatic license with a cost of $20 million per month, which is reasonable."

"It had by far the fairest licensing on the market. For the money, you got a very good value."

"You can have two types of licenses, one is user-based, and the other is app-based in the Power Platform."

"There are many different ways to license it."

"I am not aware of the recent pricing model, but during the time that I was using this solution is was reasonable."

"There should be increased transparency about which features attend the pricing."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing two to three out of ten."

"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being expensive because there are charges for additional plug-ins."

More Microsoft Power Automate pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

879,371 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Performing Arts

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

10%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	24
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	50
Midsize Enterprise	17
Large Enterprise	65

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.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for HelpSystems AutoMate?

We have been using Automate for approximately one to one and a half years for the automation component. For complex a...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?

The pricing aspect is covered by my senior, but Automate is a centralized tool, so we do not need to buy different to...

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Datacap?

The installation of the solution is very simple.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Datacap?

Pricing is in the mid-range but could be more affordable, rated at four point five.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Datacap?

IBM needs to improve on scanning and reading accuracy for unstructured documents. Additionally, an important missing ...

See all answers

RPA that Bots can run without centralized control?

Yes, Attended Bots which can run without centralized control Module. RPA Tools like Automation Anywhere, uiPath ,Pow...

See all answers

How do I choose between UiPath and Microsoft Power Automate?

Microsoft‌ ‌Power‌ ‌Automate‌ ‌is‌ ‌intuitive‌ ‌and‌ ‌easy‌ ‌to‌ ‌integrate‌ ‌and‌ ‌use.‌ ‌I‌ ‌like‌ ‌that‌ ‌there‌ ‌...

See all answers

How is Automation Anywhere compared to Microsoft Power Automate?

‌Neither‌ ‌solution‌ ‌requires‌ ‌any‌ ‌coding‌ ‌experience,‌ ‌and‌ ‌both‌ ‌are‌ ‌easy‌ ‌to‌ ‌use‌ ‌and‌ ‌have‌ ‌great...

See all answers

Comparisons

UiPath Platform vs Fortra's Automate

Compared 13% of the time

Nintex RPA vs Fortra's Automate

Compared 12% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Fortra's Automate

Compared 8% of the time

Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition vs Fortra's Automate

Compared 7% of the time

Blue Prism vs Fortra's Automate

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortra's Automate Competitors

ABBYY Vantage vs IBM Datacap

Compared 31% of the time

OpenText Capture vs IBM Datacap

Compared 18% of the time

Tungsten TotalAgility vs IBM Datacap

Compared 17% of the time

Amazon Textract vs IBM Datacap

Compared 16% of the time

More IBM Datacap Competitors

Automation Anywhere vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 16% of the time

UiPath Platform vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 15% of the time

IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 13% of the time

Blue Prism vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 13% of the time

Tungsten RPA vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 1% of the time

More Microsoft Power Automate Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortra's Automate

December 2025

Download Fortra's Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Datacap

December 2025

Download IBM Datacap product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power Automate

December 2025

Download Microsoft Power Automate product report

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate

Datacap

Power Automate, Microsoft Flow, MS Power Automate, WinAutomation by Softomotive, ProcessRobot by Softomotive, Minit

Overview

Fortra's Automate offers a user-friendly platform for task automation, featuring a drag-and-drop interface that aids in scheduling, file management, and integrating with services like Azure and AWS.

Fortra's Automate provides substantial ease in automating complex tasks through its intuitive design. It offers seamless integration capabilities, especially with Azure and AWS, and comes equipped with strong error handling. Cost-effective and requiring minimal coding, it supports a broad range of industries by effectively automating tasks such as HR operations, invoice management, and data processing across servers.

What features stand out in Fortra's Automate?

Drag-and-Drop Interface: Simplifies task setup and automation without deep coding expertise.
Scheduling and File Management: Ensures efficient, automated handling of tasks and file transfers.
Integration Capabilities: Works with platforms like Azure and AWS for enhanced performance.
Error Handling: Offers solid solutions to manage and resolve task execution errors.
Minimal Coding: Facilitates automation with limited coding requirements, broadening accessibility.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Cost-Effectiveness: Provides affordable licensing options for diverse businesses.
Operational Efficiency: Enhances productivity by automating repetitive tasks, reducing manual errors.
Versatility: Adapts well across sectors like banking, healthcare, and transportation.
Robust Support: Offers extensive assistance with automation features.
IT Compatibility: Easily integrates into existing IT infrastructures.

In industries such as healthcare and transportation, Fortra's Automate facilitates the automation of client management, HR operations, and data processing, boosting efficiency. Banks utilize it for managing extensive invoice workflows, while distribution sectors rely on its capabilities for insurance checks and system support. Its applicability across servers makes it a valuable tool for any sector seeking to reduce manual workload and improve task accuracy.

Fortra

IBM Datacap helps you streamline the capture, recognition and classification of business documents and extract important information. Datacap supports multiple-channel capture by processing paper documents on scanners, mobile devices, multi-function peripherals and fax. It uses natural language processing, text analytics and machine learning technologies, like those in IBM Watson, to automatically identify, classify and extract content from unstructured or variable documents. The software can reduce labor and paper costs, deliver meaningful information and support faster decision making.

IBM

Microsoft Power Automate is a powerful tool that streamlines and automates tasks within an organization.

It is used for workflow automation, data integration, and creating automated notifications and approvals.

Power Automate connects different applications and services, such as SharePoint, Excel, and Outlook, to automate data transfer and synchronization.

Microsoft

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

Turkcell, PowerSouth Energy Cooperative, Central Nacional Unimed, Conqord Oil

1. Coca-Cola 2. General Electric 3. Siemens 4. Accenture 5. Deloitte 6. Johnson & Johnson 7. Ford 8. Nestle 9. Procter & Gamble 10. IBM 11. Amazon 12. Google 13. Microsoft 14. Adobe 15. Cisco 16. Oracle 17. SAP 18. Intel 19. HP 20. Dell 21. Verizon 22. AT&T 23. T-Mobile 24. Walmart 25. Target 26. Home Depot 27. McDonald's 28. Starbucks 29. Nike 30. Apple 31. Facebook 32. Twitter

Buyer's Guide

IBM Datacap vs. Microsoft Power Automate

December 2025

Free Report: IBM Datacap vs. Microsoft Power Automate

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Datacap vs. Microsoft Power Automate and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

879,371 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our IBM Datacap vs. Microsoft Power Automate report.

See our list of best Robotic Process Automation (RPA) vendors.

We monitor all Robotic Process Automation (RPA) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.