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, leadership and culture. In my 4 years I never saw UiPath lose a bakeoff. I'm sure it happened, but in my experience. Here's what you should know about. 

1. If you haven't, read the latest Forrester, Gartner and Everest RPA vendor analyses reports. The RPA industry is young and immature, which means subjective opinions are rampant and objective insights are rare. These three aren't perfect guides, but they're good and useful.

2. Invest time and effort in designing an truly insightful bakeoff. Some recommendations: 

2a. Ease of Use: as you'll see from the comments, a talented developer can work with any leading RPA product. But what about your sharp business users - the future citizen-developers who can drive widespread bottom-up adoption?  I'd recommend you follow the example of a company that had UiPath and 3 competitors make a usability presentation/demo to a group of developers. While it was a group of developers, what none of the vendors knew was that it also included 2 BA's. After each presentation, the exec sponsor would look at those two and ask, "So, you watched the demo. How comfortable would you feel about learning to do what you just saw?" 

2b. Productivity. IMO, one of the most clever bake-offs I ever participated in (for a large Int'l bank) took the following approach. Each vendor assembled one team for onsite PoC work. The teams had to complete 3 PoCs in 4 days (Tues-Friday). Each PoC addressed a different use case, comprised of simple, moderate, or hard levels. The client gave out the first one on Tuesday, the second when the first was done and then the third - never identifying the level of difficulty.

Why did I think it was clever? One, it prioritized the type of automation important to the bank, not the vendors. Two, it put the vendors squarely in the position of having to get the work done - without knowing if the next automation task would harder or easier than the current one.  That meant teams couldn't count on hiding a product weaknesses by throwing more time at the automation - the next use case might in their sweet spot but much harder. 

3. Product releases: have each vendor provide a list of product releases for the past three years. How many are there? Frequency provides insight into the innovation speed of the vendor's product team.  Next, get a feature matrix covering those releases so you can easily see exactly what's been upgraded - and what hasn't. When you talk to references (below), ask what missing features they've asked for and how quickly they've been provided. 

4. References: get at least two release upgrade references. Some vendors have known issues with customers upgrading. Someday that could be you. Next, go through vendor use cases, articles and press releases for - in your instance - mentions of global finance customers. Don't be shy about asking for references from specific customers they've mentioned and you feel would be relevant. After all, every vendor can be counted on to provide friendly references - if left to their own devices. 

Take control.

Hope this helps.

Good Question and Very Easy Answer :) Please find the below links it should help you to get good product comparison of UiPath vs Automation Anywhere vs BluePrism

- Product Feature Comparison : drive.google.com
- Product Platform Comparisons: drive.google.com

Conclusion is : UiPath is definitely a better choice over BP also the Product Road-map of Uipath is much strong and advance vs BP.

I have more detailed analysis on each of this products with granular detailed comparison. you can reach me over LinkedIn :) will be happy to help.

I'd prefer BP for backend, unattended automation while UiPath [or better AA] for front end and including desktop [attended] automation. Each of these 3 performs pretty similar to the other in my evaluation of the 3 but I disliked the drab UI that UiPAth offers. UiPath got a load of free stuff on the internet - trainings, downlaods, etc. so its a decent entry point product.

At this point, they are all pretty comparable. Although, I will say UiPath has slightly better tools for inspecting webpage or dialog controls (You'll need that when you run into automation problems -- trust me!). Their community forums are pretty active as well. If you have competent developers, I am sure they can get any of them to do what is needed. In my experience, the licensing model is going to be more of a deciding factor. I'd work out how you will deploy (central server, desktop) and work out your costs. If you don't have a good handle on that, it can be a bit of a shock. Definitely negotiate that with the vendor early on.
Most of my clients struggle more with the process analysis, process redesign and rollout management than the technology.

If you need to implement RPA for BPO automation, UiPath is very good with Citrix environment. Where UiPath will provide you both front and back office automation, Blue Prism will only provide you back-office automation as of now.

UiPath activities are integrated with variables and one can develop a package and use it. Blue Prism on the other hand does not really support it with ease.

Blue Prism supports debugging while interacting dynamically, which is limitation with UiPath.

The mapping process with UiPath is done at a pretty high-speed. Blue Prism, on the other hand lacks recorders.

It’s easier to learn UiPath owing to large source of free training and free software for learning and evaluation. It also has certification available for free right now.
On the architecture level, Blue Prism has client-server architecture. UiPath combine its Studio software with Orchestrator, which is quite easy to manage.

There are certain differences in accessibility and reliability.
Where you may access UiPath through browser and mobile, for Blue Prism it is app based.
Blue Prism is considered highly reliable, however UiPath is moderate in this respect.

UiPath is very good tool for small to medium projects but for large projects Blue Prism provides higher speed.

You will find UiPath to be cheaper then Blue Prism.

UIPATH DIFFERENTIATORS

VDI Automation

Why UIPATH: UiPath offers best-in-class VDI automation that allows relativeposition
interactions, which is both intuitive and easy to develop.
BP: Has low support for image automation, and much of the image automation
they do offer is unreliable. VDI use cases for BP tend to only work if hotkeys can be
used for most all steps.

Attended
Automation

Why UIPATH: UiPath offers both attended and unattended automation.
BP: Does not offer true attended automation.

.NET Integration

Why UIPATH: UiPath leverages all .NET datatypes natively, and allows inline
scripting for activities.
BP: Only supports primitive data types, requiring developers to develop additional
object models if they require more complex datatypes.

Digital PDFs

Why UIPATH: UiPath can automate PDF interaction without opening them in Adobe
Reader.
BP: Requires a PDF client to work with PDF’s and the process is UI Automation over
the reader, which is slow to develop and can be unreliable given the number of
versions of PDF readers.

Recorder

Why UIPATH: Use of recorders and wizards speed up development and enables
business analyst-level users to create basic automations which can be leveraged by
developers for enterprise-grade automations.
BP: Doesn’t have any of these helpers, requiring a developer to create the
automations from the ground up.

Transparency/
Democratization

Why UIPATH: UiPath offers free training, forum, and a community edition of the
software to enable everyone to learn RPA.
BP: Has very limited documentation, and a community forum which is only open to
active subscription customers

BP Competitive Objections
UIPATH Fact-Based Response and Suggested *UTURN

UiPath isn't secure
FACT: UiPath has Veracode certification. UiPath has been evaluated and
deemed acceptable for NASA and other federal agencies .
UTURN: What security evaluation or certification do you need in order to
feel comfortable with the software?

UiPath doesn’t have debugging tools
FACT: UiPath does have debugging tools.
UTURN: What functionality do you need with debugging?

UiPath is not enterprise-level
FACT: UiPath does have enterprise-level clients. Google, knows enterprise
RPA, invested in UiPath and partners with us globally. In addition, GE, HP, and
Wells Fargo are UiPath enterprise-level accounts among many others.
UTURN: What type of enterprise-level RPA functionalities are you looking
for?

So it is no wonder that Uipath is being considered the best RPA tool today.
I hope I could have contributed.

We have not used UiPath, hence I am not able to do a direct comparison. In terms of Blue Prism, we have found it user friendly. We run it as a business tool and not as an IT solution. Hence our approach was to select a tool that did not require “coding” and had a user friendly design studio. Processes are generally quite quick to implement. The control room is also intuitive and easy to use.
The support received from BP has also been good and any technical question raised, gets answered promptly.
BP are also enabling partners who automate different parts of a process. This is all evident in their digital exchange. Makes it easier to drop into a RPA process, other tech that fulfills part of the process automation.

We are in the processes of looking at how to scale the tool. It is scalable and secure, which is a good feature. Their pricing model also caters for single Bots to scaled environments with volume discounts.

Some lessons in terms of RPA include:

1) Take the business along the journey – no matter what tool you use. Without buy-in to the vision around intelligent automation, you will find roadblocks along the way. The business needs to understand the power of a digital worker.

2) Establish a vision on automation. It is more than just large scale process automation. Blue Prism is bring the “human-in- the-loop” solutions to the market which allows us to deploy a Bot within a process and on demand. It changes the dynamics of a “digital co-worker” to being very visible to the workforce

3) Get the right skills into your RPA team. Process analysts, business analysts, RPA developers, technical specialist – make sure the skill includes people who can re-engineer processes and are able to see process optimization opportunities. Often the benefits come from looking at how to improve the process, not just automate what is already there. As with other entities, we are looking to graduate engineers to play a role as they understand “process and control”.

4) Adopt an agile build process.

5) Ensure that the control environment is built from the start – all the governance is in place even if only for a few Bots

6) Ensure that you have a forum to review and prioritise RPA work. Without this, you will find it difficult to report on the value and navigate all the requests from business to automate.

We always recommend Automation Anywhere for enterprises. It is the only product that is proven at scale for enterprise clients. In my experience, this is because of product scalability, an awesome CSM team and internal expertise, and a large ecosystem of trained users.

Compared with UiPath and Blue Prism, I've seen my customers have most success with AAI. is very easy for users with varied technical skills to learn and operate. There is free training, easy access to the tool, and advanced Citrix and VDI support.

Ability to operate, manage and control bots easily is a big advantage for AAI. Compared to AAI, Blue Prism is very difficult to use, and UiPath has a very basic orchestrator. We hear complaints about UiPath's inability to manage bots efficiently.

I would add Automation Anywhere to your shortlist for attended and unattended automation.

I'm very happy to resolve your query. Below is my opinion on your question.

1. UiPath is much better than the Blue Prism, In a Blue Prism, you will
get the complex implementation in activities.
2. In term of the Demo and practices, UiPath provides a community version
to explore the platform.
3. In terms of Licensing, UiPath provides RPA (Robotic Process Automation)
aka unassisted bots and RDA (Robotic Desktop Automation) aka assisted bots.
Both have different license model and pricing while Blue Prism provides
only RPA platform with a single licensing model.
4. UiPath provides strong activities guide which is lacking in Blue Prism
for public
5. UiPath provides version control at activities level and the user can
update version according to project need. but in the Blue Prism, it's too
complex to maintain version at the activity level.
6. My personal opinion, it takes time to learn Blue Prism as compared to
UiPath.

It really depends on what are your plans for RPA in your organization. In terms of Features and functionality both of the tools are good only with few minor differences as explained by in other responses. Based on my 5 yr. experience in RPA Blue Prism scores big when it comes for security, stability and scalablity. In case you are planning for a enterprise wide RPA implementation at large scale go with BP.

The following are the points that describe the differences
between Blue Prism and UiPath

1) UiPath has free community edition while Blue Prism doesn’t have their
community edition for students and small scale company
2) UiPath studio is extremely easy to use and you would be able to figure
out most of the options quickly while in Blue Prism you need certain
training regarding processes and objects before you kick start your project
3) UiPath offers free foundation diploma which will get you to the speed of
automation while Blue Prism doesn’t have one at this point of time.
4) UiPath free community edition can be used to learn the software within
UiPath academy website which consists of free training videos gated online
tests and exercise materials along with the solutions. Blue Prism doesn’t
have good knowledge base and only consist of exercise materials as documents
5) UiPath provides strong activities guide which is lacking in Blue Prism
for public.
7) If you have applications hosted in citrix then UiPath is a better tool
to use because UiPath incorporate AI on their computer vision where the
elements are identified much precisely then Blue Prism
8) UiPath provides advance scheduling on their orchestrator that can use
Cron expression for custom scheduling while Blue Prism lacks this feature
9) Both these tools are moving towards cognitive analytics. UiPath offers
Google Text Analysis, IBM Watson Text Analysis, and Microsoft Text
Analysis. Expert System Partners with Blue Prism to Extend RPA Reach with
Cognitive Computing.
10) Hardware requirement for UiPath is on the higher side when compared to
blue Prism. This includes more CPU, RAM and SSD requirement on both client
& server side. This may marginally increase infrastructure cost for the
firm when compared to Blue Prism.

I hope these clarify the differences. Although both the tools can be used
for many process scenarios I personally would prefer UiPath because of its
ease of use and quick ROI.

the main difference in my opinion is that UI path is good for desktop (attended) bots . WHile Blueprism for enterprise level bots - you can efficiently manage license across organisation and get the vest value of the licenses. Both offers unattended and attended bots but based on my evaluation, if you prefer attended mostly, UI path wins if unattended, blueprism wins. UI path wins over innovative roadmap while blueprism wins over stability , security and scalability.

Check out Work Fusion. They are in banking organizations and have a strong AI component to their solution.

Blue Prism is the most costly, and needs certifications and hence the skill level and learning curve is steep, also, the resource cost is higher. Blue Prism does not support older versions for long which means you will need to keep updating the bots and pay through the nose for the same. UiPath is more modern, and can work in both attended and unattended mode. Blue Prism is made for mainly unattended mode, backend process automation.
Generally, I reccomend RPA for processes more an 10 steps and for back end task, wich could assist an operational resource, and if they are absolutely mundane tasks like excel crunching. If they include more front end click and push kind of activities, suggest you consider chatbot also, there are good options along that line.
Both UiPath and BP are annual licensing, and each bot needs dedicated VM to run. Blue Prism licensing model is simpler though.
Generally speaking, I would pick UiPath anyday.

You can take a look at an article I wrote on the comparison of the two.

blog.royalcyber.com

Good Morning!
I currently use both tools.
I particularly like UiPath for ease of development and deployment, free training and great support.
Another point that tends to UiPath is the cost and management that are better.
But both tools are great.

If the IT systems belong to your own financial firm, please stay away from RPAs (both of these). 

it's expensive and slows down the performance KPI. RPAs are good only if you are a BPO and need to do screen scraping and a few emails and Excel automation.

There are many alternatives to this process to your own systems with integrated workflows.

UiPath, no doubts of this. You can see some great case studies with UiPath here: https://www.aggranda.com/rpa-c...

I will suggest you try other options too. If you are looking for something that can do both IT Automation and Business process automation, try AutomationEdge. It also claims that it has got Hyperautomation key building block inbuilt in the solution. You can check it here: www.automationedge.com.

I prefer Automation Anywhere for large enterprise deployments and scalability.

I will not recommend any specific product but will offer some guidance on what to think through:

The top products are all going to do base RPA tasks well. Its almost a commodity. Because of that you have to consider other items:

* Are you going to have a centralized process or federated. If it is federated and you intend to extend robot building to lines of business, focus on ease of use their builders. No matter what the sales people tell you, you need some basic skill in coding or concepts to be successful in scale. So if your intent is going to be to allow business people to build robots give emphasis on ease of use. (however, I will tell you, you may sacrifice power/capability in the long run by focusing on systems that provide low code / easy code operations). You have to decide.
* If you intend to use advanced offerings by your vendor in the future like Ai and the such. Understand who goes deeper in your areas of interest better.
* You will most likely need a service integrator to stand up the solution, get some quick wins, or even operate it in the long run. If you have strategic partners, understanding their expertise and products they excel in would be a place start.
* Understand the IT components, like does it require service accounts, can it automatically change passwords on your companies password policy, how does it do security, and roles? Are you going to be able to manage it in scale if multiple departments or locations want robots and scheduling and access. (Do these controls exist and to an extent that it is not in conflict your rules and procedures.
* Understand how exception handling is done and how well and what options you have. Expect your robots to be 60% accurate out of the gate (and call that a success) and understand that you will need to keep tuning them as items come up for a period of time. But assume your robots will have to communicate, log, set aside work that it doesn’t know how to handle and those work items will require human review. Which product does that best for you?
* Compare your applications that you will need to interact with to what the solutions already have robots built for. Most of the top players have prebuilt robots or code to speed up what you are doing. Some are better than others. If you have a lot of custom applications, its going to be a lot of coding, if you have a lot of popular COTS applications, ask to see what the vendors already offer with your applications. Some vendors may be a better fit in that space than others. i.e. have more prebuilt robots ready for your application sets.

www.linkedin.com
It may be prudent to evaluate a partner who has capabilities in end-to-end straight through processing than instituting a spate of task-bots with either of the Big3s (just because they have the size does not mean capability). if you're in London, do join us to learn more or write to me at pranay dot juyal at ant dot works to learn how an Integrated Automation Platform is different from a basic bot solution

From a market perspective, you can't go wrong with Automation Anywhere, UiPath and BP. Full disclosure, we are UiPath resellers, so we are partial to UiPath, but you can't go wrong with either tool.

I like UiPath for ease of development and deployment, free training, great support and forums for help questions.
is easy to enter for low cost and license structure.

I prefer UiPath as it it is more versatile than Blue Prism.

We have used UiPath to Automated some of the financial processes like daily sales report and bank reconciliation for one of our clients and it went very well. I am not familiar with BP ,yet I believe both tools are good.. as Said UiPath is a robust and easy to use tool.. their support is great and they are advancing very fast in different industries.

In Automation projects, the tool is essential ;however, evaluating and selecting the right processes for Automation and having a strong delivery partner with SME in your industry is also critical.

One more point, since you are in Financial and Accounting, I do suggest to look into tools that have or do integrate with AI, some processes needs this to bring the real value of Automation.

Uipath because flexible and great support and easy to use

There is no the best RPA tool as such. It all depends on the client requirements/insights.
There are huge variety of factors in which all the tools differ from each other in.
One factor may be cost, other one is process change management.

UiPath is extremely friendly, it shine in Citrix and was specifically designed for BPO automation, based on client insights.

Flip side, Blue Prism is good for mass scale deployment of large number of bots and bit hard to automate Java applications (though BP provides javabridge connectors)

There are other technical differences, but these issues will be resolved in future release of both UiPath and Blue prism.

Another main difference is affordability. BP is pricey compared to UiPath.
UiPath suite supports attended and unattended bots where as BP doesn't. There is a difference in their architecture too.

To my knowledge, tool selection is absolutely based on process/use case and affordability.

I am aware that these description provided in my email may not be sufficient to propose the best tool.

User can contact me directly if needed any further information.

It depends. Blue Prism is good for integrations to ERP systems

UiPath has a easier UI (no Phun indeded)

Would also look into Orcestra ( orchestra.b12.io/ ) Or Automation everywhere (If you have citrix)

If some in your organization is using mac, I would check out www.t-plan.com

I would strongly suggest that you also check out JiffyRPA as it comes pre-loaded with a lot of Finance and Accounting automation capabilities and is dynamically scalable.