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Appian RPA vs IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Automation Anywhere
Sponsored
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
668
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (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 (2nd), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
Appian RPA
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (21st)
IBM Robotic Process Automat...
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automation Anywhere is 4.9%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Appian RPA is 1.3%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is 2.0%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Automation Anywhere4.9%
IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)2.0%
Appian RPA1.3%
Other91.8%
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
 

Featured Reviews

Nadeem K. - PeerSpot reviewer
Rpa Developer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Automation has freed teams from repetitive finance and supply tasks and supports global operations
In the current organization, we had trouble initially because I think the documentation and support could be better than what it is now. This is one difference between Automation Anywhere and other RPA tools such as UiPath. In UiPath, if you have an issue, you go to the UiPath website and search for it, and you get lots of help materials. In Automation Anywhere, you do not get exactly what you are looking for. You get a very large number of results when you search for something, and from this large result set, you have to filter out what you need, or only partial information will be available. User handbooks are available for each product. In that regard, I would say Automation Anywhere is lagging compared to other RPA tools. It is difficult to get hold of their customer support team. I want to clarify that it is not a matter of us building logic on Automation Anywhere and it failing. When it is a product-related issue, they have to give us support because we only know how to develop within Automation Anywhere. We do not know how to fix Automation Anywhere itself. Whenever we have an issue, trying to get in touch with them always takes three to four business days.
Ashish-Chopra - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Architect at Westpac Bank
Automation has reduced manual errors and now needs better high-volume data handling
In my opinion, Appian RPA can be improved. We are planning to conduct a proof of concept on volume because we are still not entirely certain about how well the record type feature performs on Appian with high volumes of data. After conducting client calls with HSBC, Santander, and a few of the Big Four, we learned about use cases where Appian has been used for high volumes of data. We are planning to conduct a proof of concept to test that hypothesis. Additional features that could enhance Appian RPA in the future would include AI on Azure. Currently, their AI is only AWS-based, and we are in discussions with the company about this because we are an Azure shop. I believe this would be a good area for them to concentrate on.
Mohamed-Abdelwahed - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Solutions Manager at valleysoft
Has improved analytics and reporting but needs better integration and support
To improve IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for the next release, there should be more integration with external systems, and more integration with IBM's data and AI platforms is needed. There is an AI part in IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for Machine Learning, but IBM has another platform specifically for data and AI, which is integrated right now. More features are hoped for in the future.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"They can build an end-to-end solution with Automation Anywhere."
"I'd say the most impactful and heavily or commonly used ability of v11 and A2019 has been the ability to integrate other code types and operations within the process."
"Error handling plays an important role when you schedule a bot because if you are not physically present and something happens, you need to know what has gone wrong."
"The scalability of Automation Anywhere, the framework, and user interface are particularly impressive."
"Before Automation Anywhere, the insurance companies used to transfer data manually from one app to another, but after introducing them to automation the speed and accuracy have been outstanding."
"It's a perfect product; it's made my life very easy and a lot of people's lives very easy, removing hectic, repetitive, boring work and giving people free time to do the work they really want to do."
"We have worked with various tools over many years and we believe that Automation Anywhere is one of the most stable platforms."
"UI and document automation are two features I like. Document automation is helpful because it simplifies extracting and putting data into different ERP systems. I have three or four use cases for document automation. I also like the recorder objects feature, which was called object learning in the previous version, and screen scraping."
"The best feature of Appian RPA is that it is highly integrated into the Appian platform itself and is very easy to configure in the end-to-end Appian automation solution."
"Appian RPA is super easy to use, offering low code, no code capabilities."
"I find the pricing of Appian RPA reasonable because it is user-based, and we can experiment with it."
"The initial setup is very easy."
"This product definitely helps with cost optimization and brings a lot of optimization to repetitive processes."
"The analytics and reporting tools in IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are the best compared to all other RPAs because all other RPAs only use dashboards while IBM is the only one to have a reporting tool that includes dashboards."
"No other solution I have seen can provide this level of flexibility."
"I like the integration with Watson and the possibility to have an intelligent reading of all the customers' documents."
"One of the most impactful features of IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has been its one-time setup capability."
"We are aiming, by the end of the year, to record about $10,000,000 in savings just by automating the processes that we have identified so far."
"It's integrated with all the other products within the Salesforce ecosystem."
 

Cons

"Providing a desktop version rather than focusing on the cloud is essential. Only UiPath offers a studio environment for desktop application development."
"Their OCR is a bit expensive, meaning the IQ Bot."
"My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been mixed."
"We have used the technical support. I am quite unhappy with the support part."
"Because we are very new to our process, so we're still sort of working through it."
"One thing I dislike about Automation Anywhere is that our process is time-consuming. Since the bot is utilized by that machine and if a long-running task is happening, then another bot may not run and the machine is locked."
"Commands in Excel, Outlook, and Word automation are very limited and hence facing difficulties automating complex requirements for the above applications with V11 version."
"Another feature that would be cool to see in Automation Anywhere is more use of artificial intelligence."
"There are many competitive products in the market right now, for example, UiPath and Automation Anywhere. These competitive products are now coming up with features which Appian RPA currently does not have."
"There are not any areas that need improvement off the top of my head."
"In my opinion, Appian RPA can be improved."
"We are looking to see how it can connect with various interfaces seamlessly, through APIs."
"Needs better integration with artificial intelligence or with machine-learning."
"We would like a decreased need for customer support."
"The users should be allowed to create folders in Control Center."
"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."
"IBM should provide specific solutions for specific problems, like templates for invoicing processes, or general templates for creating efficient processes."
"The time it takes for approvals, and risk analysis could be faster."
"I would like to improve the efficiency of this solution and the Surface Level Agreement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are a partner of Automation Anywhere and find the pricing to be reasonable."
"Overall, the pricing of Automation Anywhere is good."
"The cost of this solution is a little bit high, but it is worth the price."
"I do not know the price, but I am told that it is cheaper than UiPath."
"Because it reduced the time duration of our processes, our costs went down."
"The Community Edition is a good offering from the company."
"I am not sure about the costs, but two Bot Runners and four Bot Creators may cost approximately 1CR."
"Automation Anywhere's pricing falls within the mid-range, but the long-term benefits outweigh the initial investment."
Information not available
"The license is paid annually."
"The pricing is reasonable for this solution."
"I rate the pricing ten out of ten. So, the pricing is very good for me."
"IBM RPA is cheaper than other tools."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"The product has a yearly licensing fee."
"IBM licensing is annual and based on Virtual Processor Cores (VPC). This provides flexibility as part of the containerization environment."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Insurance Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business162
Midsize Enterprise86
Large Enterprise565
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise10
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Appian RPA?
I didn't handle payments or costs. We recommended infrastructure stacks to our clients, who implemented them, and we ...
What needs improvement with Appian RPA?
In my opinion, Appian RPA can be improved. We are planning to conduct a proof of concept on volume because we are sti...
What is your primary use case for Appian RPA?
We have been working with Appian RPA along with the entire workflow case management suite. Recently, Appian released ...
What needs improvement with IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?
To improve IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for the next release, there should be more integration with external ...
What is your primary use case for IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?
My customers' main use cases for IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are especially in the banking industry, particu...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?
I recommend starting with the Academy to check the features and compare them with other competitors to choose the bes...
 

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
Jidoka RPA
IBM RPA
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
empark, talan, liverpool, ayesa, aeromexico, teknei
The Hanover Insurance Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Appian RPA vs. IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.