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Blue Prism vs IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

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

Automate
Sponsored
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Blue Prism
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Robotic Process Automat...
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automate is 1.6%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Blue Prism is 10.0%, down from 12.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is 2.8%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
 

Featured Reviews

Anabel Marco - PeerSpot reviewer
Automates processes efficiently with cost-effective scaling and robust customer support
Web scraping is quite good since it offers a lot of possibilities. Another important feature for me is its compatibility with MBI, the Power that is ISEQUADO Centers. I appreciate the ability to scale and increase the number of bots or studios without additional expense. Automate's non-reliance on additional orchestrators makes it quite cost-effective.
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.
GeorgeTzifas - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides smart AI tools and easy to use
I would like to have more flexibility in connecting the platform with third-party systems. It is easy to connect IBM RPA with other IBM products, but it is complicated when connecting to non-IBM systems. So, I would like IBM RPA to be even more flexible in connecting to third-party systems.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have found the pricing to be very reasonable."
"The pricing is excellent. I would give them perfect marks in that regard."
"The solution is continuously adding more integrations to help with workflows and bot and task creation."
"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 for my client are timing and scheduling."
"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."
"It gives us a central place to schedule tasks and run them distributed."
"I actually quite liked the no-coding functionality."
"Blue Prism supports the multi-bot architecture, which is really good. It is also really good at OCR. Blue Prism is integrated with Abbey OCR, and it provides at least 90% right information on period documents. This is something that is really good in Blue Prism. Blue Prism can deal with huge amounts of data. We can track each and every record, and then we can see the data. If you don't have much coding experience, it makes it easy to build automations and deploy them. It is also easy to learn and easy to work with. It has a lot of features, which makes it reliable for any sort of automation."
"Blue Prism is a great enterprise and it has offered the solutions that I have been needing in order to give my organization an RPA."
"As a developer, I liked the layout and UI, specifically referring to testing. I was able to watch the process through stages."
"It is a very stable tool that allows very complex automations."
"Technical support has been responsive when we have needed their assistance."
"This solution has increased the speed, accuracy, and happiness of staff involved in the activities for which RPA has been deployed."
"I like the error handling, it's very good."
"The performance is very good and it is a valuable feature."
"IBM RPA helped us resolve a lot of difficult cases we could not resolve using other solutions."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automate mundane tasks. This improves efficiency, reliability, etc. You can form critical operations which can be highly automated."
"One of the most impactful features of IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has been its one-time setup capability."
"I think simplicity is key. One of the things that we've noticed is how our developers have been able to quickly adopt the platform; but not only the developers or the techy people, also the business."
"The solution’s performance is good."
"Integrating the tool with SAP, EBS, or other ERPs is easy."
"I like the integration with Watson and the possibility to have an intelligent reading of all the customers' documents."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement regarding cloud functionality; there are a few missing features, and the logging could be better, especially air logging. We can go into logging events and create our own task, but it would be nice if this were more detailed."
"Fortra's Automate is not as reliable as I would like it to be."
"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 product also has a limited use case in some respects."
"I would like the updates to be easier to deploy. Integration with Amazon S3 is somewhat lacking."
"The documentation is not that great."
"The intelligent automation feature could be improved. It's interesting because it's simple, but the automation quality isn't always good. It's easy to use, but sometimes you need to make a slight improvement to the automation, and that's not so easy."
"They do not encrypt passwords, so this is an issue with HIPAA compliance."
"Blue Prism could improve by having better integration with Computer Vision."
"We've found some challenges with Blue Prism, particularly when interacting with certain applications. The element inspection feature could be improved, especially for more complex applications."
"Blue Prism develops its own tools and process automation, but the documentation is unclear and incomplete."
"Navigation within the UI could be improved."
"Security could be improved."
"The OCR capability, along with the connectivity with some of the legacy tools, needs to be improved."
"I have found that community support is lacking for this solution compared to competitors."
"It's not very easy to use. There is some learning curve that you need to manage as an individual."
"We are looking to see how it can connect with various interfaces seamlessly, through APIs."
"This RPA should be under the umbrella of BPM. This is what the future should be."
"IBM’s support should improve response time."
"Stability could be better."
"IBM should provide specific solutions for specific problems, like templates for invoicing processes, or general templates for creating efficient processes."
"We would like a decreased need for customer support."
"IBM Robotic Process Automation should be more stable."
"The users should be allowed to create folders in Control Center."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From a distributor's side, one of the biggest selling points is its price point. Without going into any numbers, compared to UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and Blue Prism, we're significantly cheaper. The main difference is that other competitors usually charge you per process. However, in Automate's case, it's priced per bot. So, a bot can run multiple processes at the same time, but you are only priced for a single bot."
"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."
"The cost is a bit high for a small business like ours, but we manage with Fortra's Automate."
"I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost."
"I like the way this solution is priced because you can buy a license, or you can buy the software outright."
"It comes with a package that costs approximately $20,000 USD per year."
"Once you buy the software, you just pay for the support for backend help."
"From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point."
"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."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $5,000 USD per year."
"The price is on par with other products in the market."
"The licensing is approximately $1,100."
"The price of Blue Prism is high compared to others solutions. It would be helpful if they could provide a trial version for new users to try. Other vendors provide a community or trial version. There are not any hidden costs."
"The billing is on a yearly basis. They send us the bill every year. My business unit is billed by the technology team, so I don't know exactly how much they pay. In my business unit, we have our first-year license costs, and then we have our ongoing costs. Our bots cost projected per license is $8,600. Our projected support cost for every year is about $38,000. Our operation agent costs anywhere between $50,000 to $55,000, so the saving is there, but it is still kind of expensive for us, but I'm looking at it from the technology kind of billing us for it. This is the cost that we have for our technology team, which is different from the licensing of Blue Prism."
"Its price should be lower."
"There is a one-time purchase fee for this solution."
"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."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"IBM licensing is annual and based on Virtual Processor Cores (VPC). This provides flexibility as part of the containerization environment."
"The pricing is reasonable for this solution."
"The product is reasonably priced compared to other tools."
"I rate the pricing ten out of ten. So, the pricing is very good for me."
"IBM RPA is cheaper than other tools."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
5%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Insurance Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
What is your primary use case for HelpSystems AutoMate?
I am a consultant and I am making a lot of processes in human resources, payroll, certifications, trainings, web scra...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?
The pricing is quite good compared to its competitors. Competitors are often more expensive than Automate. I would ra...
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 imp...
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 an...
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 pricing of IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) could be improved.
What is your primary use case for IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?
We usually use IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) ( /products/ibm-robotic-process-automation-rpa-reviews ) to autom...
 

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate
No data available
IBM RPA
 

Overview

 

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
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: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.