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IBM Datacap vs Microsoft Power Automate comparison

 

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

IBM Datacap
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (6th)
Microsoft Power Automate
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
133
Ranking in other categories
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (3rd), Process Mining (3rd), Agentic Automation (3rd), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (4th)
 

Featured Reviews

Bhasker ReddyPIdintla - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Delivery Head at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Has improved document scanning accuracy with advanced OCR capabilities
IBM needs to improve on scanning and reading accuracy for unstructured documents. Additionally, an important missing feature is the ability to merge documents and present data across different UI screens. This is especially beneficial for customer onboarding where documents are scanned not all at once but periodically. Incorporating automation could also aid in this area.
Ayobami Shobaloju - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Very scalable and stable data capture and extraction solution that's very simple to install."
"It's resiliency. There are multiple ways of identifying what you are looking for. There are multiple export formats."
"The most valuable features of IBM Datacap is the capturing and recognizing of pages, documents as well as the scanner and barcodes."
"I can have all scanners accessible from my end."
"At the forefront of my thoughts, the standout feature of this intelligent product is its remarkable capability. This project we're currently engaged in revolves around streamlining workflows within both our company and the customer's company. It entails handling information from various documents with diverse formats and types, even when they contain the same data. The ability to connect this information with the appropriate database and recognize it irrespective of the format or source is an extremely valuable feature. Moreover, leveraging machine learning is crucial since our customer deals with an extensive archive of over five million documents. Machine learning can significantly alleviate the backlog by becoming well-versed in various scenarios they might encounter during their work once we've completed our application."
"I like Datacap's integration with FileNet because financial companies use that export. The second part is web services integration, which is effortless to implement."
"It reduces human error and saves time."
"One valuable feature of IBM Datacap is the OCR capability, along with its ability to read fields from documents."
"It works best to build cloud flows."
"It is a low-code platform. It is easy to use and good for automating small tasks such as expense approvals, timesheet approvals, etc."
"I have found the scheduling and email notifications features to very good compared to other RPA tools I have used."
"The feature most useful for integrating different applications is its ability to create flows. Specifically, we use flows to integrate with finance and operations."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to integrate across multiple systems."
"We have a good overview of our processes now thanks to Power Automate."
"The most valuable feature is that you can run multiple automations at the same time, in parallel."
"The product provides valuable integration with other Microsoft tools."
 

Cons

"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."
"The solution's scalability needs improvement."
"The interface can be more intuitive."
"IBM needs to improve on scanning and reading accuracy for unstructured documents. Additionally, an important missing feature is the ability to merge documents and present data across different UI screens."
"There should be an increase in the capacity of the workflows. Datacap is a little limited in this aspect. So, you cannot really implement all the possibilities."
"I've faced some bugs or issues. They should do deeper testing of the product before releasing it because some of the bugs that I found were a bit simple. I understand that it is a massive product, and some of the functionalities can get overlooked."
"Third-party integration could be improved; it's very slow."
"What could be improved in IBM Datacap from a technical perspective is having everything together all in one place, rather than having several different interfaces. The addition of cloud-based OCR technology would also make this solution better. There's also room for improvement for their technical support."
"I've had some issues with the stability."
"Something frustrates me concerning Microsoft Power Automate, and that is about the integration with Microsoft Forms and Excel."
"The connectors and the integration capability can be improved. Microsoft RPA is a growing platform, and it is not yet particularly mature."
"Better support is needed for building custom components on top of ProcessRobot."
"While using this solution, we found it to be basic."
"It should be faster and more user-friendly."
"I would like to have chatbot assistance available, where you can open it and receive help on the spot."
"If someone was just about to start using it, it would be better if it was a bit more user-friendly in terms of understanding function references. I come from a bit of development background. To me, it all makes quite a lot of sense, but someone using it for the first time would probably battle understanding how the functions work. This might be something they could improve on. It would be really useful if it could publish data to Power BI. We like to use Power BI for our reporting, but we can't directly integrate the data across. If there was a way to automate the collection of the data and push it straight into the Power BI platform, it would be quite useful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is the most expensive in the market."
"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."
"IBM could offer more competitive pricing. This would allow them to attain more users. Some of our clients are considering moving to a different solution called Encapture which is similar but offers more competitive pricing."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It is an expensive solution."
"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."
"When accompanying customers, we discuss the license requirements. Based on these requirements, we suggest whether a per-user plan or multiple platforms per-user plan would be best."
"It is free with Office 365 subscription."
"It comes with the Microsoft suite. I'd rate it an eight out of ten in terms of pricing."
"The price is right. If you have Office 365 It's included."
"There are many different ways to license it."
"Currently, we are using the free license for testing. After everything is done, we'll buy the license."
"Initially, we had a Microsoft account for Office 365. Later, we discovered that our license included access to Power Automate at no additional cost. There was a small fee for additional features, but it was negligible compared to the benefits. There are not any additional fees required to use the solution."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being expensive because there are charges for additional plug-ins."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise66
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What needs improvement with IBM Datacap?
IBM needs to improve on scanning and reading accuracy for unstructured documents. Additionally, an important missing feature is the ability to merge documents and present data across different UI s...
What is your primary use case for IBM Datacap?
I primarily use IBM Datacap ( /products/ibm-datacap-reviews ) for data capture and scanning documents with OCR. Specifically, it's used for DocuSign ( /products/docusign-reviews ) as well.
RPA that Bots can run without centralized control?
Yes, Attended Bots which can run without centralized control Module. RPA Tools like Automation Anywhere, uiPath ,Power Automation they do support this.
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 ‌is‌ ‌no‌ ‌coding‌ ‌experience‌ ‌necessary,‌ ‌and‌ ‌appreciate‌ ‌the‌ ‌automated‌...
How is Automation Anywhere compared to Microsoft Power Automate?
‌Neither‌ ‌solution‌ ‌requires‌ ‌any‌ ‌coding‌ ‌experience,‌ ‌and‌ ‌both‌ ‌are‌ ‌easy‌ ‌to‌ ‌use‌ ‌and‌ ‌have‌ ‌great‌ ‌drag-and‌ ‌drop‌ ‌functionality.‌ ‌The‌ ‌training‌ ‌and‌ ‌resources‌ ‌for‌ ‌A...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Datacap vs. Microsoft Power Automate and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.