IBM Datacap vs Microsoft Power Automate comparison

IBM and Microsoft are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. Additionally, 88% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

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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: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Datacap vs. Microsoft Power Automate

March 2025

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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

Featured Reviews

Anabel Marco

Account Director at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

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.

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DeekshithShetty

Software Development Senior Specialist at NTT Data

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.

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Nilesh Pundkar

IVR Developer at Orange

Good for email routing and management features but additional costs for plug-ins

Power Automate has fewer features and more limitations in general. It's not as mature a product as some of the others, like UiPath or Automate Anywhere. One of the main issues I've found is that Power Automate struggles with accessing Excel or other Office documents on servers. Even though it's a Microsoft product, we often have to log in through remote systems, and syncing can be problematic due to the way we use servers. At the very least, they should provide access to Office 365 directly, without requiring additional logins on servers. Most people utilizing Power Automate are already working within the Office 365 environment. Any proof of concepts (POCs) using Power Automate would naturally be built on top of Office 365.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use it for specific cases, mainly secure file transfers, which are vital for us. And it works for us."

"It's very easy to use. That's a big selling point for it. It has got a drag-and-drop interface, so you can quickly deploy bots."

"The interface is simple, user-friendly, and very intuitive."

"The most valuable feature is the drag-and-drop interface, which is very Windows-like."

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

"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."

"This product is quite easy to install, learn, and use, with our new employees being able to start using it in projects for clients after only two weeks of internal training."

"Web scraping is quite good since it offers a lot of possibilities."

More Automate pros

"The OCR extractions are very good, almost 100% accurate now."

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

"Very scalable and stable data capture and extraction solution that's very simple to install."

"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 helps companies figure out how to use advanced imaging techniques, processes, best practices, and other tools."

"It's resiliency. There are multiple ways of identifying what you are looking for. There are multiple export formats."

"Datacap is good at processing unstructured data. You can build up some nice data flows, and it is simple to configure. The tool adopts a low-code approach, but you can do a lot of coding if you want to customize and automate your flows. Datacap also has the flexibility to integrate."

"The most valuable features of IBM Datacap is the capturing and recognizing of pages, documents as well as the scanner and barcodes."

More IBM Datacap pros

"This product is the best in terms of price and capabilities."

"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Power Automate is the many functionalities, and ease of use. We had summer interns from college in their second year of engineering and they were able to start the building process quickly within a day."

"We have saved thousands of hours by automating tasks that would have been labor-intensive and error-prone if done manually."

"We use Power Automate for applicant tracking and automated around 80 percent of the process."

"The solution integrates more easily and with more tools than Automation Anywhere."

"It servers our purposes in bringing together all types of applications, being able to automate them with the right intelligent output from the data that we plugin."

"The most valuable features of Microsoft Power Automate are user-friendliness and low coding functionality."

More Microsoft Power Automate pros

Cons

"The solution has a very weak knowledge base."

"The OCR for Hebrew text needs to be improved."

"I find that most important features are strong, however, there is a lack of good development for artificial intelligence, such as machine learning."

"I believe we need to test various OCR tools that assist in evaluating, let's say, six different customer resyncs. We analyze their spending patterns and documentations, but current OCR support has limitations, requiring highly standardized documents, which isn't always the case. With a more advanced OCR system, we could improve processes related to credit risk management and legal matters. We're exploring how to integrate Fortra's Automate with our CRM platform, taking cues from instances where Salesforce seamlessly merged with Automate. However, we use a different CRM, Insight for New Enterprise, and we're seeking ways to connect the automation process within our CRM. We aim for the automation to continue smoothly, even in instances where traditional automation methods might face hurdles."

"It would be an improvement if Automate had better stability tools, whether by recommending a certain amount of memory because it can be a memory hog at times."

"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."

"The product also has a limited use case in some respects."

More Automate cons

"When I scan a document in Datacap that has a watermark or the document is a little distorted, the image output is poor. It either becomes completely black, or there is so much distortion that we cannot read the numbers or the addresses mentioned in the POD. When we scan a document, we expect the output to be at least 95 percent accurate."

"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."

"Speed of OCR is one issue. It's a challenge because we have customers that have millions and millions of pages that they want this solution to crank through. In order to do that you have to have a large infrastructure in place, and that directly impacts licensing based on the core count."

"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."

"The interface can be more intuitive."

"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."

"There are times when external features impact services. For example, Windows patching or antivirus updates can affect production-level services."

"They have to stop focusing on new development and stabilize the latest release. It is not stable."

More IBM Datacap cons

"More scripting capabilities could be included in Microsoft Power Automate."

"The solution could benefit from mirroring Oracle's use of videos and community forums to help users get acquainted with the product. It could use better online training and/or documentation."

"They can build more templates and more connectivity with other platforms. They can provide a more user-friendly way to connect with other platforms. They have their own in-built plugins for certain third-party vendors, but there are still a lot of third-party vendors that are not there."

"It is challenging to scale the solution across multiple branches."

"I've had some issues with the stability."

"What needs improvement in WinAutomation by Softomotive is its stability. Stability is quite important to me. Another area for improvement in the solution is robot scheduling because it's not 100% accurate, in particular, it's 90% accurate. The monitoring of the robot could also be improved because it's not very straightforward, and you have to look in a few places or at least two places which means that monitoring is not a one-glance process."

"The product should improve its RPA capabilities."

"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."

More Microsoft Power Automate cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"The pricing is quite reasonable. We can run the process with one bot. The limitation is at the server level because they have some resources, and sometimes that is enough. It isn't too expensive, so you can get a good return off of one, and you can also have a pack of five bots that is quite competitive."

"Once you buy the software, you just pay for the support for backend help."

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

"Compared to other products, the pricing model for this solution is much more convenient, flexible, and adaptable to the Portuguese reality."

"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."

More Automate pricing and cost advice

"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."

"It is an expensive solution."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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

"At the moment, from our experience with the two, Power Automate is a lot more expensive solution than Automation Anywhere, but it is also a far more reliable solution. With the price increases and with the current pandemic situation going on worldwide, a lot of the prices have fluctuated, but the packages and the all-encompassing features you get with the Microsoft package far outweigh the benefits from the Automation Anywhere side. Each package on the Automation Anywhere side is cheaper, but we need to continuously purchase subsequent packages to continue with our automation to the extent that we require. So, the Power Automate solution is a bit more pricey, but it does offer us a far better range of capabilities."

"We are using the free version of Power Automate."

"The cost to use Microsoft Power Automate is approximately $15 per user per month, for the basic plan. However, the solution comes free with the Microsoft 365 Suite."

"The licensing price should be more cost-effective."

"There are many different ways to license it."

"It comes with the Microsoft suite. I'd rate it an eight out of ten in terms of pricing."

"Its licensing cost is comparatively less as compared to Automation Anywhere. We have bought a two-year license agreement."

"Power Automate is a much less expensive product than the competition."

More Microsoft Power Automate pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

14%

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Insurance Company

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

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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?

This solution is the most expensive in the market.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Datacap?

When a client's requirement is not available in Datacap, out-of-the-box actions should be simpler to implement and no...

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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...

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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 ‌...

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How is Automation Anywhere compared to Microsoft Power Automate?

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

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Comparisons

UiPath vs Automate

Compared 38% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Automate

Compared 9% of the time

Blue Prism vs Automate

Compared 6% of the time

VisualCron vs Automate

Compared 5% of the time

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ABBYY Vantage vs IBM Datacap

Compared 32% of the time

Amazon Textract vs IBM Datacap

Compared 18% of the time

Tungsten TotalAgility vs IBM Datacap

Compared 12% of the time

HyperScience vs IBM Datacap

Compared 8% of the time

OpenText Intelligent Capture vs IBM Datacap

Compared 8% of the time

More IBM Datacap Competitors

UiPath vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 27% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 16% of the time

Blue Prism vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 16% of the time

IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 8% of the time

ABBYY Vantage vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Power Automate Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automate

March 2025

Download Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Datacap

March 2025

Download IBM Datacap product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power Automate

March 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

Automate offers a user-friendly solution with a drag-and-drop interface for efficient task automation and integration with major platforms like SAP and Azure, making it ideal for quick deployment with minimal coding and training.

Automate provides powerful features for businesses seeking efficient automation, offering compatibility with databases, email integration, and cloud platforms. Its simple interface supports both beginners and experienced users, simplifying tasks like invoice processing, HR automation, and data transformation. Cost-effective pricing and flexible licensing enhance its appeal while integration capabilities and scheduling tools ensure smooth workflow automation.

What are Automate's Key Features?

Drag-and-Drop Interface: Simplifies automation with intuitive design.
Integration Capabilities: Connects with platforms like SAP and Azure for seamless data flow.
Database and FTP Triggers: Enhances automation potential through direct data interaction.
Efficient Scheduling: Automates tasks with precise timing and control.
Web Scraping: Automates data extraction for quick analysis and reporting.

What Benefits and ROI Should Users Expect?

Rapid Deployment: Minimizes coding efforts for quick implementation.
Cost-Effectiveness: Offers flexible pricing models to suit budget constraints.
Operational Efficiency: Reduces manual workloads and enhances productivity.
Comprehensive Integration: Facilitates improved data management across systems.
Scalability: Adapts to growing business needs with ease.

In industries such as healthcare, banking, and logistics, Automate is used for tasks like invoice payment automation, data transformation, and task automation. This leads to streamlined processes and reduced manual workload, illustrating its value in enhancing operational efficiency through diversified workflows.

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

March 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: March 2025.

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