IBM Datacap vs Pega Robotic Process Automation comparison

IBM and Pega are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. Additionally, 89% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Pega users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Datacap and Pega Robotic Process Automation 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. Pega Robotic Process Automation Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Datacap vs. Pega Robotic Process Automation

July 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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VISHNU VARDHAN CHENNURU

Application Development Team Lead at Accenture

Great for UI creation, helpful support services, and reliable

Excel connectors need to be improved as there are a few connectors in Excel areas. The recording is not at best in Pega Robotics. They could look into it. The interactions with some applications, like Windows and web applications, are a little slow. They need to improve their speed. It should be normal, to open it with other tools. However, right now, it's a little hard. Users should feel they can develop easily. It will sometimes hang while interacting with third-party applications. Instead of adapters, if we had direct interaction of the applications with API and had scripts, that would be better. We have only CSharp supported right now. We'd like to have Python supported. If it was, it would be easier for us and make the solution more flexible. Currently, we are adding three different configuration files, however, if I had the option, I'd prefer to make a single configuration file and then differentiate it in all three environments. It can be difficult to create logic in automation. It's hard than if we used other RPA tools. If they could add more toolbox options, that would be ideal. They need to do what they can to help us reduce complexity in the automation and combine things under, for example, a single control.

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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

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

"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."

"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."

"Fortra's Automate has effectively replaced the workload of an entire employee, saving us significant time and money."

"We have found the pricing to be very reasonable."

"I like the interface; it makes managing automation easy. We can set different schedules and templates for each task."

"It gives us a central place to schedule tasks and run them distributed."

"Compared to other vendors, it's the scheduling tool because a lot of vendors want to charge you extra for their enterprise-level license to have a scheduling tool built in to give you the ability to set up regular schedules to run and do certain data checks."

More Automate pros

"It is very easy to develop this software. It is low code, and if you can't find the things you need on it, you can develop custom actions with more complex code underneath. They sync well, which is very useful for automating a lot of processes. It is a really valuable feature for the clients because we can ingest information and automate plenty of processes for them. The operators don't have to waste that much time on tasks. With Datacap, they can be automated."

"The solution offers many features that are beneficial for customers."

"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."

"I work for an insurance company, and we use Datacap for document processing."

"The standout feature of this intelligent product is its remarkable capability."

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

"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."

More IBM Datacap pros

"The most valuable feature of Pega Robotic Process Automation is the technique: you can create a user interface that can interact with a human being for attended robots."

"The solution's automation handling capability has positively impacted the overall automation process in my experience."

"Using the tool actually ends up teaching you about making workflows more efficient."

"The tech support is highly available and there is plenty of online training available."

"Pega is very mature. It's very old. They have grown with time, and they have learned. Other robotic process automation solutions are basically focused on only doing the automation, whereas Pega also gives you a workflow system so that you can create a workflow."

"I am impressed with the tool's recording feature."

"We have a very large operational team and we are able to avoid mistakes and ensure accuracy and speed using Pega."

"Pega Robotic Process Automation's most valuable feature is that it is robust. Additionally, they have plenty of online documents that are good and Pega Academy is helpful, they are doing a great job. They give training on practical use cases. They take domain use cases, and they are great."

More Pega Robotic Process Automation pros

Cons

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

"The documentation is not that great."

"The documentation for errors needs improvement as many of the error messages we receive are very vague."

"While this solution is continually improving, as it is now, the user interface could use improvement when I compare it to a product like UiPath."

"I would prefer not having to log in to update a ticket; being able to respond via email would be beneficial."

"I would like to see some better web automation, a wizard like the one in the product WinAutomation would be very nice."

"There is a lack of good development for artificial intelligence, such as machine learning."

"We really need a free development environment for customers. Building and testing automation on production isn't ideal."

More Automate cons

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

"The IBM Datacap site actually is on the newer inside. They will give it as a plugin only."

"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. Expertise in this specific product is rare throughout the market. One key reason is the product's limited downloads. Additionally, archiving solutions are often perceived as complex and challenging, dissuading many companies from venturing into this domain. Consequently, partners who specialize in archiving solutions are always seeking straightforward, uncomplicated options that are easy to manage and meet customer expectations."

"I give the scalability of the solution a six out of ten."

"Going forward, IBM needs to ensure that the output is perfect (as it can make the product) while staying true to platform's core."

"Our main language in Egypt is Arabic, and IBM DataCap does not support it perfectly. All our documentation is in Arabic. It's not English or any other language. However, we have overcome this problem by using QR codes in the document to extract the data from it. They should have better support for Arabic."

"We have page requirements where some values must be copied on each page. For example, say I need to scan a bunch of documents, and the name will be a field on every page. We don't have a default functionality in Datacap to copy the field value on the first page to all the pages. That feature would make the documents easy to prepare."

More IBM Datacap cons

"Excel connectors need to be improved as there are a few connectors in Excel areas."

"I would like to improve the tool's integration features and stability."

"The OCR capabilities of the solution could be improved."

"It's difficult not knowing when alerts will arrive."

"There have been some scenarios where the bot was not able to replace some of the controls and could not recognize and personalize the task we wanted to automate."

"What I don't like that much in Pega Robotic Process Automation is its monitoring tool because that tool is tightly connected with the platform. If the Pega team can deploy the monitoring tool separately, so that it's a separate solution altogether, then that would be good because currently, if you have to use the monitoring tool, then that means you have to use the Pega Robotic Process Automation platform. The initial setup for Pega Robotic Process Automation also needs improvement because it is complex. The only additional feature I'd like to see in the solution is for the monitoring tool to be a stand-alone rather than being tightly coupled with the Pega platform. Looking at the current features of Pega Robotic Process Automation concerning application automation, it covers most of my needs currently."

"The handwritten structured and semi-structured data recognition accuracy is much lower and is an area that definitely needs to improve."

"I have faced many scenarios in the business workflow, where a few applications run on the Citrix environment. That could be a critical part of the process without which business won't be able to accept the automation solution. Because of one small bottleneck, you will lose a very good candidate for process automation."

More Pega Robotic Process Automation cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point."

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

"I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost."

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

"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."

"I like the way this solution is priced because you can buy a license, or you can buy the software outright."

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

More Automate pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"Pricing needs to stay competitive."

"It is an expensive solution."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More IBM Datacap pricing and cost advice

"Pega Robotic Process Automation is an expensive solution."

"In terms of Pega Robotic Process Automation pricing, I would rate it a five out of five because the solution has a good price. Pricing is not very high, though I'm unsure of the exact cost, based on my experience, the price for Pega Robotic Process Automation is less than Blue Prism because I worked with a few clients that have both solutions and my clients prefer Pega Robotic Process Automation over Blue Prism particularly because of the licensing costs."

"The licensing cost is too high."

"I was not involved in licensing and pricing, but it is worth the cost."

"I would rate the product's pricing a nine out of ten."

"Pega is as competitive as the basic players such as UiPath or Automation Anywhere. UiPath is the most expensive, but Pega is at par with Automation Anywhere."

"Pega is pretty costly."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Financial Services Firm

16%

Government

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

26%

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?

The main purpose is for automation. That has been the purpose why I have been using it so far.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?

Regarding pricing, it is very friendly. I would not say that it is really cheap or very expensive, but it fits within...

See all answers

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?

Pricing is in the mid-range but could be more affordable, rated at four point five.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Datacap?

IBM needs to improve on scanning and reading accuracy for unstructured documents. Additionally, an important missing ...

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What do you like most about Pega Robotic Process Automation?

The solution's automation handling capability has positively impacted the overall automation process in my experience.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pega Robotic Process Automation?

I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pega Robotic Process Automation?

The solution's configuration and settings could be more comprehensive.

See all answers

Comparisons

UiPath Platform vs Automate

Compared 30% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs Automate

Compared 26% of the time

Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition vs Automate

Compared 10% of the time

Blue Prism vs Automate

Compared 9% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Automate

Compared 7% 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

OpenText Capture vs IBM Datacap

Compared 16% of the time

Tungsten TotalAgility vs IBM Datacap

Compared 13% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs IBM Datacap

Compared 13% of the time

More IBM Datacap Competitors

Microsoft Power Automate vs Pega Robotic Process Automation

Compared 46% of the time

UiPath Platform vs Pega Robotic Process Automation

Compared 32% of the time

Blue Prism vs Pega Robotic Process Automation

Compared 8% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Pega Robotic Process Automation

Compared 7% of the time

IPsoft 1RPA vs Pega Robotic Process Automation

Compared 6% of the time

More Pega Robotic Process Automation Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automate

August 2025

Download Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Datacap

July 2025

Download IBM Datacap product report

Buyer's Guide

Pega Robotic Process Automation

July 2025

Download Pega Robotic Process Automation product report

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate

Datacap

Pega RPA, OpenSpan

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

With Pega Robotic Process Automation (RPA), organizations can automate the mundane, tedious, time-consuming, manual work that is hampering productivity and efficiency. Whether adjudicating claims, onboarding customers or employees, reconciling financials, updating customer information in systems record, Pega RPA can manage the work across your enterprise.

Pega

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

eBay Enterprise, M&I Bank

Buyer's Guide

IBM Datacap vs. Pega Robotic Process Automation

July 2025

Free Report: IBM Datacap vs. Pega Robotic Process Automation

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Datacap vs. Pega Robotic Process Automation and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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