Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

OpCon
Average Rating
9.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Workload Automation (9th)
UiPath
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
770
Ranking in other categories
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

EW
Jan 6, 2023
Flowcharting helped us expose unneeded complexity in job flows and increase throughput
OpCon certainly costs us less than the product we were using before. So in practical, financial terms, it improved things. It has also improved the productivity of the administrators because it's much easier to use than a text-based product. And when it comes to streamlining operations, with the flowcharting we can now visually see the flow of jobs going through our system and that has exposed some complexity that was unneeded. For example, we discovered processes that have been around for years and people realized that we didn't need to run those anymore. It helped us to improve our throughput by exposing inefficiencies. It has also saved time for our IT team, particularly for our programmers who use the interface to monitor their systems and their jobs. They have found it easier and more reliable than what they were used to in the past. It has probably saved our developers 20 hours a month. And in our organization, overall, we have realized a 10 to 15 percent increase in productivity, thanks to OpCon.
Oumayma Lajili - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 17, 2022
Helps developers handle exceptions efficiently and yields a high return on investment
I like the structure of the selectors. They're robust. With other software like Automation Anywhere, we always have problems with recorders, plugins, et cetera. UiPath is more powerful and efficient. UiPath Studio has features like the Excel package, selectors, and recorders. There are also many types of recording features. UiPath Studio's most interesting feature is the REFramework. UiPath's frameworks help developers handle exceptions efficiently. Another critical feature of UiPath is end-to-end automation, starting with the design part of the process with many applications like Automation Hub, Task Capture, and Task Mining. We can use Task Capture in the community version, and they help with the design and conception of products at the start of the project. Then, we can use UiPath Studio, UiPath StudioX, or UiPath Web to develop the process. Afterward, we can use Orchestrator to schedule and maintain our developed processes. Finally, we have other products that can help us integrate business end users, such as UiPath Insights or UiPath Apps. With UiPath, we can assist automation in many industries or areas of applications. I used the Document Understanding feature and developed a custom model to use in the community version. I had the opportunity to test the AI Center. The AI Center can make our robotic process classic RPA. AI Center allows us to evaluate and add intelligence to our classic RPA developers. We can add our custom classification model with drag-and-drop functionality in UiPath Studio. I like the integration between AI Center and UiPath Studio. Many of our clients are mature in RPA and want to use the AI Center or integrate artificial intelligence into their IT code.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has streamlined operations, specifically with the timing of our processes. We don't have to worry about if things are going to run at a certain time. The automation allows us to say, "Okay, we want this to run at this time, and this to not run until that is done." So, it has really streamlined the accuracy and timeline of when jobs run throughout the day."
"I find OpCon's ability to monitor files and folders, and its integration with other software to be the most valuable."
"The most valuable features are its integration into Windows, into VM, and into AIX, as well as SQL."
"The solution has freed up employees to do more meaningful work as a result of automation. They don't have to sit there and wait for files to download. They don't have to stare at the screen while a process is running. It all runs in the background, doing it for them."
"Since we got it configured, it has just done the job day in, day out. Being able to rely on it and know that it's going to happen, whether there's a person over it or not, is really good."
"It allows us to have more information and more control than we previously had over the processes that are running in host systems."
"The automation part of OpCon is the most valuable for us, with all the core processing. It's really mostly hands-off unless we have failures. In our old days, we'd spend a good part of the day doing processing via manual tasks. We don't have to do any of that any longer."
"File Watcher can run jobs when files are made available in a folder."
"The most valuable feature that UiPath has is the ability to be able to use .NET functions."
"It gives you a technology or ability to build a solution on any legacy system."
"This ability to customize what we need has really opened up opportunities to automate programs that otherwise would not work properly."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the ability to pull information and manipulate documents."
"The automation Cloud Platform has definitely helped reduce the time it takes to create automation. It brings a lot of things together. It's easy to use for clients and customers. It makes it easy to bring different disciplines together, so I don't need to think about how to reuse my code, or how to explain to the customer, and I don't need to share the processes to be able to release, run, and monitor and to get reports on the results."
"The UiPath Community is truly helpful."
"I found UiPath nicer than other RPA tools. I like that its enterprise version is pretty user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature is its screen recording capability, where you tell it what the workflow should do, and it then automatically creates Activities for you."
 

Cons

"Some additional logging-information reporting would also help. They have all the information there but you still have to search around and look back. It's not right there for you, where you click and can get the reporting. You have to know the system and do some additional searches. So reporting is another area that they can build on by simplifying it."
"The solution has quite a learning curve for beginners. It's challenging. I wouldn't rate it as super-easy to automate processes. It's medium-weight. I've used more complex software, but I've used simpler software."
"Of course they have a RESTful API within OpCon, but they have that new web services agent that we installed because we have some SOAP APIs and we had to interact with SMA to get things running. Our developers did do some tweaks, but we have now been able to get some test jobs running, and understand how the workflow goes back and forth."
"I would like to have an interface with PowerShell. PowerShell has a lot of functionality. We use it a lot because we're a Windows shop. Having a built-in tool or interface with PowerShell would go a long way."
"Upgrading to newer versions remains complex."
"The initial setup is very complex, but that's not necessarily something that needs to be improved. I'm told that in the next version they're improving the upgrade process. So that's in the works already."
"I would like more web-based training from SMA. That would be nice. Our primary OpCon representative is phenomenal, but we would like some training opportunities for learning on our own. When I started utilizing OpCon, the sheer breadth of it made for a very daunting task. I was almost fearful to start, not to mention fearful to go change things and possibly hinder a job."
"There is one feature that has been a difficult problem, and right now, OpCon can't do it. I'm not sure if it should be expected to, but we have tried to get it to where it could start a process on an external database."
"UiPath should improve its licensing because its competitors offer a cheaper and more sustainable model for even small-scale industries."
"It is sometimes difficult to work with the exceptions, which can cause us a delay."
"There's room for enhancement, particularly in the support department and in the area of reporting, to provide a more robust product for gathering insights."
"Unfortunately, I used to be a lover of their Slack channel and people don't seem so responsive there anymore."
"I would like more script access to the flow of activity, so we can try to see a text version of what we have in the user interface."
"I have used the AI functionality for PDF automations. In these processes, the bot is able to capture the data properly about 70 to 80 percent of the time. But if a document is not proper or it isn't handled the right way, the bot struggles to get the required data. UiPath has to work on this aspect so that the bot will be able to completely capture the data."
"The new features or functionalities that come with UiPath upgrades don't work perfectly in the initial days. Their new releases are not stable. We always find some set of issues. I have to work with the UiPath team for a week or so to resolve the issues, and then I'm able to use it. The stabilization should be there. We expect UiPath to reduce the number of errors before rolling out new features to end-users or customers."
"It could use an easy integration with SAP. Most of the processes of our company are in SAP. Sometimes it's kind of tricky to automate over it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to AutoSys and ISE, OpCon was a lot cheaper to put in. AutoSys is hundreds of thousands of dollars to just install it because they don't have an interface into our system. You have to teach them what your system does."
"Our annual maintenance costs are $45,000. The initial cost is separate."
"Operating OpCon comes with a cost."
"On a yearly basis our cost is between $25,000 and $30,000."
"Annually, we pay $29,000. This is for a blanket policy that covers everything, like licensing and support."
"Scaling is pricey."
"While the overall cost is reasonable, I'm interested in exploring options for making the managed automation solution, specifically the mass solution, more cost-effective."
"The pricing is over $100,000 for our credit union and I believe it's $89,000 for our clients, in total, annually."
"The price is reasonable, although Orchestrator is really costly. Not many organizations will be able to afford that, but without Orchestrator, you can't do bot management. It becomes pretty difficult. UiPath has to focus on orchestration pricing."
"It is quite an expensive solution."
"The pricing is average; it is not too high nor too low."
"We saved a little over $600,000. That totaled to almost 19 FTEs which we ended up saving."
"UiPath is more affordable than Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism, which is the most expensive."
"UiPath is priced to accommodate large enterprises, but it is expensive for small and medium-sized enterprises."
"The license cost is expensive because we have to pay for each tenant."
"Compared to other solutions, the pricing is moderate."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
33%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about OpCon?
My favorite feature is the dashboard feature, which shows jobs that are running, and completed, any failures, and provides dashboard reporting.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpCon?
While the overall cost is reasonable, I'm interested in exploring options for making the managed automation solution, specifically the mass solution, more cost-effective.
What needs improvement with OpCon?
I would like OpCon to implement a reporting feature on the dashboard that displays historical data for specific jobs. Ideally, this feature would allow us to view the past seven days or the next se...
Best RPA tools for IBM iSeries
I can only speak to UiPath since that is the only RPA solution that I have used. I know that there are specific packages that you can integrate into your project that is specifically made to work w...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

LOHR, Carnival Cruise Lines, Herbalife, Digital Federal Credit Union, Synergent, Frandsen Bank & Trust
1. Accenture 2. Deloitte 3. PwC 4. IBM 5. Capgemini 6. KPMG 7. Ernst & Young 8. Infosys 9. Cognizant 10. Wipro 11. Tata Consultancy Services 12. HCL Technologies 13. Genpact 14. Tech Mahindra 15. DXC Technology 16. Atos 17. NTT Data 18. CGI 19. L&T Infotech 20. Hexaware Technologies 21. Mindtree 22. Mphasis 23. Virtusa 24. Syntel 25. Zensar Technologies 26. WNS Global Services 27. Hexaware Technologies 28. Larsen & Toubro Infotech 29. Persistent Systems 30. QuEST Global 31. Sonata Software 32. Zensar Technologies
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC, Tidal Software by Redwood, Redwood Software and others in Workload Automation. Updated: June 2024.
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