Executive Director at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
A mature product with good automation and very good stability
Pros and Cons
  • "The product itself is quite mature."
  • "The pricing of the solution could be improved. It's a bit expensive right now. They should work to make it more competitive."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for test evaluation. It makes the process very easy.

What is most valuable?

The automation of the processes are very good. It's the most valuable feature of the solution.

The product itself is quite mature.

What needs improvement?

At this point in time, we're very satisfied with the solution. I'm not seeing any features that are missing on it. I handle the business development side and I'm not really using the solution on a technical level, however.

The pricing of the solution could be improved. It's a bit expensive right now. They should work to make it more competitive.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for about three years.

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Blue Prism Cloud
April 2024
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the solution is quite good. We haven't come across any glitches.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is quite scalable and robust. 

Right now, we have about 15 to 20 people in the company using it.

How are customer service and support?

We've used technical support from Blue Prism in the past and we've been satisfied with the level of service they've provided. We find that we get good service and support from them.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We do tend to use different solutions. We don't use the same solution for every client or even the same kind of implementation.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was quite complex. In comparison to other RPA implementations, it's difficult. We had some difficulties when it came to estimating the actual amount of man-hours it would take to set up the solution, and the actual effort needed.

The deployment took a few weeks. We had seven people working on it. Most were engineers. Once it's set up, however, it only takes about one person to handle the maintenance.

What about the implementation team?

We handled the entire implementation in-house using our own team.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Although I don't know the exact costs, my understanding is that there are different definitions of licenses.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluate many options when seeking out what will work best for our clients and their projects. We often look at, for example, UiPath and Automation Anywhere. Ultimately, the client will decide on which solution to use.

What other advice do I have?

I'm quite sure that we are using the latest version of the solution.

We're a software company, so we develop applications and solutions for other companies. If the client looks at Blue Prism and wants it as the robot that will be used as the implementation tool, then that's when we'll use it.

I'd recommend the solution. Blue Prism is a good product. I'd recommend that others make sure that the effort, in terms of the estimation of time and man-hours needed are done in a proper manner. Users implementing the solution need to make sure that they know the processes in detail. They need to understand the manual processes before they can actually automate them. This will help achieve a better estimation of costs.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten overall.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Director at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Easy to access with good usability but needs more AI flexibility
Pros and Cons
  • "It’s scalable."
  • "It could be more flexible."

What is most valuable?

It works well. There is nothing to really highlight.

It allowed for easy access.

The usability is good.

It’s scalable.

The solution was stable.

What needs improvement?

How we basically integrate any AI models, I’d like to see something which I could do more of a transfer share with. It could be more flexible.

For how long have I used the solution?

We used the solution just for proof of concept. We used it for maybe three months, a couple of months, only.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We are no longer running it anymore. We just tried it out for a POC. During the time we were using it, we found it to be stable. There were no bugs or glitches.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. We could expand it if we needed to.

How are customer service and support?

We didn’t have to contact technical support as we worked closely with an integrator. They handled everything for us.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We also tried some internal use cases using Robocorp.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was okay. We had help with the process.

What about the implementation team?

We worked with an integrator. They had a setup running already, so it didn't take long for us to start working on it. The process was okay.

What other advice do I have?

It's good. If the pricing model works for you, it's not a bad solution. You just have to figure out whether the pricing model works for your type of use case and for your needs. There are a lot of automation vendors, and depending on your use case, you can decide which is worth investing in. If you have the required budget that can sustain Blue Prism, then it's a good solution.

I’d rate the solution seven out of ten.

We were a customer and an end-user.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Blue Prism Cloud
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about Blue Prism Cloud. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
768,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Project Manager at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Very secure and good new features but isn't really user-friendly
Pros and Cons
  • "It is more secure for complex implementations."
  • "I wouldn't call Blue Prism user-friendly. It's one of its downfalls. They would benefit from having drag and drop functionality, for example. It would make them a strong competitor in the space. There needs to be less reliance on coding for customization, similar to Microsoft's Power Automate."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution due to the cost. It lowers the cost of maintenance for the organization.

What is most valuable?

Last year that Blue Prism introduced a community version, and have really opened up their services. It's been really great for the company.

Over the last six or seven months, there have been a lot of new developments on the product.

It is very secure if you are going for complex implementations. I've not done it, but in terms of our feasibility studies and POCs, I find Blue Prism more secure than others, even Automation Anywhere and UiPath. I've not studied that area, however, Blue Prism seems more secure if you go for very complex areas.

What needs improvement?

There isn't much of a difference between UiPath and Blue Prism. However, if we want to customize, Blue Prism is not that developer-friendly. 

UiPath is much more flexible and easier for people (who are not in IT) to use. I wouldn't call Blue Prism user-friendly. It's one of its downfalls. They would benefit from having drag and drop functionality, for example. It would make them a strong competitor in the space. There needs to be less reliance on coding for customization, similar to Microsoft's Power Automate.

UiPath also has a stronger community presence. Blue Prism is new to community versions and they're still building their user base. They came pretty late to the game.

The solution needs to make it easier in terms of maintaining the bots.

It's a bit hard to maintain the product. UiPath is much easier in that sense.

OCR tends to work better with UiPath, as opposed to Blue Prism.

During COVID, people have realized that they do want a more secure solution, and one with good AI and OCR capabilities. All of these items are things Blue Prism should continue to develop.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution since I came to this company, which was already using it. I've been using Blue Prism for about a year and a half now. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Our customers have been generally happy with the stability of Blue Prism.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Mostly, the solution can scale, however, we do find that if customers want to upgrade or get more options, UiPath makes for a more user-friendly option. It's not as complicated to adjust things when you need to.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is okay. It's good as long as you are signed into a maintenance agreement and you're paying. Our customers have been satisfied with their level of service.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We also use UiPath. We use the two solutions together, although the organization is moving towards UiPath and away form Blue Prism, as UiPath is more user friendly and easier to handle on may levels.

How was the initial setup?

The solution is more or less the same to set up, whether you choose the cloud or on-premises. It's not exactly straightforward. You need some know-how.

The deployment depends upon the scale of the company and the environment. We started with a really small automation of small workflows. RPA generally doesn't take too long. Otherwise, it'll not solve the real purpose. With Blue Prism, if you take a small hypothetical example of trade operations, if they want to automate a work flow, it would take a little over one to two weeks at most. 

If you include the testing, everything more or less can be done within three weeks to one month, if you're not going to worry about too many complex items like OCR, etc. If you include those things, then it will definitely take more time because testing takes a while. When there are users involved, you need to give them a lot of instructions. It could get pretty complex.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

You do need to pay extra for customer service.

What other advice do I have?


I previously used Kofax, at my other company. The previous organization never went to the cloud, so it was pretty small scale.

I used both Blue Prism and UiPath in tandem. The organization is moving more towards UiPath, due to some sort of service agreement, so Blue Prism isn't being used as much as it used to be. We don't have a partnership with Blue Prism.

Blue Prism is the pioneer in RPA. They came early to it. Automation is there, and other features came later.  

The only thing is that they were not that flexible. In terms of people getting to know the product well, it takes a lot of time. That's the only thing that Blue Prism failed to do initially, was make it user friendly. As a product, personally, I like Blue Prism. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. Blue Prism just isn't as flexible compared to other solutions, which is why I didn't mark it quite so high. The security is quite good, though. If it relied on less code customization, more drag and drop functionality, and was more user friendly, I'd rate it much higher.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Senior Consultant at Tobania
Consultant
Scales up at an enterprise-level but it needs to be more user-friendly
Pros and Cons
  • "Blue Prism is able to scale up at an enterprise-level. It's what I used when I was working for a big bank in Belgium."
  • "They should improve the user-friendliness and they should change their business model."

What needs improvement?

The user-friendliness needs improvement. It's still a bit more IT-minded. I'm personally looking for a more business-minded RPA. It's the two big ways of using RPA in my experience. You can implement that RPA from an IT perspective, and then it's just one of the many tools, and it's not really a revolution, it's just a small state, or you can see it as really a business tool.

Business people use it and automate their own business processes and it's really revolutionary because you don't need any IT knowledge. You just need a good app for processes. Those are the two ways of approaching RPAs, and for my part, I'm interested in the business parts.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Blue Prism for two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Scalability all depends on what kind of processes. If it's a process that goes to the whole enterprise, adopt the RPA goal, it will be of strong importance. All the IT tools are much more powerful, fast and reliable.

If it's the business side and it's all small tasks and processes that can be automated. That's the interesting part. That's the scalability of RPA on the business side, but it's all small tasks and processes. The scalability will be how many processes you perform, and which structure you put in place so that everything runs smoothly, and you can do proper maintenance and change management.

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't had any issues with technical support. From the UiPath side, they're not really responsive when we ask things. It can be months before they answer. With UiPath, you are all on your own. There's no real support. I haven't experienced any support, but that's also because it's a free tool, until a certain level.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I also use the free UiPath platform. It's a very strong go-to-market proposition. You can't have that with Blue Prism. UiPath is also user-friendly. I found UiPath much easier to use and more straightforward than Blue Prism. 

I haven't seen any technical differences between both products. Everything I could do with Blue Prism, I can do with UiPath.

Blue Prism is able to scale up at an enterprise-level. It's what I used when I was working for a big bank in Belgium. UiPath is better for smaller companies and SMBs because of its user-friendliness.

If a product is offered for free, just to step in, instead of directly paying heavy investments, I think a lot of enterprises, especially in the SME, SMB business, will have much more interest in such kind of products.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Blue Prism a seven out of ten.

They should improve the user-friendliness and they should change their business model. Because companies need to become a partner and have to pay €60,000 upfront, or be a member upfront, to be partners. So, it's a bit of a waste of money. I don't understand their business model.

The tool is there but it should be a self-service tool where people just buy the program and use it. Why make it so complicated? 

It is really a program for business users, so why make it so complicated with implementers and partnerships et cetera? 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Head of Delivery at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Additional functionality over the Enterprise version make good over the difficulty of installation
Pros and Cons
  • "This product has additional functionality over Blue Prism Cloud Enterprise."
  • "It takes a while to get up and running."
  • "Blue Prism might consider adding package options to allow users to come onboard in different ways that meet their needs rather than buying in to the whole package."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case for Blue Prism Cloud depends on what our client's needs are. If they want something that is cloud-based but they do not have their own cloud infrastructure — like Azure or something like that — they need additional support. If they want the features that come with Blue Prism Cloud, like OCR (Optical Character Recognition) functionality or anything in particular on the service desk, that is usually when clients would choose Blue Prism Cloud as an option for automating processes.  

We deliver RPA (Robotic Process Automation) solutions for our clients. We go out to them and do the discovery and identify processes that are candidates for automation with them. Then we deliver that for them by building out the processes and deploying Blue Prism. We do the whole thing up to that point.  

What is most valuable?

I have not had much direct feedback from clients about what they find the most valuable in Blue Prism. I guess I would say probably the additional functionality over and above Blue Prism Enterprise and the fact that it is cloud-based are things that would attract them to the product. Additionally, it will be secure on secured cloud servers. There is a lot less to worry about.   

What needs improvement?

I think some of the issues we have experienced have been more painful because of the support. In the past, support was a bit weak. It would take a while to get a response and it could take a while to get an issue resolved. If we had a client that wanted Blue Prism Cloud Thoughtonomy, then it could take a little while to get that up and running. In comparison, getting Enterprise up and running is much quicker. I suppose the cost of Enterprise is quite a lot in comparison as there is an investment in the hardware.  

I do not really develop in Blue Prism Cloud, so I do not really know what can be improved on the development side. I do not really have any level of detail about it or feedback from appropriate users.  

For how long have I used the solution?

We were working with Blue Prism Cloud before it was Blue Prism Cloud. It was still Thoughtonomy (acquisition announced July 17, 2019). So we have got a fair bit of experience with it throughout the product's history.  

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I think Blue Prism Cloud has been fairly stable.  

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This product is quite scalable. I mean we have not done scaling to huge numbers by percentage. We have done a reasonable volume up to about 50 processes at a time. It has been fine from that standpoint. It does not seem most people using it will make huge jumps in the number of processes that they use all at once.  

How are customer service and technical support?

I have not personally had to contact technical support, but I know my colleagues have. We do deploy the product for our clients as part of the process of delivery in creating automated solutions for them. That is where it stops as we are not providing maintenance for the product to customers. But during the installations and development, there has been some contact with support. There have not been any notable complaints beyond the level of difficulty sometimes encountered during the setup and installation.  

How was the initial setup?

In our experience setup and installation for Blue Prism has been relatively complex, but it is getting better. The deployment used to take somewhere around anywhere up to a month before. I would say it could be as little as a few days now.  

What other advice do I have?

Typically the value of Blue Prism Cloud depends on the user's needs. Most people would only really need Blue Prism Enterprise on-premises but people like the additional functionality of being on the cloud. Both products are good solutions. I do think that a lot of our clients going for Blue Prism Cloud when in reality they could probably get away with the Enterprise version — or even something else. We often deal with people who are early in their RPA journey, so they are just starting out and getting to know the advantages of the products and automation. So I would typically recommend that they go with Enterprise and if they feel like they need to move on to Cloud then they can do that later. But a lot of people like that functionality, they want the OCR and they want the AI capability that comes with the cloud. So often they choose cloud but they may just be doing that because it either seems new or it is progressive and advanced or whatever.  

On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), I would rate Blue Prism Cloud as a seven-out-of-ten. I am no expert on using it first-hand, but I think reducing the costs, speeding up the deployment, maybe adding a few other product package offerings in order to make it a little bit easier to adopt — those things might make it more attractive to a broader range of users. Right now you have to buy into it all in one go and that might be daunting to people who hardly know what they are getting into. I think improving support and making it less complex to sort of get up and running could be key areas to focus on.  

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
it_user951519 - PeerSpot reviewer
Robotic Process and Test Automation Consultant at OFGEM
Real User
A stable architecture with good features that can deliver a quality product
Pros and Cons
  • "I would say that the stability of Blue Prism is superior to any of the competing products because of the maintainability of the features and the openness of the tool."
  • "Blue Prism is slightly difficult for the non-technical user."

What is our primary use case?

We did not ultimately deploy Blue Prism because we chose to use UiPath instead. However, I have detailed knowledge of this solution.

The primary use case is the building of clean, automated processes. These are then easily used and maintained by the architecture.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the Studio.

With respect to the long-term deliverables, this is a quality product.

What needs improvement?

Blue Prism is slightly difficult for the non-technical user.

The centralized, client-server model that this solution uses does not work well and should be broken down into something that is web-based and locally controlled. Designing something in a client-server model is okay, but distributing those packages into a cloud model would be more appropriate.

It is not easy to get training online. They recently opened up their online training for a month, but that is not sufficient for training an individual who has other jobs to do.

Blue Prism has to tidy up their licensing policies. They are restrictive and the minimum length is three years. Smaller organizations do not have the budget for this and would prefer a one-year contractual period. Many smaller businesses plan ahead perhaps six months or a year, and they do not have a multi-year detailed vision or plan. Three years is quite long for this business model.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been familiar with Blue Prism for about a year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would say that the stability of Blue Prism is superior to any of the competing products because of the maintainability of the features and the openness of the tool. Even UI navigation can be quickly adapted for your processes.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Being a client-server architecture, I see it as a slight barrier to scalability. If an organization has a dedicated infrastructure set up then it will be easier, but the modern ways of plug and play, and more app-driven the way UiPath is, makes for better scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

We did not contact technical support while evaluating this solution.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Ultimately, we chose not to implement this solution for production.

How was the initial setup?

Compared to UiPath, the initial setup is slightly complex. You need to set up a database and other support systems. It will take perhaps a day to deploy and configure properly. If you have all of the tools, permissions, and policies configured then it should not take longer than that.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The licensing structure is complex and the minimum contract length is three years.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated UiPath and Blue Prism together.

What other advice do I have?

Blue Prism has good features and the tool has the full capability to deliver timely solutions. However, technical training is something that needs to be addressed because making it more available is necessary in order to help an organization grow.

Compared to other products, from a technical point of view with the architecture and the openness of the product, I rate this solution close to the top. Compared to UiPath, this is a very clear and well-presented tool. However, it suffers in terms of marketing and licensing. It is also difficult for people to initially learn. It will take time for an individual or a developer to pick it up, although once they do, it works well. 

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Blue Prism Cloud Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Blue Prism Cloud Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.