Appian RPA vs Microsoft Power Automate comparison

Appian and Microsoft are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. Appian is ranked #16 with an average rating of 9.0, while Microsoft is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.2. Appian holds a 0.4% mindshare in RPA, compared to Microsoft’s 20.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Appian 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 Appian RPA and Microsoft Power Automate based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about UiPath, Microsoft, Automation Anywhere and others in Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

To learn more, read our detailed Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

April 2025

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Helped 849,686 peers since 2012

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

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automate is 1.6%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Appian RPA is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power Automate is 20.9%, down from 21.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

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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MikahSellers

Partner at a non-tech company with 1-10 employees

Efficient automation with substantial ROI and innovative UI enhancements

We were automating customer experience workflows for the contact center, including systems like CRM, service desk solutions, CCaaS solutions, and pulling data from ERPs It allowed us to reduce the level of effort to complete contact processes from one hundred fifty seconds to ninety seconds,…

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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

"Fortra's Automate performs the job effectively and has the capability to alert us of any issues."

"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."

"I find the ease of use from a programming perspective very valuable."

"The licensing of the product is very good. You only need to license it once and then you have it forever."

"We have tried other RPA solutions like UiPath or Automation Anywhere. They are fantastic products but complex, and it's hard to understand everything. It would be best if you had a skilled developer or several. Automate is easy to implement, administer, and use. It's appropriate for us because our cases are simple and easy to automate. We don't need complicated tools with many features; We prefer to get a significant ROI quickly."

"I actually quite liked the no-coding functionality."

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

"I would rate the technical support as a nine out of ten because it is quite fast and courteous."

More Automate pros

"Appian RPA is super easy to use, offering low code, no code capabilities."

"Power Automate is not complex and is very easy-to-use in deploying most development projects."

"Very reasonably priced."

"The most advantageous aspect of the solution is its cloud capabilities."

"Good core applications."

"The product provides valuable integration with other Microsoft tools."

"It is a low-code platform. It is easy to use and good for automating small tasks such as expense approvals, timesheet approvals, etc."

"WinAutomation is very handy to use, and it has the power to interact with multiple systems, such as SAP, Oracle, or .NET systems."

"The initial setup isn't too difficult."

More Microsoft Power Automate pros

Cons

"The documentation is not that great."

"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."

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

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

"The solution has a very weak knowledge base."

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

"It's possible that they could use a stronger community for seeking guidance and help."

"The vendor is currently working on a solution that allows us to automatically create a process that is based on a document that we receive via email."

More Automate cons

"There are not any areas that need improvement off the top of my head."

"When you are doing desktop automation, they do not have a clear structure to create the code."

"Their connector to Oracle or premium data sets that aren't Microsoft would often fail for me. The information given back about why it failed wasn't always robust to understand how to fix it and why it happened."

"The solution lacks maturity."

"There are two versions of the automation suite. You've got your cloud functionality, and you have got your on-premises functionality for legacy systems. There are a lot of functionalities between the two systems that don't cross-correlate with each other. A lot of the functionality in the cloud system is not there on the production side in the on-prem system. If they could implement some of the similar functionalities and streamline them for integration, it would be a lot easier. There should be seamless integration between the two systems."

"In an upcoming release, the exception handling mechanism could improve. The issue that we are facing is whenever there is a failure in any of the middle execution and if you wanted to navigate it to the end of the last line of execution, we do not have this feature available. If we had this feature it would make it even more stable."

"WinAutomation is scalable to a certain extent. I would rate it seven for the scalability, which could be better. Softomotive is better scalable than WinAutomation in this regard."

"It's not as user-friendly as a solution such as UiPath, which is really easy to use."

"During their merger, some key functions were eliminated which no longer allows it to run independently from the cloud as a standalone for other companies. For example, options to schedule and trigger have been removed. It would be nice to have these capabilities back. The flow and the connectivity between databases and so on is a bit complex as well."

More Microsoft Power Automate cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From a distributor's side, one of the biggest selling points is its price point. Without going into any numbers, compared to UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and Blue Prism, we're significantly cheaper. The main difference is that other competitors usually charge you per process. However, in Automate's case, it's priced per bot. So, a bot can run multiple processes at the same time, but you are only priced for a single bot."

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

"While solutions like UiPath and Blue Prism cost around $11,000-$12,000 for each license, this product costs around $7,000 and you can keep it forever."

"It comes with a package that costs approximately $20,000 USD per year."

More Automate pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"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."

"They have the community edition that people can use for free, and they also have the enterprise edition. My company uses the enterprise edition, and I don't know how much they pay."

"The licensing cost for us at this time is between $8 and $20 per user, per month."

"You pay for use and if you want a premium connector or adapter, but a lot of things are available for free."

"I am not aware of the recent pricing model, but during the time that I was using this solution is was reasonable."

"You can have two types of licenses, one is user-based, and the other is app-based in the Power Platform."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing two to three out of ten."

"It has a cost-effective pricing model compared to competitors."

More Microsoft Power Automate pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

No data available

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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.

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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...

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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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Appian RPA?

I didn't handle payments or costs. We recommended infrastructure stacks to our clients, who implemented them, and we ...

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What needs improvement with Appian RPA?

There are not any areas that need improvement off the top of my head. It has been 18 months since I worked with the e...

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What is your primary use case for Appian RPA?

We were automating customer experience workflows for the contact center, including systems like CRM, service desk sol...

See all answers

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 Platform vs Automate

Compared 35% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Automate

Compared 8% of the time

Blue Prism vs Automate

Compared 7% of the time

VisualCron vs Automate

Compared 7% of the time

MOVEit vs Automate

Compared 5% of the time

More Automate Competitors

UiPath Platform vs Appian RPA

Compared 63% of the time

Blue Prism vs Appian RPA

Compared 37% of the time

More Appian RPA Competitors

UiPath Platform vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 24% of the time

Blue Prism vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 16% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 15% of the time

IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 9% 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

April 2025

Download Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

April 2025

Download Appian RPA product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power Automate

April 2025

Download Microsoft Power Automate product report

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate

Jidoka RPA

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

Appian RPA seamlessly integrates with the comprehensive Appian Platform for process automation, offering an end-to-end solution for streamlining workflows and automating repetitive tasks. With features like the Universal RPA Task Recorder and the Low-code Appian Process Modeler, users can quickly build and deploy bots without extensive coding knowledge. Appian RPA ensures governance, dynamic exception handling, secure deployment, and scalability, enabling organizations to maintain automation integrity while efficiently managing digital workers across various environments. By leveraging Appian RPA alongside Appian IDP, AI, business rules, and API integrations, businesses can achieve seamless process automation and drive value quickly, optimizing workflows between humans, digital workers, and systems. With Appian's unified platform for change, organizations can accelerate digital innovation, enhance business efficiency, and create end-to-end automation solutions tailored to their specific needs.

Appian

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

empark, talan, liverpool, ayesa, aeromexico, teknei

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

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

April 2025

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