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Atera vs Espressive Barista comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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

Automation Anywhere
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
656
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (2nd), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (1st), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (1st), Agentic Automation (1st), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (2nd), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (1st), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
Atera
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (11th), Network Monitoring Software (39th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (37th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (10th), Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (5th), Patch Management (11th), AIOps (22nd), Agentic Automation (8th)
Espressive Barista
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (38th), AI-Powered Chatbots (9th), AI-Agents for HR (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Management Consultant at Accenture
Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions
Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.
NC
IT Manager at Telstra
Remote monitoring has streamlined endpoint management and consistently reduced ticket resolution time
The best features Atera offers include the per-technician pricing, which is honestly one of the biggest things. Unlimited endpoints for a flat monthly fee per tech is a model that makes sense for us, since we are not paying more every time we add a new endpoint. The AI Copilot feature has been a nice addition that helps our techs summarize tickets and suggest fixes faster, which has cut our resolution times noticeably. The AI Copilot feature has specifically helped my team because the automation handles a lot of the routine work, such as patch deployments, maintenance tasks, and monitoring alerts. Atera has positively impacted my organization by transforming how our team operates day-to-day, and the pricing model is hard to beat. The outcomes or metrics showing how Atera has made a positive impact include the 30% reduction in ticket resolution time I mentioned earlier.
Jim Lobao - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager for End User Support Services at Five9
Has helped enhance our support ability, reduced our resolution time, and reduced our service desk costs
Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement. We haven't yet found anything that resembles true AI that can learn autonomously without human intervention. However, Barista does help us identify and address some of these areas, allowing my team to step in and create intents and responses to questions. When a user asks a question that Barista doesn't immediately understand, we can recognize the pattern, capture it, and link it to a common intent. This is highly beneficial for acquiring such data, but it's a reactive approach and still requires curation. Natural language processing still has some way to go. One of our challenges is that our internal employees haven't yet adopted a natural way of interacting with Barista. Getting people to be concise and to the point, rather than being verbose as if they were interacting with a human, has been an ongoing challenge. While they may feel comfortable being conversational in Slack, expecting a human-like response, Barista is a different entity. Barista isn't interested in their recent vacation; it just wants to know they're locked out of their account. So, some users may assume Barista understands their intent when they say, "I'm back from vacation and locked out of my account." Barista, however, may interpret this as a request for the holiday schedule. Therefore, we're gradually educating our users to adapt their communication style for better success with Barista. Conversely, we desire Barista to adapt its behavior based on the interaction, the language used, and the way people communicate. I wholeheartedly desire an AI that can continuously learn and adapt to our organization's evolving needs. This is the most challenging aspect, as it involves understanding our organization's terminology, procedures, and toolsets. We've made significant progress in this area. However, from an NLP standpoint, we still face challenges with our nearly 3,000 Slack channel users, each with their unique communication styles. People ask questions in various ways, and sometimes there are misunderstandings. They want to interact with us naturally. However, we still struggle with natural language processing. People don't always realize that the bot is a virtual agent designed to be concise and efficient. Sometimes, less is more. It's been a difficult transition for people to grasp that they're conversing with a virtual agent, not a human. They still expect human-like interactions, such as discussing their weekend or holidays or simply pasting screenshots of errors. However, the bot can't interpret screenshots. If they provide the error code and some context about the application, the bot can better understand the issue. So, the key challenge is bridging the gap between human expectations and the bot's capabilities in terms of natural interaction.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The universal recorder along with the Excel basic and advanced packages has been highly valuable."
"For people looking for my recommendation for an automation product, I definitely would recommend Automation Anywhere instead of going for a more orthodox or older technology."
"The features of Automation Anywhere improve my company by making deployment and maintenance of our automations a smoother process overall."
"Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten."
"Automation is going to become a new area we will certainly encourage a lot of people to pursue because of the lasting dividends it provides, including saving time and manpower."
"It provides, not only hard benefits, but also soft benefits, leaving the human mind free of all voluminous repetitive tasks so workers can do the work that they are intended to do, which is thinking."
"If we count the integrations that we have done with Appian, which is where a lot of our savings is from, we are well over a million dollars in savings."
"Automation Anywhere's support has been great since we signed up for gold support last year."
"Measuring the integration is very helpful when using Atera Assist Test. It takes the solution to the next level by automating activities. It doesn't just provide the solution but also allows running scripts to fix issues before a technician has to work on them."
"Atera has positively impacted my organization by transforming how our team operates day-to-day, and the pricing model is hard to beat."
"Atera's automation capabilities are excellent because we can create new users and customers, and when a company wants to integrate us as IT consultants to their network, it can be very simple, such as installing to Active Directory or Azure."
"The most valuable features of this solution are automatic batch matching and unattended support access."
"Atera saves money. A trip to the customer costs between $20 to $30. Then, you need to charge the customer $20 to $30 for the travel. However, if you are doing this work remotely, then you are not driving. This makes the process easier and saves money for you and the customer. For example, if it is just one machine, then the savings comes out to $50 to $60. If we are talking about a huge client, who has hundreds of machines and is changing their infrastructure, that is a lot of money."
"One thing that I'm most impressed by with Atera is how much they listen to their community to focus on more integrations."
"It is reliable, and when it is working, it works without issues."
"We value the alerts that come with the product which allow me to reach out to my clients. Overall, Atera generates additional revenue streams for work done on their machines."
"Given the out of the box content for common industry applications, we got good value out of the solution right from day one."
"Given Barista's out-of-the-box content for common industry applications, the value is pretty good right from day one."
"Our department received about a 70% deflection rate, so that was really great."
"With respect to its natural language processing capabilities, it recognizes things that you wouldn't think it would recognize. Even in cases where it doesn't, it's pretty easy to go in and make the adjustments that are needed."
"The solution is available to support us instantly as required."
"I like Expressive Barista's integration with Microsoft Teams."
"The most valuable feature is its scalability."
"Its ability to recognize phrases has gotten smarter over time."
 

Cons

"As a developer or user, I feel that the performance of the overall package could be made a little better or reliable."
"Automation Anywhere could use to be more stabilized."
"In terms of improvements for Automation Anywhere, I would prefer to see more options in packages and pricing, including a breakdown of different features and products, which would allow us to select certain products while potentially skipping others as needed."
"I would definitely say Citrix automation is one area we have continued to struggle with for the last two months."
"It still uses old, deprecated Microsoft components that have an end date."
"Going on-cloud comes with security hiccups and concerns."
"It's somewhat pricier than some of the other tools that we've used, and the breakout between the different applications is also somewhat costly."
"The original setup was easy. What was difficult was adding licenses. I went a month where I was paying for licenses that I couldn't use, for various reasons. That was painful."
"The chat solutions need improvement because we first need to connect to the customer. This needs to improve so that there is a particular feature that can provide support to customers even if they are not connected to a computer."
"I would like to see more mobile device management. iPad is a big one. I know they've been working on some of that. For me, it would be amazing if I could do tablet devices and even expand it to POS systems or the like. I know that a lot goes into that but I've seen it is an area they're looking at."
"Atera could be improved by adding more granular control over technician roles. We need more specific controls on what technicians can access, like limiting their ability to view certain sections or access devices and share files. This feature request has already been made. The IP asset management capabilities need improvement to better manage assets beyond just devices."
"I would like to see more mobile device management. iPad is a big one."
"Customization could be improved."
"The mobility of Atera is also a feature which needs to be addressed so that it can be used on iPads, iPhones and things of this nature. I would also like to see an agent included on these devices so that I can monitor, maintain and manage them."
"It will be interesting if Atera can integrate all kinds of products."
"The solution is scalable. However, in the past, we did have some issues."
"Although they've done some work on their metrics dashboard, there is some fine-tuning to do for people that just want to go in there at a glance and see their metrics."
"Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement."
"The reports provided by the solution are not customizable."
"I would like to see the continued expansion of all of the automation capabilities."
"I would like to see improvement to the out-of-the-box verbiage, with the questions going to the right place."
"Expressive Barista could improve by adding native integration with WhatsApp, one of the top communication channels in South Africa. When we're trying to sell Barista to customers, we have to tell them that the solution doesn't have out-of-the-box support for WhatsApp. We can develop it, but then we need to have a conversation about how much that will cost."
"The knowledge management could definitely be improved."
"My only comment would be if they wanted to use this as an IT service management tool, maybe they could think about Barista making tickets and having change management and problem management capabilities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have seen a return of investment because it takes less time to market in our current process. I would estimate a times savings between 20 to 30 percent."
"The solution's pricing is pretty decent."
"They are already coming out with a community license, which is really good. That's something that I wish to have."
"We're on a license package with Automation Anywhere (AA), paid yearly. What would be better is for them to have different packages for different types of organization."
"I would rate the cost of Automation Anywhere as a six out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."
"There is a free trial so that they can get an overview, and there are different licenses that are very affordable and can suit every business model."
"It is reasonable and affordable. If you consider the tasks that we can get done using this, the pricing is reasonable and affordable."
"It is not too expensive, but there are many tools available in the market that can provide the same functionality at a cheaper price."
"It comes with unlimited devices, so the fixed price cost is taken out of my budget. So, I'm all good."
"The value of the product is perfect, neither cheap nor expensive. I think it is the right rate. It would be awesome if it continued to be the same price because it is a great solution that I like. I like it because I'm not paying per device. I have some customers on monthly contracts and some of them are on break'n fix. If I have a client who is on break'n fix, and they need to pay per agent, then I am losing money. If they were ever to change structures, going to pay-per-device model, then I would need to think about changing to something else."
"The solution cost approximately $200 Canadian per month."
"With Atera, the more you add, the cheaper the cost of the additional endpoints will be."
"Our company is a startup. The initial reason I looked into Atera was the fact that you pay by the technician, not per-device. That means you are able to jump right in with a service without having a large overhead."
"Pricing is my favorite part of it. It was per user, not per client."
"Atera happened to have the best pricing model."
"Atera's pricing stays fixed and predictable, enabling us to add more customers and unlimited monitored devices. We still have a number of clients who fit a break/fix IT model. This is something where clients are complaining more about having to pay extra month-by-month for technology services. With Atera's model, we don't have to be going out and asking for more from clients each month. Right now, with where we are at in terms of scale, this is very important to us."
"User-based licensing has been working well for us, and we believe we are deriving significant value from it."
"It is expensive. It's not a cheap thing."
"The solution is affordable."
"The price for the licensing is fair."
"The pricing isn't overly burdensome. It's going to be interesting to see how new models come in with new capabilities but, as it is, as a base system, it's pretty good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business157
Midsize Enterprise83
Large Enterprise547
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Atera?
The prices have increased over time. After expressing concerns about pricing to account managers, they offered a 30% ...
What needs improvement with Atera?
Reporting is probably the main frustration. Some of the more advanced reports are locked behind higher pricing tiers,...
What is your primary use case for Atera?
My main use case for Atera is remote monitoring and management across all our endpoints. We have devices spread acros...
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Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
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Interactive Demo

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
MSPs, IT consultants, and IT departments worldwide trust and use Atera. 
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Find out what your peers are saying about Atera vs. Espressive Barista and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.