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Automation Anywhere vs Blue Prism Cloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 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

Automate
Sponsored
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Automation Anywhere
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
583
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (2nd), Process Mining (2nd), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (3rd), Agentic Automation (1st)
Blue Prism Cloud
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automate is 1.7%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Automation Anywhere is 10.1%, down from 13.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Blue Prism Cloud is 1.4%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
 

Featured Reviews

Anabel Marco - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Vatsal Mehta - PeerSpot reviewer
Accommodates diverse use cases and effectively meets customer requirements
AI agents need further improvements. AI agent technology in agentic process automation is still evolving. We have only scratched the surface, and there are many potential use cases yet to be explored. As technology advances, I believe it will enable us to implement more comprehensive automation solutions. Document Automation has issues related to speed. When I compare Document Automation with IQ Bot, IQ Bot is faster than Document Automation. My understanding is that they are still evolving Document Automation, and this issue of slowness will be resolved in the upcoming .35 version, so we are good with that. They are working on signature identification and validations for handwritten documents. Currently, we are able to extract data out of scanned but digital images, but there is still scope for improvement for handwritten documents.
Aaron Ingram - PeerSpot reviewer
Automates accounts payable process with no human interaction and saves 100% time
Edge browser extensions could be made slightly more resilient. It would be nice if they could package new libraries for end users rather than have them search for libraries. The extension resiliency would be huge. If we're looking for intelligent document processing and OCR functionality, we haven't found them yet.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's very easy to use. That's a big selling point for it. It has got a drag-and-drop interface, so you can quickly deploy bots."
"The most valuable features of Fortra's Automate include its FTP functionality and file manipulation capabilities."
"The licensing of the product is very good. You only need to license it once and then you have it forever."
"The best feature of Automate is its ease of use, which is a major selling point."
"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."
"This product is quite easy to install, learn, and use, with our new employees being able to start using it in projects for clients after only two weeks of internal training."
"The most valuable feature is the drag-and-drop interface, which is very Windows-like."
"We have found the pricing to be very reasonable."
"I like Automation Anywhere's cloud-based nature. You don't need any on-prem infrastructure to host it."
"AARI allows business users to trigger the bot, so I do not have to schedule everything. This convenience allows users to utilize it as they need. I can set it up to provide users with a form to fill in all required information, and then the bot operates based on those specifications. AARI is very convenient, and that is their biggest selling point."
"Automation Anywhere's support has been great since we signed up for gold support last year."
"It has streamlined many manual processes, eliminating errors and inefficiencies. It has also allowed us to introduce metrics, so we can generate operational reports and improve our overall business."
"The initial setup was straightforward. It is a very guided experience: out-of-the-box with Automation Anywhere University training."
"Automation Anywhere offers the capability of integrating the DLL files with meta bot and hence the developer can use DLL files to connect to applications likes outlook, SAP, etc"
"By combining Automation Anywhere and Appian together, we have been able to build a bot that works with Appian workflows to manage all our employees."
"It helps increase productivity by 20% to 30%."
"This solution comes with a lot of good features."
"With Blue Prism, I like the feature that you build, I don't know the exact name now, but blocks or standards can be reduced later. You configure, for example, the CRM system, and you create a standardized manner of inputting data into the CRM system that you can reuse later. I'm not sure what that's called, but I enjoy it whether it's a feature or not."
"The tool saves us from repetitive and mundane tasks. We don’t have to write, record or copy data from Excel. The product helps us save time. We save money as well since people doing this task are on various other automation tasks. The chance for repetitive entries is also reduced because the tool helps us make one-time entries."
"Ability to see the blueprint of the design executed alongside the actual process."
"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."
"Decipher has been a valuable feature that many of our clients use to extract information from documents."
"The most valuable feature is security."
"The user performance is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"Some companies have asked for voice integration. This is likely part of the roadmap."
"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 like to see some better web automation, a wizard like the one in the product WinAutomation would be very nice."
"I would like the updates to be easier to deploy. Integration with Amazon S3 is somewhat lacking."
"The technical support could be better. We suffer from language barriers, as we are in Argentina."
"The solution has a very weak knowledge base."
"The OCR for Hebrew text needs to be improved."
"The intelligent automation feature could be improved. It's interesting because it's simple, but the automation quality isn't always good. It's easy to use, but sometimes you need to make a slight improvement to the automation, and that's not so easy."
"They could improve the learning curve."
"For improvement, I would like to see Automation Anywhere integrating with multiple other technologies. As of now, it is integrating with .NET. When it come to future technologies, I want Automation Anywhere to integrate with Python scripts, and make the execution easier. That will be very helpful, having our cognitive technologies interacting with Automation Anywhere."
"My main issue with Automation Anywhere might be the logging of bots and getting more detailed feedback of what my bot is doing, step by step. It is hard to track fine-tuning in larger codes."
"We run these bots in multiple environments from staging to development to production. We find usually in the production environment when we run the bots for them to be stable for a week or two. After a week or two, we see some glitches here and there, though the application doesn't change much. This is one feature which I want Automation Anywhere to work on: Increasing stability."
"One of the important drawbacks of Automation Anywhere is that it needs to be able to show the automated process as a single flowchart."
"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."
"Companies need to better justify the ROI before usage - otherwise, they might spend money on things unnecessarily."
"To improve the product, one aspect that Automation Anywhere can work on is archiving legacy data effectively. Currently, data older than current versions remains on the server, slowing the system down."
"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."
"The solution is unable to read some UI components in legacy systems."
"They should improve the user-friendliness and they should change their business model."
"The pricing was a bit high, from what I understand. That might have played a role in the decision to migrate to another solution."
"Blue Prism Cloud is a solid product that fulfils its intended functions well. Although there is room for improvement, it has integrated various cognitive and intelligent document processing features into a single product. But needs to effectively automate RPA processes despite some initial challenges addressed through product updates and new features."
"There is room for improvement in the speed."
"The AI part is currently missing in Blue Prism Studio... It would be good if the AI part is included in Blue Prism Studio, which can make it much more efficient and good to work."
"Several things need improvement, like ease-of-use, adding tended robots, adding process recording, and updating the look and feel so it seems modern."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I like the way this solution is priced because you can buy a license, or you can buy the software outright."
"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."
"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."
"The cost is a bit high for a small business like ours, but we manage with Fortra's Automate."
"Once you buy the software, you just pay for the support for backend help."
"One of the key features that we chose, the bot as a service or the BotFarm, when they launched version 11.3, they decided not to have the BotFarm anymore. This put us in a situation because we expected to have bots on demand, just like our cloud software. This would have been cost efficient for us to use. We hope to see this again being realized with A2019. I hope the scalability from an on demand basis improves."
"We have seen the tangible benefits of taking monotonous work off people's plates, creating capacity, and cost reductions."
"The setup cost for this is onetime and licensing is based on your choice of product."
"Pricing is too high for small-scale groups. The Control Room yearly fee is high, making it difficult to break even."
"I think it's $5,500 per license."
"The pricing for Automation Anywhere is reasonable."
"I would rate the price of Automation Anywhere a six out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."
"Time-wise: We have saved hundreds of thousands of hours."
"This solution comes at a medium to high price point. They need to work on their pricing to enable smaller enterprises to get the benefit of using the product."
"The price is very competitive when you are comparing to other providers."
"The licensing of the solution is on a subscription-based model and costs around 4,999 for one bot's license. If someone wants to increase the number of bots you want from Blue Prism, then they provide a discount."
"Blue Prism Cloud’s pricing is fine for commercial usage."
"When compared with UiPath, I believe it will be difficult for Blue Prism to maintain its market share."
"Blue Prism Cloud's cost is very high."
"Annual licensing costs were somewhere between $5,000 - $10,000 for the development tool. For the control tower, I think fees were about $50,000 annually."
"There are costs for the machine to run the robots."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
16%
Educational Organization
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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.
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...
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...
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 do you like most about Blue Prism Cloud?
It's easy to use, the interface, the the the the queries is which we use. It's user friendly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Blue Prism Cloud?
If we utilize Blue Prism's full capabilities, then it is cost-effective. Otherwise, the pricing can seem high. It req...
What needs improvement with Blue Prism Cloud?
Decipher, one of their solutions, is a waste of time. Other than that, there's nothing specific I can think of.
 

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate
Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise
Blue Prism Thoughtonomy Virtual Workforce, Blue Prism Virtual Workforce, Thoughtonomy Virtual Workforce
 

Overview

 

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
Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
Cabot Credit Management, Hovis, Utilita
Find out what your peers are saying about Automation Anywhere vs. Blue Prism Cloud and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.