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Automation Anywhere vs IBM Datacap comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (5th)
Automation Anywhere
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
556
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (3rd), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (1st), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (3rd), Agentic Automation (2nd)
IBM Datacap
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (7th)
 

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.
DeekshithShetty - PeerSpot reviewer
High-accuracy document processing with easy integration and good image enhancement
The OCR extractions are very good, almost 100% accurate now. The integration with other tools is very easy, with inbuilt actions to configure and directly export to multiple depositories. It is also good at image enhancement, including the removal of lines, which is helpful in processing and automation and ensures very little user intervention, thus saving time.

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 has effectively replaced the workload of an entire employee, saving us significant time and money."
"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 best feature of Automate is its ease of use, which is a major selling point."
"We use it for specific cases, mainly secure file transfers, which are vital for us. And it works for us."
"I find the ease of use from a programming perspective very valuable."
"Web scraping is quite good since it offers a lot of possibilities."
"We have found the pricing to be very reasonable."
"A great feature that you seldom see in these kind of systems is the ability to use a database as trigger to launch a task. This is something I asked for a few years ago and that was added."
"The bot creation process is easy, manageable, and everything is well-organized for a developer. Everything is centralized."
"I love its reliability, ease of use, and the vast customer support that are always present to help us."
"We have received 70 percent optimization using this solution."
"It's pretty simple and non-invasive."
"The insights provided by the dashboard are excellent."
"IQ Bot is the most valuable integrated feature of Automation Anywhere."
"Bot creation is a cool feature. It allows the developer to do complex things."
"Automation Anywhere improved our organization since it saved us a lot monetary value."
"It is highly extensible, which we found to be most valuable. It is a very extensible solution because it is based on configurable rule sets. We were able to amend and adjust the solution and very easily add custom code and custom components. It does require some programming experience, but we found that not to be an issue. We liked its extensibility."
"The most valuable features of IBM Datacap is the capturing and recognizing of pages, documents as well as the scanner and barcodes."
"The standout feature of this intelligent product is its remarkable capability."
"I like Datacap's integration with FileNet because financial companies use that export. The second part is web services integration, which is effortless to implement."
"The installation of the solution is very simple."
"The second thing that I like about Datacap is the fingerprint capture which is easy to configure on Datacap. From the form of the document, if a document is redundant in the same department, we can configure the capture based on the form of the documents"
"It's resiliency. There are multiple ways of identifying what you are looking for. There are multiple export formats."
"It reduces human error and saves time."
 

Cons

"The product also has a limited use case in some respects."
"I currently have three bugs open with them that I don't know if they are addressed in the new release."
"I would like the updates to be easier to deploy. Integration with Amazon S3 is somewhat lacking."
"Some companies have asked for voice integration. This is likely part of the roadmap."
"I would like to see some better web automation, a wizard like the one in the product WinAutomation would be very nice."
"There is room for improvement regarding cloud functionality; there are a few missing features, and the logging could be better, especially air logging. We can go into logging events and create our own task, but it would be nice if this were more detailed."
"We really need a free development environment for customers. Building and testing automation on production isn't ideal."
"The technical support could be better. We suffer from language barriers, as we are in Argentina."
"Verbose logging of bot compiling and deployment from the control room. Events occurring during compiling, pre-processing the bots should be logged in the control room or bot launcher logs."
"Replacing the list of search options with voice commands for each item would be great."
"They sell every different functionality in too many separate packages, making the procurement process complicated as it requires paying additional licensing for more features."
"Cognitive services and PDF file automation should be refined."
"Built-in HTML features are lagging in this solution, whereas in UiPath, they are very good."
"When it comes to reading email, this solution is unstable and improvements need to be made."
"I would like to see a global error handler introduced, which will explicitly handle errors over the entire project."
"Though IQ Bot is the most powerful and effective cognitive OCR platform for data extraction in the market, still, there is a lot of scope for improvement as there are a lot of non-standard documents which do not give a high straight-through processing rate and accuracy."
"Speed of OCR is one issue. It's a challenge because we have customers that have millions and millions of pages that they want this solution to crank through. In order to do that you have to have a large infrastructure in place, and that directly impacts licensing based on the core count."
"The solution's scalability needs improvement."
"When a client's requirement is not available in Datacap, out-of-the-box actions should be simpler to implement and not very complex."
"We have page requirements where some values must be copied on each page. For example, say I need to scan a bunch of documents, and the name will be a field on every page. We don't have a default functionality in Datacap to copy the field value on the first page to all the pages. That feature would make the documents easy to prepare."
"Third-party integration could be improved; it's very slow."
"I would like to see integration of Watson AI technology into Datacap."
"The technical support is horrible. They have downsized the support teams too much. They've outsourced some of them along with some of the development, and they're just stretched too thin."
"What could be improved in IBM Datacap from a technical perspective is having everything together all in one place, rather than having several different interfaces. The addition of cloud-based OCR technology would also make this solution better. There's also room for improvement for their technical support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It comes with a package that costs approximately $20,000 USD per year."
"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."
"We brought onshore a lot of what we were doing offshore, saving our company close to $20 million."
"With the rebate processing automation that we did, it has provided us a savings of around an hour or two a person on a daily basis, which is quite a lot of savings."
"While calculating the setup cost you should account for the server, virtual machines, product licenses, maintenance costs, and running costs."
"We are a partner of Automation Anywhere and find the pricing to be reasonable."
"I've seen the price vary by whether the client is going to scale and adopt a tool."
"The pricing is fair. My company is part of a big organization, so the pricing is very advantageous."
"Automation Anywhere is competitive... Pega is somewhat comparable, but Pega also requires a lot more infrastructure and a lot more experience to get up and running."
"The setup cost depends on multiple factors, so you need to get details before choosing."
"This solution is the most expensive in the market."
"Pricing depends on how much we use it. We pay per bulk quantity. We pay as you go. Therefore, it sort of depends on our usage of it."
"If you want IBM Datacap on cloud, which is a service run by IBM, the price can be quite expensive, but if you want to just purchase the licenses and own those yourself, then the price is very competitive."
"You save a lot of time and money, but the benefit is you have people who are able to run the systems, check to see if there are any errors at all, and there are a lot less errors than a human system."
"This solution offers seamless integration with other enterprise products, which is my area of responsibility, focusing on government sector projects. Larger enterprise projects don't pose problems. It might be suitable for small businesses as well."
"This solution offers seamless integration with other enterprise products, which is my area of responsibility, focusing on government sector projects. Larger enterprise projects don't pose problems. It might be suitable for small businesses as well."
"It is an expensive solution."
"Pricing needs to stay competitive."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) solutions are best for your needs.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Insurance Company
9%
 

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 IBM Datacap?
The installation of the solution is very simple.
What needs improvement with IBM Datacap?
When a client's requirement is not available in Datacap, out-of-the-box actions should be simpler to implement and no...
 

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate
Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise
Datacap
 

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
Turkcell, PowerSouth Energy Cooperative, Central Nacional Unimed, Conqord Oil
Find out what your peers are saying about Automation Anywhere vs. IBM Datacap and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.