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Blue Prism Cloud vs IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
8.1
Automate boosts efficiency and reduces costs with easy deployment, allowing quick returns without extra IT staff.
Sentiment score
7.1
Users anticipate ROI, with some experiencing quick returns, improved processes, error reduction, and efficiency gains via automation.
Sentiment score
8.3
IBM RPA offers 20-30% ROI, short payback period, cost-effectiveness, automates tasks, and enhances client satisfaction and financial benefits.
Fortra's Automate has effectively replaced the workload of an entire employee, saving us significant time and money.
It has reduced our expenditures in terms of purchasing more products and employing more technicians.
I've seen a good return on investment with Automate, as it streamlines processes and improves my productivity.
Additionally, if we consider a scenario where ten people were initially working on a task, using the automation could reduce headcount and lead to significant cost savings.
My customers have seen high ROI with IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) because it has a lower cost than other vendors.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Automate's customer service is praised for prompt, effective support, despite occasional language barriers and a challenging knowledge base.
Sentiment score
7.5
Blue Prism Cloud support is generally effective, though some users find it less flexible than competitors like UiPath.
Sentiment score
6.6
IBM RPA offers reliable customer service, though some users seek better educational resources and more experienced level-one support.
They don't always understand the processes I'm trying to implement.
I would rate the technical support as a nine out of ten because it is quite fast and courteous.
They are very responsive and have been able to resolve any issues I have encountered.
I would rate the technical support of Blue Prism Cloud between seven to eight out of ten.
They need to improve their support by having more experienced level one support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Automate is scalable, enabling easy expansion with flexibility and load balancing, though some concerns about complexity and cost exist.
Sentiment score
7.3
Blue Prism Cloud is scalable and efficient for large tasks, but some prefer rivals for easier enhancements.
Sentiment score
7.6
IBM RPA is highly scalable, appreciated for its cloud flexibility, aided by Kubernetes, microservices, and AI expansion efforts.
The scalability of Automate also scores a ten out of ten.
It is easy to increase one bot or one studio without needing to buy another orchestrator, which can be quite expensive.
Automate is stable for my needs and is highly scalable, allowing the same workflow to serve numerous tasks effectively.
As it adopts a decentralized model, I haven't encountered any scalability issues.
The solution is very scalable because it's supported by Cloud Pak for Automation, allowing scaling with other solutions or independently.
I would rate the scalability of IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) as eight on a scale of one to ten.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
Automate v.11 is mostly stable and reliable, but resource-intensive, with occasional errors and crashes depending on task type.
Sentiment score
7.8
Blue Prism Cloud is highly rated for stability, with reliable performance despite occasional minor browser extension or upgrade issues.
Sentiment score
6.9
IBM RPA is generally stable, with improved version 11, but some users report minor issues and memory concerns.
The stability of the solution is a ten out of ten.
It has very robust features, and it is not prone to instability.
The stability of Fortra's Automate is excellent.
IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has been running smoothly for four years without any errors, which indicates a high level of stability.
 

Room For Improvement

Intelligent automation faces issues with usability, integration, and support, needing improvements in user interface, customization, and community engagement.
Blue Prism Cloud needs simpler interface, more integrations, improved training, support, and enhanced infrastructure for better user experience.
IBM RPA needs stronger AI, better integrations, user-friendly features, and improved support to address user challenges and requests.
This is a significant concern, especially with critical workloads where visibility into errors is essential.
I would prefer not having to log in to update a ticket; being able to respond via email would be beneficial.
Integration with Amazon S3 is somewhat lacking.
The improvements or enhancements I would like to see in Blue Prism Cloud revolve around further developing server-client architecture, focusing on centralized control for remote agents.
To improve IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for the next release, there should be more integration with external systems, and more integration with IBM's data and AI platforms is needed.
 

Setup Cost

Automate offers flexible and cost-effective pricing, allowing multiple processes per bot, making it competitive against UiPath and Blue Prism.
Blue Prism Cloud's pricing is higher than other RPA solutions, competitive for large enterprises but challenging for smaller ones.
IBM RPA pricing is often high with annual licensing, but it offers flexibility, bundling, and a free trial.
Competitors are often more expensive than Automate.
It offered what we wanted at a good, competitive price.
It does a lot but also costs a lot.
In the SaaS mode, the pricing structure is indeed more flexible compared to the previous enterprise-based licensing.
The pricing of IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is an area that could be improved.
 

Valuable Features

Automate offers user-friendly automation with seamless integration, intuitive features, and cost-effective scalability, enhancing productivity and efficiency.
Blue Prism Cloud offers user-friendly automation with easy deployment, robust security, AI capabilities, and no-code features for efficiency.
IBM Robotic Process Automation boosts efficiency and productivity with user-friendly automation, integration, and advanced analytics features.
Automate's non-reliance on additional orchestrators makes it quite cost-effective.
In my opinion, the best feature Automate offers is the scheduling.
Automate's compatibility with existing IT infrastructure has impacted our business operations positively by providing smooth integration with other software that we use, such as Gmail, Jira, and Microsoft 365 apps, which gives us a unified platform instead of having to keep switching from one software to another, saving a lot of time and streamlining the whole workflows.
Over time, Blue Prism Cloud has evolved significantly, transitioning from a code-intensive approach to a more no-code capability, which is one of the advancements I appreciate.
We haven't encountered any errors in the last four years, which speaks to its reliability.
The analytics and reporting tools in IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are the best compared to all other RPAs because all other RPAs only use dashboards while IBM is the only one to have a reporting tool that includes dashboards.
 

Categories and Ranking

Automate
Sponsored
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Blue Prism Cloud
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Robotic Process Automat...
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automate is 2.0%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Blue Prism Cloud is 1.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is 3.3%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Automate2.0%
Blue Prism Cloud1.5%
IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)3.3%
Other93.2%
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
 

Featured Reviews

Jane Rachma Kiniti - PeerSpot reviewer
Automate has streamlined workflows and increased efficiency with powerful automation
The best features of the solution are the flexible automation features, it is rich with beautiful connectors, and it is easy to use with little to no coding knowledge required to get started, so anybody can use the tool. The intuitive interface of Automate has an intuitive design, which makes it easy to learn and use even without a strong technical background, and it has a drag-and-drop interface, which makes everything so easy and straightforward. The error handling capabilities in complex automation tasks are powerful, as it handles all types of tasks, whether complex or simple. I've never faced any problems even when dealing with complex tasks, so everything is super smooth and highly reliable, even when dealing with big tasks, as it has never slowed down. Automate's compatibility with existing IT infrastructure has impacted our business operations positively by providing smooth integration with other software that we use, such as Gmail, Jira, and Microsoft 365 apps, which gives us a unified platform instead of having to keep switching from one software to another, saving a lot of time and streamlining the whole workflows. The automated analytics have helped improve our business processes since it has increased our efficiency by automating our everyday tasks, freeing up time for us to focus more on strategic activities such as analyzing data and developing new business strategies. It is also cost-saving. By minimizing manual labor, it decreases human errors that can lead to costly mistakes. By automating the tasks, it helps to save costs, and it also improves our accuracy by reducing these errors to ensure that tasks are done almost perfectly.
AyanBanerjee - PeerSpot reviewer
Automation and AI integration enhance performance and user experience
The improvements or enhancements I would like to see in Blue Prism Cloud revolve around further developing server-client architecture, focusing on centralized control for remote agents. I believe more capabilities in that area could be beneficial. At the moment, I don't recall any specific features or functionalities missing from Blue Prism Cloud that come to mind. In terms of complexity, I find that Blue Prism Cloud is somewhat straightforward to use. Flexibility-wise, it engages well with Microsoft-based technologies. However, there are challenges with OCR capabilities that remain an issue. While there are readily available features that work well, the effectiveness does depend significantly on the type of use case I am implementing.
Saman Guruge - PeerSpot reviewer
We can connect to different databases and use inbuilt activities, but we can't include our own activities
We can use its inbuilt activities, and it's a complete package, but just like ElectroNeek, a limitation is that we have to depend on its inbuilt activities. We can't include our own activities or we can't introduce other activities. When it comes to deployment and scheduling bots, there are some conflicts. They are using Microsoft MQ to communicate with their bots, but it's not reliable. When we are scheduling time, if I need to schedule an interval of one minute, sometimes, the queue gets loaded with a lot of processes or bots, and they don't wait until the first one gets complete. So, that sort of disadvantage is there. I have found one bug in version 22 when sending or configuring mail. While using their orchestration environment, on IBM Server, you can configure an SMTP connection to send out the details you want. For example, when you create a user, they send out an email. That part didn't work, and I created a few tickets. The issue is that there's a typo in the endpoint API. They have probably corrected it in version 23.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Performing Arts
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Educational Organization
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Performing Arts
9%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Insurance Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise10
 

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?
My main use case for Automate is to deliver enterprise-scale script execution jobs, which means we are using Automate...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?
Until now, I have not specified any other tech products except Microsoft Power Automate, N8N, and Make.com that I've ...
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?
Concerning pricing, it's moderate now, but when it comes to the cloud, it is a bit expensive.
What needs improvement with Blue Prism Cloud?
The area for improvement in Blue Prism Cloud is the support component. Whenever I reach out to the Blue Prism communi...
What do you like most about IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?
Integrating the tool with SAP, EBS, or other ERPs is easy.
What needs improvement with IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?
To improve IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for the next release, there should be more integration with external ...
What is your primary use case for IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?
My customers' main use cases for IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are especially in the banking industry, particu...
 

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate
Blue Prism Thoughtonomy Virtual Workforce, Blue Prism Virtual Workforce, Thoughtonomy Virtual Workforce
IBM RPA
 

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
Cabot Credit Management, Hovis, Utilita
The Hanover Insurance Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Blue Prism Cloud vs. IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.