Blue Prism vs IBM Datacap comparison

SS&C Blue Prism and IBM are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. Additionally, 88% of SS&C Blue Prism users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Blue Prism and IBM Datacap based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Blue Prism vs. IBM Datacap Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Blue Prism vs. IBM Datacap

July 2025

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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

Featured Reviews

Ibukun Shweta

DevOps Engineer at Teksphere Global Services Limited

Automation optimizes scheduling, but improvements needed in error reporting and script execution

In my particular use case, for session management, it would be better if I could get a more granular view into connectivity issues to servers. Sometimes, although your flows or tasks are running as scheduled, connecting to the servers can hit a snag without alerts or error logs to check. Some servers might need patching or could be affected by network issues or latency. The workflow sometimes gets stuck without clarity on the errors. An explicit error report would be helpful, especially when the connection fails unexpectedly. It's complex to analyze problems that might arise from firewall issues or other anomalies that could hinder the flow from executing as expected. The depth of these connection challenges would benefit from better debugging capabilities. As for improvements, if Automate wasn't designed primarily for script execution, that's understandable. However, for Linux, I would prefer to see less complexity in workflows to achieve a natural completion of scripts. There are features, such as 'wait for terminal output,' that should more intuitively detect completion based on the shell prompt. Improving those aspects would make Automate more efficient for my needs. Regarding error reporting, I think Automate should offer better error reporting when connecting to servers. Currently, there are many instances where I see empty logs, indicating that, while tasks are scheduled, commands are not executing successfully. This is a significant concern, especially with critical workloads where visibility into errors is essential.

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Pavan-Sharma

Senior Consultant at Ernst & Young

Impressive flexibility and support enhance integration and performance

The best feature of Blue Prism that I value the most is the simplicity of their pricing and licensing model, which is easy to understand. The tool is very robust and, being a pioneer in the sector, it is also very stable, particularly in finance where many companies rely on Blue Prism for its reliability and security standards. From a developer perspective, I find developing on Blue Prism simple, clean, and intuitive, making maintenance considerably easier compared to other tools. These AI features have helped in developing scalable and flexible solutions for my customers, as I worked on use cases that involved natural language processing to turn free text into structured data, enabling automation of previously unautomatable tasks. Additionally, I processed voice feedback for sentiment analysis and information extraction, making interactions more intuitive and voice-driven for customers.

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DeekshithShetty

Software Development Senior Specialist at NTT Data

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.

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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

"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."

"We have found the pricing to be very reasonable."

"Overall, the whole product is really nice and provides significant benefits."

"The ability to connect to websites and pull data is the solution's most valuable feature."

"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 actually quite liked the no-coding functionality."

"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."

"This tool has machine learning and voice recognition and computer vision, which are both quite useful aspects. These aren't available in other tools. It's a good addition to this tool and it gives the solution an edge on the market."

More Automate pros

"RPA processes are helpful when we need interaction with different applications and close the technical gaps between them. In one of the use cases that we evaluated, there was a single Excel template from a vendor. The Excel file has 7,000 objects, and it included information about the part numbers, prices, and some of the details about each object of the aircraft. This file had to be input to SAP, so a human had to enter these 7,000 objects one by one, which is a pretty mechanical and uninteresting task. The RPA bot was easily able to import this file. Without RPA, this import had to be done by a person who had to do the same task 7,000 times just to import one contract."

"My company decided to go with Blue Prism because of the security it provides."

"The most valuable feature of Blue Prism is the control and development of the processes from one location."

"The development interface is quite easy to work with."

"The integration has improved a lot in terms of SAP, and other screens."

"The solution enables process creation and is object oriented."

"One key feature is the workflow design is able to be customized according to the way that you want the automation to work."

"The web-based designer is very user-friendly and easy to use."

More Blue Prism pros

"It's resiliency. There are multiple ways of identifying what you are looking for. There are multiple export formats."

"I can have all scanners accessible from my end."

"The big thing these days is really the Insight Edition component and being able to build annotators to extract from literally unstructured content: paragraphs and information where there's no start anchor point to define where that data is located. There could be a number of entities in that which you have to draw information from. Being able to extract from them is really the differentiator today between that product and many of the other products..."

"It's a platform, not a configured application, so you can do what you want with it."

"It reduces human error and saves time."

"Very scalable and stable data capture and extraction solution that's very simple to install."

"It is very easy to develop this software. It is low code, and if you can't find the things you need on it, you can develop custom actions with more complex code underneath. They sync well, which is very useful for automating a lot of processes. It is a really valuable feature for the clients because we can ingest information and automate plenty of processes for them. The operators don't have to waste that much time on tasks. With Datacap, they can be automated."

"The solution automates manual data entry."

More IBM Datacap pros

Cons

"I would like the updates to be easier to deploy. Integration with Amazon S3 is somewhat lacking."

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

"They do not encrypt passwords, so this is an issue with HIPAA compliance."

"There is a lack of good development for artificial intelligence, such as machine learning."

"The product also has a limited use case in some respects."

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

"I believe we need to test various OCR tools that assist in evaluating, let's say, six different customer resyncs. We analyze their spending patterns and documentations, but current OCR support has limitations, requiring highly standardized documents, which isn't always the case. With a more advanced OCR system, we could improve processes related to credit risk management and legal matters. We're exploring how to integrate Fortra's Automate with our CRM platform, taking cues from instances where Salesforce seamlessly merged with Automate. However, we use a different CRM, Insight for New Enterprise, and we're seeking ways to connect the automation process within our CRM. We aim for the automation to continue smoothly, even in instances where traditional automation methods might face hurdles."

"The documentation for errors needs improvement as many of the error messages we receive are very vague."

More Automate cons

"Blue Prism needs to work in a web-based account. I think that the Blue Prism will need to have the main features be web-based so that you can control the box in a web-based environment and not in a client's environment."

"If this solution had a framework for exception handling then it would be very helpful."

"Blue Prism is not very flexible when it comes to integrations."

"There are some new tools on the market that work better than Blue Prism. When Blue Prism receives information I have found other RPA solutions refresh the application better. At this moment it's not the best application."

"We didn't find it much useful for unstructured data. It is not easy to do the automation with Blue Prism if you have unstructured data. It should have better automation processes or connectors for unstructured data such as PDFs or pictures. It has a connector for different applications, such as SAP, but we use a few other applications for which it doesn't have a connector. It should have a more comprehensive dashboard that we can use to see the processes that are running and control the parameters."

"As a user, I cannot directly work with the bot. On a daily basis, I use and do some work in Microsoft Excel, which cannot be directly taken into Blue Prism. Our company majorly runs on Microsoft Excel. Everybody has Excel sheets as their working sheets. Therefore, we need a kind of automation to be able to do things with this program. This bot is almost like an invisible staff that works between the servers but not with the users. This bot works well with SAP and things like that, but it doesn't work with Excel sheets. It doesn't work with the bots that we have, and I cannot invoke an RPA right now as a user. It has to be done by an administrator who has better control than me. It needs better integration with Microsoft Excel. Its price can be improved. It is expensive for us. It should be cheaper for a market like ours. We are based in India."

"We would like to see intelligent process automation that integrates RPA and machine learning."

"Blue Prism has been a little bit slow when it comes to the commitments on their roadmap. They had some delays last year, so I hope they make it up this year... For example, they were launching a Decipher tool. It was delayed by more than a year. It has still not launched."

More Blue Prism cons

"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."

"Datacap has performance issues when processing large volumes of documents. We're doing 18,000 pages daily. Scanning takes almost 20-30 minutes, but it normally takes one or two minutes. We informed IBM and opened a ticket for that. They forwarded the issue to developers but didn't give a specific timeline for it to be resolved. Version 8.1 is already at the end of support."

"One of the things that we wished for was to have an easier way to carry out the customizations. Currently, if you want to customize data, you need to have a developer with C# knowledge. If IBM could implement a no-code or low-code platform for Datacap, it would be easier to adjust it without needing a developer, which was always the most difficult part."

"The IBM Datacap site actually is on the newer inside. They will give it as a plugin only."

"When I scan a document in Datacap that has a watermark or the document is a little distorted, the image output is poor. It either becomes completely black, or there is so much distortion that we cannot read the numbers or the addresses mentioned in the POD. When we scan a document, we expect the output to be at least 95 percent accurate."

"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."

"Going forward, IBM needs to ensure that the output is perfect (as it can make the product) while staying true to platform's core."

"I would like better ease of use and more support options."

More IBM Datacap cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"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."

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

"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 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."

"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."

More Automate pricing and cost advice

"Blue Prism is less expensive than some of the other RPA solutions."

"I chose Blue Prism because it is priced well. The pricing was right for me at that moment even though Automation Anywhere is better in other aspects."

"The solution is expensive."

"They work on a big partnership kind of program with our organization, and they also give us a lot of discounts. Its price is pretty much comparable to the other solutions like UiPath and Automation Anywhere."

"There is a one-time purchase fee for this solution."

"To use Blue Prism, there is a need to pay INR 15,000 per customer."

"Blue Prism is an expensive solution, especially in Southeast Asia, while in Europe and the UK, it can be considered moderate in terms of cost."

"Its license is costlier than UiPath and AA. They should improve its price. We have a two-year contract with them."

More Blue Prism pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"In Egypt, we have exchange rates that change year to year, and currently, we're facing an increase in the exchange rate between our Egyptian pound and the dollar. Since we have been using IBM DataCap two years ago we had a good price, it was not expensive. However, I cannot say now if it is expensive or not because of the exchange rate. Additionally, I don't have the data of other competitors and I don't know the prices."

"It is an expensive solution."

"We were using the User Value Unit licensing, which means we get charged per active user of the system, and if I'm not mistaken, we also had it for the rule runner service. They had a PVU license model, which is a processor value unit. For each process that we have in our system, we pay a certain amount of money. We found the pricing to be quite steep. It was really an expensive solution in comparison to Kofax, which had a different licensing model and was actually cheaper overall because they charge per page and not per user and per process."

"IBM could offer more competitive pricing. This would allow them to attain more users. Some of our clients are considering moving to a different solution called Encapture which is similar but offers more competitive pricing."

"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."

"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."

More IBM Datacap pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Government

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Insurance Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	18
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	18
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	73

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	12

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?

The main purpose is for automation. That has been the purpose why I have been using it so far.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?

Regarding pricing, it is very friendly. I would not say that it is really cheap or very expensive, but it fits within...

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Should I choose Blue Prism or Microsoft Power Automate?

Hello Netanya, it depends on your needs and your expertise. In my humble opinion you can start a big RPA project imp...

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I am evaluating Blue Prism and UiPath for RPA for my company. Which one do you recommend?

I'm very familiar with UiPath and the RPA industry: was hired by Daniel Dines in 2015 when there were 35 employees an...

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What do you like most about Blue Prism?

It is a stable solution.

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What do you like most about IBM Datacap?

The installation of the solution is very simple.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Datacap?

Pricing is in the mid-range but could be more affordable, rated at four point five.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Datacap?

IBM needs to improve on scanning and reading accuracy for unstructured documents. Additionally, an important missing ...

See all answers

Comparisons

UiPath Platform vs Automate

Compared 27% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs Automate

Compared 23% of the time

Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition vs Automate

Compared 11% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Automate

Compared 7% of the time

VisualCron vs Automate

Compared 6% of the time

More Automate Competitors

Microsoft Power Automate vs Blue Prism

Compared 36% of the time

UiPath Platform vs Blue Prism

Compared 28% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Blue Prism

Compared 13% of the time

Pega Robotic Process Automation vs Blue Prism

Compared 3% of the time

Blue Prism Cloud vs Blue Prism

Compared 2% of the time

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ABBYY Vantage vs IBM Datacap

Compared 35% of the time

Amazon Textract vs IBM Datacap

Compared 21% of the time

OpenText Capture vs IBM Datacap

Compared 17% of the time

Tungsten TotalAgility vs IBM Datacap

Compared 14% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs IBM Datacap

Compared 13% of the time

More IBM Datacap Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automate

September 2025

Download Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

Blue Prism

September 2025

Download Blue Prism product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Datacap

September 2025

Download IBM Datacap product report

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate

No data available

Datacap

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

Blue Prism is an intelligent, business-developed, no-code automation platform for SaaS deployments as well as for on-premises, public cloud, multi-cloud, and hybrid environments. Unlike other automation technology, Blue Prism combines robotic process automation with expanded artificial intelligence and cognitive capabilities. Blue Prism gives users instant access to the tools you need for building and delegating automations, as well as a digital workforce that is already AI-equipped.

With Blue Prism’s code-free RPA, deployed through use of their Robotic Operating Model, your business can scale efficiently, improve customer satisfaction, reduce costs, and augment its talent to take on new responsibilities. Blue Prism helps to accelerate operational agility and efficiency by making it easy to automate the most important processes. Allocating everyday tasks to your Digital Workforce gives you immediate increased capacity and allows your teams to focus on their strategic goals. In addition, it delivers a return on investment, increases efficiency gains, and can even introduce new revenue streams.

“Workforce of the Future”

Blue Prism’s all-in-one intelligent automation platform consists of:

Design Studio with drag-and-drop process automation building, reusable “objects” across your business, and updates to objects and processes saved throughout the process library.
Control Room where you can assign processes to digital workers, scale digital worker and task volume ondemand, and gain real-time transparency of process proficiencies.
Digital Workforce of autonomous software robots that can learn and mimic business processes like humans and are equipped with six intelligent automation skills:
1. Knowledge and Insight - The ability to harvest, understand, and deliver insights from multiple disparate data sources.
2. Visual Perception - The ability to read, understand, and contextualize visual information.
3. Learning - The ability to derive contextual meaning and adapt to evolving process patterns.
4. Planning and Sequencing - The ability to optimize workloads and identify opportunities for better outcomes.
5. Problem-solving - The ability to autonomously solve system, logic, and business problems.
6. Collaboration - The ability to seamlessly work with both people and systems.

Reviews from Real Users

Blue Prism stands out for its enterprise-level functionality, which is why many companies choose it over its competitors. PeerSpot users note that the solution is easy to use, stable, and robust scalability-wise. The security is also top-notch. One user pointed out that "One of the most powerful features in Blue Prism is exception handling. It's one of the features that really differentiates it from other platforms." Blue Prism helps businesses with everything from compliance to quality control and error-avoidance.

SS&C Blue Prism

IBM Datacap helps you streamline the capture, recognition and classification of business documents and extract important information. Datacap supports multiple-channel capture by processing paper documents on scanners, mobile devices, multi-function peripherals and fax. It uses natural language processing, text analytics and machine learning technologies, like those in IBM Watson, to automatically identify, classify and extract content from unstructured or variable documents. The software can reduce labor and paper costs, deliver meaningful information and support faster decision making.

IBM

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

Coca-Cola, Walgreens, American Express, Royal Bank of Canada, Pfizer, Shop Direct, O2, Siemens, Ascension Healthcare, Jaguar Land Rover

Turkcell, PowerSouth Energy Cooperative, Central Nacional Unimed, Conqord Oil

Buyer's Guide

Blue Prism vs. IBM Datacap

July 2025

Free Report: Blue Prism vs. IBM Datacap

Find out what your peers are saying about Blue Prism vs. IBM Datacap and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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