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Espressive Barista vs NinjaOne 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
633
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 (1st), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (1st), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
Espressive Barista
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (36th), AI-Powered Chatbots (9th), AI-Agents for HR (2nd)
NinjaOne
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (8th), Network Monitoring Software (10th), Server Monitoring (2nd), IT Service Management (ITSM) (7th), Remote Access (8th), Vulnerability Management (17th), Mobile Device Management (MDM) (4th), IT Alerting and Incident Management (6th), Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (1st), Patch Management (3rd), MSP Backup (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (5th)
 

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.
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.
Not Joseph Pearson - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Vice President, Tech Solutions at LPL Financials
Has simplified remote software delivery and script management but needs improved reporting flexibility and better Mac support
NinjaOne's best features include ease of use regarding enablement and deployment, a broad selection and ability of software enablement, and API deliveries. Using CrowdStrike, we are able to tie in NinjaOne's API to have these automatically deliver to endpoints upon addition of those devices to a group with that policy deployed to it. NinjaOne has positively impacted our organization by making delivery easier for our end users and improving the ability to create scripts, manage scripts, and check status of devices and their compliance. This easier delivery with NinjaOne gives us oversight on devices without having to be on the call or remoted in directly to a device.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of Automation Anywhere are Excel, periods, database, and email action."
"I like the diversity. Every year, maybe even every six months, new modules are introduced to the program, and module enhancements are added to the toolbox to make automating various applications or situations easier."
"Simply tagging variables used in the bot, can provide automated real-time dashboards that are presentable to management showing them a complete view of how the bots are performing."
"A has a bouquet of features that can be used in our projects. We have utilized all the features in our existing projects. It may be task bots, meta bots, or IQ bots. The features in the AA bots may be object cloning or security features where the bots can be triggered only from the control room and will help clients to maintain their security concerns."
"The graphical user interface (GUI) is very useful, since I don't know any coding languages."
"We spend less time preparing data."
"From my developer's point of view, the tool is pretty strong."
"The overall usefulness of Automation Anywhere is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"This is one of the few tools that live up to the sales reps' hype when it comes to integrating with ServiceNow."
"Given Barista's out-of-the-box content for common industry applications, the value is pretty good right from day one."
"Its ability to recognize phrases has gotten smarter over time."
"Our department received about a 70% deflection rate, so that was really great."
"When it comes to neutral language processing and conversational AI, it's very good, very solid... We all have different ways of speaking or writing in English and the application does a very solid job of recognizing what's being asked regardless of how it's being asked."
"The bot is pretty easy to update and keep up to date. Espressive itself is pretty easy to work with."
"I like Expressive Barista's integration with Microsoft Teams."
"The solution is available to support us instantly as required."
"The customer support at NinjaOne is excellent, rated ten out of ten."
"The tool's most valuable feature is third-party application updates."
"NinjaOne is a great product. It is working and it is always developing."
"NinjaOne saves me time and improves my troubleshooting process by providing information automatically so I don't have to search for it."
"We can use it for remote monitoring, and it also works great as a troubleshooting tool; we are able to open up a command line or a PowerShell session remotely without having to disrupt the user, and for workstation servers we have event logs, performance monitoring, system changes, software deployment, patch management, and the ability to push scripts, all through a very simple web interface with pretty good security and a more capable mobile app that allows you to see major critical alerts immediately."
"Since NinjaOne was implemented, I would say it represents a huge positive change."
"We can use it for remote monitoring, and it also works great as a troubleshooting tool. We are able to open up a command line or a PowerShell session remotely without having to disrupt the user. They have a limited network device monitoring capability, but for workstation servers, we have the event logs. We can do performance monitoring, system changes, software deployment, and patch management. We can also push scripts. It has a very simple web interface. There are no additional things to do there. Security is also pretty good. It does the same things that the other competitor's tools do. One of the advantages of Ninja is that they have a more capable mobile app, which allows you to see the alerts immediately. I get alerted to major critical issues."
"The best feature of NinjaOne is the SLA system. Every IT person can check their performance, how long it takes to resolve an issue, and how many SLAs are breached."
 

Cons

"The AI centricity is a bit behind compared to the way we see Microsoft and AWS doing it. This is the feedback that I have also given to them. They need to expand themselves to provide more services than just RPA. Only RPA may not be enough for us, and it would not be our preferred choice for an automation tool."
"Automation Anywhere's network has room for improvement."
"Sometimes, I find that Excel automation is not as expected. Excel automation can be enhanced."
"We have a challenge in our front office automation where capturing details from a table within a table does not happen in the existing AA Enterprise client version 11.3.4."
"I feel the tool has to provide deeper insights for debugging issues, considering both internal and external factors."
"We need more commands for PDF integration to make it more flexible."
"If I want to do something that is purely business-related and is somewhat complex to write or is nuanced, I sometimes have trouble implementing that inside of the Automation Anywhere script."
"The object cloning that exists cannot capture 80 percent of the objects that we need it to capture."
"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."
"I would like to see improvement to the out-of-the-box verbiage, with the questions going to the right place."
"Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement."
"I would like to see the continued expansion of all of the automation capabilities."
"Expressive Barista could improve by adding native integration with WhatsApp, one of the top communication channels in South Africa."
"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."
"There aren't very many things that this product needs improvement on."
"It can have more integrations with third-party providers, such as Deep Instinct. They do partner with certain antivirus or remote access tool partners, but they can increase their portfolio to have more choices."
"It can have more integrations with third-party providers, such as Deep Instinct."
"The reporting is lackluster. NinjaOne is great for maintaining systems, but it's hard to use it to understand the state that systems are in without going in and mining the information myself. I rate the reporting two out of 10."
"Improvements could be made to reduce NinjaOne's functionalities to focus more on inventory or remote help tools."
"I want NinjaOne to improve the reports."
"The graphical user interface could be improved."
"Customer support is active and proactive, but not reachable 24/7, which is an issue."
"I wish that they integrated it with more antivirus solutions. Currently, they only push Defender, but it doesn't really have integration with SentinelOne."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost could be improved. It costs a lot. At the very least, the developer licenses and the control panels should be made free to enterprises, and the production environment licensed."
"More than 40 to 50 percent of the IT budget will be for the cost of automation projects in the coming years since these projects enhance operations add value."
"We have a three-year contract with Automation Anywhere."
"I've seen the price vary by whether the client is going to scale and adopt a tool."
"The pricing strategy for us is one license for development. It is more complicated than that depending on the options you choose."
"Our annual licensing costs for the entire company are $100,000."
"We generally follow the Gain-Sharing Pricing model, which enables the customer to start getting the RPA benefits right from day one of their implementation."
"It is reasonable, but it can always be a little bit cheaper."
"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."
"It is expensive. It's not a cheap thing."
"User-based licensing has been working well for us, and we believe we are deriving significant value from it."
"The solution is affordable."
"NinjaOne's price is fine since my workplace is an educational institution, so we get the product at a really good price considering that we do not pay taxes, making the prices very fair and worth the product."
"The pricing is reasonable and cheaper than ConnectWise."
"We currently pay $1.20 per device on a monthly basis."
"NinjaRMM uses a subscription model."
"It roughly costs $400 a month. It provides a good value because of the number of tools that you get in the solution. I would rate it a four out of five in terms of pricing. There are no additional costs other than the standard licensing fees."
"We got a pretty good deal. It was fairly affordable."
"The product's pricing depends on the number of PCs or devices."
"NinjaOne is a little expensive but is still cheaper than competitors like Acronis or Veeam."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Computer Software Company
11%
Healthcare Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business150
Midsize Enterprise82
Large Enterprise531
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
 

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.
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NinjaOne?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that I think it is very reasonable for the product that we get.
What needs improvement with NinjaOne?
To improve NinjaOne, there should be better integration between multiple different software including Cisco and Meraki.
What is your primary use case for NinjaOne?
My main use case for NinjaOne is managing machines over multiple networks and locations. For managing machines across...
 

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
Information Not Available
Status Pros, Mitchell and Company
Find out what your peers are saying about Espressive Barista vs. NinjaOne and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
896,692 professionals have used our research since 2012.