IBM Datacap vs IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) comparison

IBM Datacap vs. IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

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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

Anabel Marco

Account Director at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

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.

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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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GeorgeTzifas

Chief Operating Officer at Anyrobotics RPA Experts

Provides smart AI tools and easy to use

I would like to have more flexibility in connecting the platform with third-party systems. It is easy to connect IBM RPA with other IBM products, but it is complicated when connecting to non-IBM systems. So, I would like IBM RPA to be even more flexible in connecting to third-party systems.

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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

"We have tried other RPA solutions like UiPath or Automation Anywhere. They are fantastic products but complex, and it's hard to understand everything. It would be best if you had a skilled developer or several. Automate is easy to implement, administer, and use. It's appropriate for us because our cases are simple and easy to automate. We don't need complicated tools with many features; We prefer to get a significant ROI quickly."

"The most valuable features for my client are timing and scheduling."

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

"The solution is continuously adding more integrations to help with workflows and bot and task creation."

"It gives us a central place to schedule tasks and run them distributed."

"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 pricing is excellent. I would give them perfect marks in that regard."

"The interface is simple, user-friendly, and very intuitive."

More Automate pros

"Both Datacap Studio and Datacap Navigator are great features."

"The administration of the application following an error is most valuable. We are able to know easily when something is stuck in the system."

"The OCR extractions are very good, almost 100% accurate now."

"It is the best solution for scanning purposes."

"Datacap is good at processing unstructured data. You can build up some nice data flows, and it is simple to configure. The tool adopts a low-code approach, but you can do a lot of coding if you want to customize and automate your flows. Datacap also has the flexibility to integrate."

"While we are doing indexing, we tag the document type. It's programmed inside of Datacap to automatically detect the document based on a given template. It auto-indexes that document, which means that it automatically tags the correct document type to the scanned document."

"The OCR extractions are very good, almost 100% accurate now."

"The most valuable features of IBM Datacap is the capturing and recognizing of pages, documents as well as the scanner and barcodes."

More IBM Datacap pros

"One of the most impactful features of IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has been its one-time setup capability."

"The good stuff about IBM is the fact that it's very easy to use, there are very nice and smart AI tools within the licensing that you don't have to pay any access. Moreover, it's more precise and more secure."

"Integrating the tool with SAP, EBS, or other ERPs is easy."

"I like the integration with Watson and the possibility to have an intelligent reading of all the customers' documents."

"IBM RPA helped us resolve a lot of difficult cases we could not resolve using other solutions."

"The solution is very user-friendly."

"The initial setup is very easy."

"It is a good tool for automation."

More IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) pros

Cons

"It would be an improvement if Automate had better stability tools, whether by recommending a certain amount of memory because it can be a memory hog at times."

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

"Some companies have asked for voice integration. This is likely part of the roadmap."

"Fortra's Automate is not as reliable as I would like it to be."

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

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

"The solution has a very weak knowledge base."

"The interface could be more user-friendly and easier to navigate."

More Automate cons

"I would like to see the product have the ability to process more documents in parallel. Right now, it is a single queue. Therefore, if you want to really test the load and stress test it, having multiple instances and the ability to scale it up would be great."

"Reporting and analytics seem to often be something of an afterthought. With Datacap, they've started building out some dashboards, but one thing we hear from our clients a lot is, "Well, gee, we really love reports. What Datacap has is not really helpful. We'd like something better. We'd like more dashboards." That's one area where we've seen some feedback that the product could do better."

"Datacap's technology seems a little behind the industry. It's still using the old .NET framework. They should move to .NET Core and start integrating some machine learning. You can do some integration yourself, but you expect a solution to include the latest machine-learning approaches if you're paying reasonable money for it."

"Third-party integration could be improved; it's very slow."

"I've faced some bugs or issues. They should do deeper testing of the product before releasing it because some of the bugs that I found were a bit simple. I understand that it is a massive product, and some of the functionalities can get overlooked."

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

"It can take some time to implement."

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

More IBM Datacap cons

"This RPA should be under the umbrella of BPM. This is what the future should be."

"The users should be allowed to create folders in Control Center."

"The product must be promoted more."

"IBM’s support should improve response time."

"I would like to improve the efficiency of this solution and the Surface Level Agreement."

"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."

"I would like it to do pretty much everything out-of-the-box without any need for any customization. However, that is not the case right now. We absolutely have to do some amount of customization with the solution in order to use it out-of-the-box as-is."

"We are looking to see how it can connect with various interfaces seamlessly, through APIs."

More IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point."

"Once you buy the software, you just pay for the support for backend help."

"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."

More Automate 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."

"Pricing needs to stay competitive."

"It varies, and it depends on the client's requirements and negotiations. Nowadays, Datacap is also included in the IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation."

"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."

"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."

"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 is the most expensive in the market."

More IBM Datacap pricing and cost advice

"The product is reasonably priced compared to other tools."

"I rate the pricing ten out of ten. So, the pricing is very good for me."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"The license is paid annually."

"IBM licensing is annual and based on Virtual Processor Cores (VPC). This provides flexibility as part of the containerization environment."

"There is a free trial for one month, so you can use it to run your payloads or proof of concept. After that, you can pay for the license on a monthly or annual basis."

"IBM RPA is cheaper than other tools."

"The pricing is reasonable for this solution."

More IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) pricing and cost advice

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850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Government

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

16%

Educational Organization

Insurance Company

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...

What do you like most about IBM Datacap?

The installation of the solution is very simple.

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

This solution is the most expensive in the market.

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...

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)?

The product must be promoted more. There are no promotions.

What is your primary use case for IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?

We're working with different clients from the manufacturing environment. We have implemented end-to-end solutions. We...

Microsoft Power Automate vs Automate

Comparisons

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Compared 32% of the time

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Compared 18% of the time

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Compared 15% of the time

Tungsten TotalAgility vs IBM Datacap

Compared 12% of the time

OpenText Intelligent Capture vs IBM Datacap

Compared 8% of the time

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Microsoft Power Automate vs IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Compared 70% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Compared 11% of the time

UiPath Platform vs IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Compared 10% of the time

Blue Prism vs IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Compared 7% of the time

Nintex RPA vs IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Download Automate product report

Automate

May 2025

IBM Datacap

Download IBM Datacap product report

IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Download IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) product report

IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) report

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate

Datacap

IBM RPA

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

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

IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a technology that encompasses the use of smart robots in any process requiring efficiency, consistency and speed, with no risk of mistakes. In a nutshell, RPA simulates a human user working.

Today, it is possible to automate processes through the use of digital robots, or bots, which execute pre-programed, repetitive tasks in a safe and mistake free manner. There are literally thousands of opportunities for Robotic Process Automation to make an impact on your organization today, including: automatic invoice emission, system integration, information reconciliation, report generation, intelligent email management to lead generation, and many others.

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

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

The Hanover Insurance Group

IBM Datacap vs. IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)