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IBM Datacap vs Microsoft Power Automate comparison

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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

Automation Anywhere
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
661
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 (2nd), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (1st), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
IBM Datacap
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (7th)
Microsoft Power Automate
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (3rd), Process Mining (3rd), Agentic Automation (3rd), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (4th)
 

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.
DeekshithShetty - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Development Senior Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
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.
BK
Sr. General Manager , Global IT Services at a non-profit with 5,001-10,000 employees
No-code workflows have streamlined daily operations and support seamless cross-application automation
Microsoft Power Automate's no-code workflows help my team in daily operations to a great extent. Automating a particular activity may not be so useful, but when you connect the whole workflow, then it starts helping a lot. I cannot say much about the best features in Microsoft Power Automate because I have not used it personally, but first of all, it is very easy, it is a low-code platform, and Microsoft has a lot of integration with Microsoft technologies, making it very easy to connect with MS Teams and different Microsoft products, including MS Azure. From that point of view, it provides a lot of connectivity options. From a cost point of view, Mendix is much more costly compared to Microsoft Power Platform, allowing us to develop applications very quickly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"WLM & Device Pool, where multiple devices perform the same thing parallel and complete the tasks at the same time. The credential manager for security is one of the most valuable features for storing credentials and providing security between the developer usage and future maintenance where passwords expire every 90 days."
"IQ Bots are extremely powerful. We are using them increasingly more where we're about to look through a lot unstructured sources, like PDF documents, scanned images, contracts, etc. We are able to take the data out, then use that toward processing structured data and creating insights for our clients."
"Automation Anywhere has led to faster growth in our organization."
"I like the new GenAI and Automation Co-Pilot, which is something like attended automation."
"The product is easy to use. It is a good tool for developers and business users."
"Automation Anywhere is frequently releasing new features to their product. I find this amazing as they provide frequent product updates, introducing new features to the frameworks and similar aspects."
"I would rate this solution a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature is IQ Bot, as it allowed us to train it to extract important logistical information from customer PDF documents, irrespective of the format."
"It is highly scalable; we have customers who are pumping through thousands of documents a day, and if you're looking for enterprise, this is the solution because it is a platform."
"The solution automates manual data entry."
"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."
"It reduces human error and saves time."
"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."
"I can have all scanners accessible from my end."
"I work for an insurance company, and we use Datacap for document processing."
"The administration of the application following an error is most valuable, as we are able to know easily when something is stuck in the system."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"Power Automate is a new solution from Microsoft. It provides business workflow features, application features, and RPA features."
"We use Power Automate for applicant tracking and automated around 80 percent of the process."
"Power Automate is a better and more cost-effective solution compared to Automation tools."
"The ease of use is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"I like that Power Automate gives us a connector to be able to connect different data sources or different software, and it is very easy to connect, authenticate, and automate our daily routine tasks."
"We used it to track the vaccination status of all employees, about 90,000 employees, triggering reminders whenever an employee's vaccination was coming up."
"It is very easy to learn and use. It is quite useful for any sort of back-office work. Any kind of work with low and medium complexity is very doable in ProcessRobot. For higher complexity, some refinement is required, but it is doable."
 

Cons

"There is definitely some room for improvement there. It is sort of a hit and miss with their support engineers, you have some really good ones and some that aren't."
"Also, we're seemingly plagued with certain technological issues or bugs."
"For improvement, I would like to see Automation Anywhere integrating with multiple other technologies."
"I would like to see more bots available right out-of-the-box in the SAP area."
"From a QA and development perspective, we would like to communicate with the tech support through email and have that put in the dashboard. This would let us better track the ticket and make it easier for us to communicate with Automation Anywhere."
"Reliability and error handling should be improved."
"If there were one thing I could ask for it would be a text-based language. Right now it's proprietary, so you always have to go through the tool, even for things like basic compares."
"The implementation process is complex, as there is integration with other applications."
"I give the scalability of the solution a six out of ten."
"IBM needs to improve on scanning and reading accuracy for unstructured documents. Additionally, an important missing feature is the ability to merge documents and present data across different UI screens."
"The solution's scalability needs improvement."
"It can take some time to implement."
"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."
"The Arabic OCR in IBM DataCap is not accurate forcing us to use other solutions that have better Arabic OCR which is an additional cost."
"Its weaknesses are primarily tied to the lack of available resources and expertise in the market to effectively support and provide solutions and services to each customer for seamless implementation. Expertise in this specific product is rare throughout the market. One key reason is the product's limited downloads. Additionally, archiving solutions are often perceived as complex and challenging, dissuading many companies from venturing into this domain. Consequently, partners who specialize in archiving solutions are always seeking straightforward, uncomplicated options that are easy to manage and meet customer expectations."
"I would like to see the product have the ability to process more documents in parallel."
"I would recommend removing the AI Builder feature from the automatic document processing functionality. The tool can serve even better with free automatic document processing features, it shouldn’t only be available in the trial version."
"Sometimes it can be difficult to share flows for multiple users to edit."
"Sometimes there are issues with security policies within the company. Some parts get blacked. There are some drawbacks when we use it connected to the cloud. We need to convince clients to open some parts. This is often an issue that originates from the company itself, not Power Automate."
"The solution could offer more specific training. There should be more examples of what the functions can do and more instructions and explanations to the process."
"More scripting capabilities could be included in Microsoft Power Automate."
"It is challenging to scale the solution across multiple branches."
"We haven't gone into depth to explore the integration with AI, so I am not really sure."
"Microsoft could offer more AI education and training."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The ROI is really good. We have saved time and money."
"The product’s pricing is reasonable."
"The starting price, which is a one-off fee is a bit high and this may deter mid and small-sized companies from acquiring and decide to shun the platform."
"Automation Anywhere is flexible in terms of costing and licensing."
"It has good licensing costs which are average for the market."
"If you look at the capital expenditure, Automation Anywhere is number two to UiPath. But if you take a long-term view, on a scalable model of a large number of bots coming out, it slowly goes on to become the costliest tool. There is something they can do about that. The capital expenditure goes out right at the point of buying the tool. For Automation Anywhere, I would need to spend $20,000. UiPath can give me something for $6,000, while Blue Prism will come in at $300,000."
"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."
"Annually, we are paying almost one million reais."
"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."
"This solution is the most expensive in the market."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 varies, and it depends on the client's requirements and negotiations. Nowadays, Datacap is also included in the IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation."
"Licensing is on an annual basis."
"The pricing is reasonable and the western license is fantastic."
"We are using the free version of Power Automate."
"The licensing cost for us at this time is between $8 and $20 per user, per month."
"It's more fragmented licensing, where every little thing that you add, you get an extra license cost."
"It is free for us. It is embedded directly in the Office package."
"It comes with the Microsoft suite. I'd rate it an eight out of ten in terms of pricing."
"We use Office 365 and this solution is free for me to use with the package we have. We have plans to increase the usage of Microsoft Power Automate."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business157
Midsize Enterprise83
Large Enterprise553
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise69
 

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.
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.
What needs improvement with IBM Datacap?
IBM needs to improve on scanning and reading accuracy for unstructured documents. Additionally, an important missing ...
What is your primary use case for IBM Datacap?
I primarily use IBM Datacap ( /products/ibm-datacap-reviews ) for data capture and scanning documents with OCR. Speci...
RPA that Bots can run without centralized control?
Yes, Attended Bots which can run without centralized control Module. RPA Tools like Automation Anywhere, uiPath ,Pow...
How do I choose between UiPath and Microsoft Power Automate?
Microsoft‌ ‌Power‌ ‌Automate‌ ‌is‌ ‌intuitive‌ ‌and‌ ‌easy‌ ‌to‌ ‌integrate‌ ‌and‌ ‌use.‌ ‌I‌ ‌like‌ ‌that‌ ‌there‌ ‌...
How is Automation Anywhere compared to Microsoft Power Automate?
‌Neither‌ ‌solution‌ ‌requires‌ ‌any‌ ‌coding‌ ‌experience,‌ ‌and‌ ‌both‌ ‌are‌ ‌easy‌ ‌to‌ ‌use‌ ‌and‌ ‌have‌ ‌great...
 

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
Datacap
Power Automate, Microsoft Flow, MS Power Automate, WinAutomation by Softomotive, ProcessRobot by Softomotive, Minit
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
Turkcell, PowerSouth Energy Cooperative, Central Nacional Unimed, Conqord Oil
1. Coca-Cola 2. General Electric 3. Siemens 4. Accenture 5. Deloitte 6. Johnson & Johnson 7. Ford 8. Nestle 9. Procter & Gamble 10. IBM 11. Amazon 12. Google 13. Microsoft 14. Adobe 15. Cisco 16. Oracle 17. SAP 18. Intel 19. HP 20. Dell 21. Verizon 22. AT&T 23. T-Mobile 24. Walmart 25. Target 26. Home Depot 27. McDonald's 28. Starbucks 29. Nike 30. Apple 31. Facebook 32. Twitter
Find out what your peers are saying about UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Microsoft and others in Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.