IBM Datacap vs Pega Robotic Process Automation comparison

IBM and Pega are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. Additionally, 89% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Pega users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Datacap and Pega Robotic Process Automation 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 IBM Datacap vs. Pega Robotic Process Automation Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Datacap vs. Pega Robotic Process Automation

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

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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reviewer4848291

Global Head of Digital, Process Automation at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Pega Robotic Process Automation (RPA) automates repetitive, rule-based tasks across systems without human intervention. Struggling with flexibility but integrates easily for small-scale automation tas

1. Enhanced Cross-Platform Support Currently optimized for Windows-based applications. Needs better support for web, cloud-native, and non-Windows environments (e.g., Linux, macOS). 2. Simplified Development Experience Pega Robot Studio has a steep learning curve, especially for non-developers. Could benefit from a more intuitive, drag-and-drop interface and prebuilt automation templates. 3. Stronger AI/ML Integration Bots rely heavily on rule-based logic. Native integration with AI/ML models (e.g., for document understanding, sentiment analysis) could make bots smarter and more adaptive. 4. Improved Debugging & Testing Tools Debugging complex automations can be time-consuming. Needs better simulation, logging, and error tracing tools for faster troubleshooting. 5. More Scalable Bot Orchestration While Pega Robot Manager is powerful, managing large bot fleets can become complex. Could improve auto-scaling, load balancing, and dynamic resource allocation. 6. Broader Integration Ecosystem Limited out-of-the-box connectors compared to competitors like UiPath. Expanding the integration library (e.g., for SaaS apps, APIs, databases) would reduce custom development. 7. Licensing Flexibility Licensing can be cost-prohibitive for smaller teams or departments. More modular or usage-based pricing could improve adoption.

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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

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

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

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

"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."

"We are still in the process of rolling it to production and tweaking it (our AD groups are a mess), but the improvements are priceless. Having users ID's created the same way every time without human error is the best part. We don't need to worry about why groups were not added, user rights not set to folders or missing a private folder being created, typos or just even knowing when things are done and logged."

"I would recommend Automate because it has made my work much easier."

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

"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."

More Automate pros

"It is highly extensible, which we found to be most valuable. It is a very extensible solution because it is based on configurable rule sets. We were able to amend and adjust the solution and very easily add custom code and custom components. It does require some programming experience, but we found that not to be an issue. We liked its extensibility."

"At the forefront of my thoughts, the standout feature of this intelligent product is its remarkable capability. This project we're currently engaged in revolves around streamlining workflows within both our company and the customer's company. It entails handling information from various documents with diverse formats and types, even when they contain the same data. The ability to connect this information with the appropriate database and recognize it irrespective of the format or source is an extremely valuable feature. Moreover, leveraging machine learning is crucial since our customer deals with an extensive archive of over five million documents. Machine learning can significantly alleviate the backlog by becoming well-versed in various scenarios they might encounter during their work once we've completed our application."

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

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

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

"One of the valuable features of Datacap is the user experience. One thing that IBM did a few years ago was they standardized all of their ECM products on Content Navigator, including Datacap. If you're an IBM ECM customer you have FileNet, you have Datacap, you have StoredIQ and you have a consistent user experience, user interface."

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

More IBM Datacap pros

"It is a good and matured solution."

"The feature I like best in Pega Robotic Process Automation is that I'm able to add external DLL section codes. I can inject the JavaScript, and I can write VB.NET, C#.NET, and DLL codes, then inject those codes into the existing process. Mainly, from a development perspective, I like that feature a lot, so if anything is not supported by Pega Robotic Process Automation, then I can build that either in JavaScript or in .NET, then use those functions within the IP."

"The workflow system is very intuitive."

"I am impressed with the tool's recording feature."

"Pega is very mature. It's very old. They have grown with time, and they have learned. Other robotic process automation solutions are basically focused on only doing the automation, whereas Pega also gives you a workflow system so that you can create a workflow."

"It is really flexible in what it can do."

"The solution's ability to create adapters quickly is its most valuable feature."

"The most valuable features are the loops to lookup tables to read the data."

More Pega Robotic Process Automation 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."

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

"We really need a free development environment for customers. Building and testing automation on production isn't ideal."

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

"The solution has a very weak knowledge base."

"Error messages should be better. For error status, there should be better documentation because a lot of times, error messages that you get are quite vague. For example, you get a message saying that the workflow has run into an unknown status, which is vague. It just tells you that it failed, but you don't know how or why it failed. It makes debugging difficult."

"The workflow for variables could be better. The input and output of task-level variables could be made a little clearer in terms of passing those around from one task to another upon success, etc. Things like that could be a little easier potentially."

"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."

More Automate cons

"I give the scalability of the solution a six out of ten."

"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."

"There should be an increase in the capacity of the workflows. Datacap is a little limited in this aspect. So, you cannot really implement all the possibilities."

"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."

"The interface can be more intuitive."

"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."

"The technical support is horrible. They have downsized the support teams too much. They've outsourced some of them along with some of the development, and they're just stretched too thin."

"It can take some time to implement."

More IBM Datacap cons

"Excel connectors need to be improved as there are a few connectors in Excel areas."

"I would like to improve the tool's integration features and stability."

"Rule versioning and deployment to enable parallel development could still be improved"

"What I don't like that much in Pega Robotic Process Automation is its monitoring tool because that tool is tightly connected with the platform. If the Pega team can deploy the monitoring tool separately, so that it's a separate solution altogether, then that would be good because currently, if you have to use the monitoring tool, then that means you have to use the Pega Robotic Process Automation platform. The initial setup for Pega Robotic Process Automation also needs improvement because it is complex. The only additional feature I'd like to see in the solution is for the monitoring tool to be a stand-alone rather than being tightly coupled with the Pega platform. Looking at the current features of Pega Robotic Process Automation concerning application automation, it covers most of my needs currently."

"There have been some scenarios where the bot was not able to replace some of the controls and could not recognize and personalize the task we wanted to automate."

"I have faced many scenarios in the business workflow, where a few applications run on the Citrix environment. That could be a critical part of the process without which business won't be able to accept the automation solution. Because of one small bottleneck, you will lose a very good candidate for process automation."

"The OCR capabilities of the solution could be improved."

"The ease-of-use could be improved."

More Pega Robotic Process Automation cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"From a distributor's side, one of the biggest selling points is its price point. Without going into any numbers, compared to UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and Blue Prism, we're significantly cheaper. The main difference is that other competitors usually charge you per process. However, in Automate's case, it's priced per bot. So, a bot can run multiple processes at the same time, but you are only priced for a single bot."

"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."

"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."

"I like the way this solution is priced because you can buy a license, or you can buy the software outright."

"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

"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."

"Pricing needs to stay competitive."

"It is an expensive solution."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"This solution is the most expensive in the market."

More IBM Datacap pricing and cost advice

"The licensing cost is too high."

"I was not involved in licensing and pricing, but it is worth the cost."

"In terms of Pega Robotic Process Automation pricing, I would rate it a five out of five because the solution has a good price. Pricing is not very high, though I'm unsure of the exact cost, based on my experience, the price for Pega Robotic Process Automation is less than Blue Prism because I worked with a few clients that have both solutions and my clients prefer Pega Robotic Process Automation over Blue Prism particularly because of the licensing costs."

"Pega is pretty costly."

"I would rate the product's pricing a nine out of ten."

"Pega Robotic Process Automation is an expensive solution."

"Pega is as competitive as the basic players such as UiPath or Automation Anywhere. UiPath is the most expensive, but Pega is at par with Automation Anywhere."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Financial Services Firm

16%

Government

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

27%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Government

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Datacap?

The installation of the solution is very simple.

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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 ...

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What do you like most about Pega Robotic Process Automation?

The solution's automation handling capability has positively impacted the overall automation process in my experience.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pega Robotic Process Automation?

I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pega Robotic Process Automation?

The solution's configuration and settings could be more comprehensive.

See all answers

Comparisons

UiPath Platform vs Automate

Compared 28% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs Automate

Compared 24% of the time

Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition vs Automate

Compared 9% of the time

Blue Prism vs Automate

Compared 8% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Automate

Compared 6% of the time

More Automate Competitors

ABBYY Vantage vs IBM Datacap

Compared 32% of the time

Amazon Textract vs IBM Datacap

Compared 18% of the time

OpenText Capture vs IBM Datacap

Compared 16% 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

Microsoft Power Automate vs Pega Robotic Process Automation

Compared 46% of the time

UiPath Platform vs Pega Robotic Process Automation

Compared 32% of the time

Blue Prism vs Pega Robotic Process Automation

Compared 8% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Pega Robotic Process Automation

Compared 7% of the time

IPsoft 1RPA vs Pega Robotic Process Automation

Compared 6% of the time

More Pega Robotic Process Automation Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automate

August 2025

Download Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Datacap

August 2025

Download IBM Datacap product report

Buyer's Guide

Pega Robotic Process Automation

August 2025

Download Pega Robotic Process Automation product report

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate

Datacap

Pega RPA, OpenSpan

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

With Pega Robotic Process Automation (RPA), organizations can automate the mundane, tedious, time-consuming, manual work that is hampering productivity and efficiency. Whether adjudicating claims, onboarding customers or employees, reconciling financials, updating customer information in systems record, Pega RPA can manage the work across your enterprise.

Pega

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

eBay Enterprise, M&I Bank

Buyer's Guide

IBM Datacap vs. Pega Robotic Process Automation

July 2025

Free Report: IBM Datacap vs. Pega Robotic Process Automation

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Datacap vs. Pega Robotic Process Automation and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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