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IBM Datacap vs Pega Robotic Process Automation comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

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
660
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)
Pega Robotic Process Automa...
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (21st)
 

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.
reviewer1458102 - PeerSpot reviewer
Regional Director at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Has raised concerns due to outdated framework and high ownership costs
Pega Robotic Process Automation is a temporary solution to a bigger issue, and the cost of implementation especially with Pega really stops customers from proceeding. The total cost of ownership could be improved. From a technical perspective, the product performs adequately. The installation can be quite complex as it's not standalone, and customers need to get the whole Pega platform up and running. The total cost of ownership is not very attractive. RPA as a concept is outdated now, with agentic AI becoming more prominent. We don't see much interest from customers in going down the RPA route; Pega Robotic Process Automation is losing its prominence in the market.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Looking at overall feasibility from features to costing perspective, I strongly feel Automation Anywhere offers a lot of features and scalability and is a very good tool overall and people who have not tried should give a try and put some hands-on."
"Compared to other RPA tools, I prefer Automation Anywhere."
"By using this, we are saving time and we no need to do routine work, as it is now automated and the result is shared with all of the end-users."
"Co-Pilot is a valuable feature."
"The management works well."
"Easy to access: Without the need to download and install software on a local machine, we can access the RPA application from virtually anywhere."
"Automation Anywhere is a great tool."
"No other competitor has this email trigger, so it saves a lot of time if you automate the process. We don't need to fix a time for a task to run. It gives the feature of on demand execution for any task. Whenever a user wants, it can send a mail and get the task done as soon as possible."
"The installation of the solution is very simple."
"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."
"The solution automates manual data entry."
"Both Datacap Studio and Datacap Navigator are great features."
"It helps companies figure out how to use advanced imaging techniques, processes, best practices, and other tools."
"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."
"There's something that's very unique about IBM DataCap. It provides me with a good solution for extracting, reading the QR codes, and scanning them. In this stage, we are working in a UIT phase before implementing this protocol in all our branches. From my initial observation, IBM DataCap is good, it is not working too fast, but in a good manner for us."
"Our clients have significantly improved efficiencies when opening accounts for end users."
"Its stability has been good."
"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."
"We have centralized the monitoring, and in Pega Robot Manager we currently have multiple dashboards where we can track, schedule, and handle everything, which has been a game changer in the last one-and-a-half years and has met what the business expected."
"The data entry and the automation of data entry are the most valuable aspects of the product, as it was very smooth and very seamless to create automations with no scope for any errors, making it really error-free and very helpful for us."
"If you want to make any kind of base automation, you can easily code exactly what you want."
"The low-code/no-code development aspect of the solution is great."
"The workflow system is very intuitive."
"Definitely, we are satisfied. It's a pretty strong product."
 

Cons

"The Web Recorder should also include a feature where the user can select what browser you want it to run since it is currently using the Internet Explorer browser as default. Some of our web-based systems are currently not compatible with Internet Explorer and can only run using Firefox or Google Chrome."
"Over the time that I've worked with Automation Anywhere, I have experienced downtime, crashes, or performance issues."
"SMTP mail features should come with migration options. All kind of VB scripts and Java scripts which we built using exiting version should support in this version."
"Also, the Master certification should be provided free of cost for partners."
"It takes a lot of effort to build up the internal infrastructure/topics like Virtual Machine/Security/development-Governance/Usecase-Management."
"We need a better way of getting upgrades or defect fixes. It is creating problems for us, as we have to go for a completely new version. Maintaining and managing existing bots, then coming up with new ones takes a lot of time. We would rather have a batch fix than an installation to an installation."
"There is a small thing from a development point of view. There should be a static site box for finding any command if I am writing a code. If there are hundreds of functions, you can only scroll up and down to find one each one. There should be a site box where we can find the commands and easily use them."
"Integration with secondary environments needs to be improved or enabled."
"We had more experience, and we knew a lot more about the product than their first-line support did, and that's a really bad sign."
"The user interfaces for exception processing can be tweaked. I commonly find that we try to tweak and customize some of those components to more of what the industry standard is. The product is still trying to play catch-up a little bit in those areas."
"The solution's scalability needs improvement."
"Recognition between certain numbers and letters could be improved. Sometimes this solution misreads five with an "S" for Singapore."
"Speed of OCR is one issue. It's a challenge because we have customers that have millions and millions of pages that they want this solution to crank through. In order to do that you have to have a large infrastructure in place, and that directly impacts licensing based on the core count."
"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."
"I give the scalability of the solution a six out of ten."
"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."
"Pega has a no-code low-code environment. We do everything based on established rules. You kind-of have to learn how all their rules work and how it works for robotics before you can use the solution effectively."
"You cannot use a two-dimensional array to read the data."
"It is still a niche skill and resources are scarce in the market unless big IT companies are involved."
"The new players such as UiPath and ABBYY are moving very quickly, but Pega is not. I'd definitely like to see Pega doing a few more interesting things on the AI or machine learning front so that we can use the platform for multiple things."
"In this modern world, in this automation space, if Pega could provide more options that are user-friendly and provide a way to quickly develop an automation solution that is drag-and-drop with a minimal coding approach, then it would be great for automation."
"Pega Robotic Process Automation is a temporary solution to a bigger issue, and the cost of implementation especially with Pega really stops customers from proceeding."
"Pega Robotic Process Automation scalability is too low."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is fantastic. It has been great. It is perfectly priced for the quality received. When paying for quality, that is exactly what you get."
"We have reduced our headcount, approximately 200 to 300 employees, by eliminating manual, repetitive work. It provides profit to the business."
"The pricing and licensing of Automation Anywhere plays an important rule in the Indian market because in the Indian market $10,000 USD is too much. Hence, the pricing tends to go down depending on the customer relationship with the partner: A starter pack is $10,000 and an enterprise pack is $100,000. If you go through an implementation partner, you can get good deals. They can save some money."
"It's a bit expensive compared to other RPA tools on the market."
"They sell it by license, but if they could charge by case or by interaction, that might be better. Right now, it's expensive when you want to scale or use them for simple processes."
"I think the solution's pricing is reasonable."
"There is a free trial so that they can get an overview, and there are different licenses that are very affordable and can suit every business model."
"Including the AWS setup and everything per license, it costs us around $10,000 on an annual basis. I believe that is pretty reasonable considering the teams that we have."
"It is an expensive solution."
"This solution is the most expensive in the market."
"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The licensing cost is too high."
"I would rate the product's pricing a nine out of ten."
"​I was not involved in licensing and pricing, but it is worth the cost​."
"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."
"Pega is pretty costly."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business157
Midsize Enterprise82
Large Enterprise558
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise17
 

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...
What needs improvement with Pega Robotic Process Automation?
Pega Robotic Process Automation is a temporary solution to a bigger issue, and the cost of implementation especially ...
What is your primary use case for Pega Robotic Process Automation?
For banking customers, Pega Robotic Process Automation can fill in the process automation which cannot usually be don...
What advice do you have for others considering Pega Robotic Process Automation?
I am George from a system integrator and reseller background. We are a system integrator, reseller, and implementer o...
 

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
Datacap
Pega RPA, OpenSpan
 

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
eBay Enterprise, M&I Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Datacap vs. Pega Robotic Process Automation and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.