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IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs Samanage comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 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
6.8
Number of Reviews
666
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 (2nd), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (32nd)
Samanage
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (25th), IT Asset Management (19th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (26th), License Management (8th)
 

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.
KM
Computer System Engineer at Informatika d.d.
Has centralization and asset management features, and a helpful and knowledgeable technical support team
What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk.
MC
Consult at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Detects incidents quickly, improves our SLA performance and solves issues faster
We mainly use it for incident logging. We'd like to add service request functionality, but we don't have the knowledge to configure the requests and the workflows properly. We'd like to integrate our workflows with the incident management, so we use it to manage our work better. We'd like to implement the service request feature. Right now, we just record everything as incidents. Some activities can take a long time, maybe one or two weeks. This makes it hard to maintain a good SLA, even if we work hard. So, response speed and workflow improvements.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Value for time: with the help of Enterprise A2019, we can get instant value."
"It has reduced the number of full-time employees."
"Automation has been playing a significant role in every aspect of our institution."
"We are using all of the features and all are important and valuable but the automation and flexibility are the things which make the product work as a solution for us."
"Automate Anywhere can just mimic what a human does."
"We have saved time and money using the solution."
"The core RPA service that it provides and the stability that it has in maintaining that as a cloud service solution is a key enabler for us. Its stability is good, and the low-code/no-code setup that it has is very user-efficient."
"The automation of data entry is the most valuable feature for us."
"The most valuable are its flexibility and agility. It's quick to change it, to adapt it to your needs. That's the most important for us."
"The brand name is the most valuable aspect of this solution for me. It's IBM. It's a global company that supports this product, it's not something open source or something like that."
"The solution has been stable."
"In the early stages of our company, all requests were done in notebooks, and none of it was centrally managed. But now we have a central tool which is an entry point for all requests that come in."
"Overall, it's a good product that I would recommend."
"The workflow capability is useful. It's not a manual helpdesk operation. It's fully automated, even when an alarm has occurred. It covers the complete cycle of initiation to resolving the events. This is its most strong feature that is easily integrable with a monitoring solution. It creates tickets, and the workflow feature is the most important one."
"SLA integrations, reports, and integration with other applications are the most valuable."
"Overall, it has helped us continuously improve our business processes."
"I would recommend Samanage from the IT support perspective because it's a great ticketing system and the only downside is the site shutdowns and the messy nature of the UI and UX."
"The solution has a great filtering feature."
"Samanage has not only taken over asset and inventory management, but it also has the ability to function across departments, making it easy for end users to submit help desk tickets for IT, HR, and Finance."
"The best part is the ability to keep records, especially incident records. It's easy to use the tool to store data and monitor it."
 

Cons

"Off the top of my head, I cannot think of anything that they would need to improve on, but there are probably opportunities to explore some potential use cases where maybe there is a feature that is not yet available. We can discover and pioneer something together."
"I would suggest going with Microsoft Power Automate rather than Automation Anywhere because Power Automate's cloud flow is easier to use."
"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 with bots runs fine only if it is an attended bot. With unattended bots, the bots run only 25 to 30 percent of the time."
"IQ Bot is useful but the price is not friendly."
"An option should be provided to disable the flow and dual-mode since those are not used often by the developers, and hence take up extra space on the screen."
"Right now, we are using a VM with Automation Anywhere installed inside it, but it would be nice if the solution could be used on macOS."
"Attended automation sometimes might go into exceptions, thus we need to monitor it in-between, then check whether it is working properly. This way, we ensure the bot is working properly."
"Overall the user experience, as opposed to the system and databases, could be improved. It does work as it should and it's good, but they should invest more in the user interfaces to be less data oriented and more appealing for the user."
"The product is kind of clunky to use."
"It could use more facility or flexibility for reporting, and business intelligence in the tool."
"The reporting in relation to updating could be improved upon."
"Technical support can be slow in terms of resolving issues."
"The solution lacks a graphical user interface."
"Support has been the biggest problem for us."
"The main issue that we hear from our customers is that the self-service user interface is a little bit old, possibly due to the fact that IBM is such a large enterprise company. People say that they think they're in the year 2004, because you can very clearly see that the technology is lagging behind modern trends."
"The setting up process is not quite easy. It's quite difficult."
"There are definitely areas for improvement, but so far, so good."
"The system shuts down about once a month which is frustrating."
"We've had some problems with the system shutting down about once a month. It sometimes takes five or 10 minutes to start working again but it can also take hours."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have saved customers 400% in terms of time saved by implementing this product."
"Our company is investing a lot of money in Automation Anywhere. They have saved money wherever humans are working. They invest a lot of money in FTEs and other logistics, so the money saving is very pretty good with Automation Anywhere. While I don't know the exact figure, the tool is saving us millions of dollars as well as saving about 40,000 hours in the last year."
"Complaints are generally about the cost of IQ Bot, which is higher than its competitors. The base model’s pricing is comparable to other platforms with attended, unattended, and IDP capabilities as well."
"The pricing that we received from Automation Anywhere in the beginning was very economical for us. We've seen a lot of benefit from what we spent to what we're receiving. From the beginning, it's been a very low-cost implementation for us."
"Its usage is expensive for us because my user base is mostly in Manila and KL. The unit cost of labor is cheaper there than in the U.S. or Australia, which puts a bit more stress on how to get a positive ROI while continuing to use it."
"Automation Anywhere is reasonably priced because it can sustain us for a long period."
"We're paying a monthly subscription fee for the bot and for services. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"Our annual licensing costs for the entire company are $100,000."
"It's basically for a big company because of the costs. A small company can't afford the licensing cost. For medium and large companies, it's the best product. The price of the license is on the higher side compared to others."
"The licensing we have for IBM Control Desk is on a yearly basis. They have a concurrent license and an administrative license. And with these, you get all the products. There aren't any additional fees for extra add-ons or anything like that."
"The license for IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is paid yearly and is on a per-user basis. You buy the product and pay for its license yearly. IBM is changing the licensing structure, but for now, it's a yearly license. There's no additional cost. It's just the license that you need to pay for to use IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."
"It is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Performing Arts
12%
Construction Company
11%
Construction Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business161
Midsize Enterprise85
Large Enterprise561
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise3
No data available
 

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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Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
SmartCloud Control Desk
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology
SXSW, PRA Group, Fandango, Inteva Products, Amherst College, Tensator
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. Samanage and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.