Blue Prism vs IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) comparison

Cancel
You must select at least 2 products to compare!
Blue Prism Logo
23,997 views|12,103 comparisons
88% willing to recommend
IBM Logo
3,892 views|2,812 comparisons
87% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Blue Prism and IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) 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 Blue Prism vs. IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,578 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Technical support has been responsive when we have needed their assistance.""The way you design the flow and configure the activities for the bot is very useful if you are working with any of the BPM or local platforms.""The solution enables process creation and is object oriented.""It is good for transactions that are very straightforward. It works very nicely with the structured data. It is user-friendly. It is easy to implement and easy to understand.""The credential manager and logs are most valuable. We are using Blue Prism for complex processes because it is easier to troubleshoot in Blue Prism, and the logs are very accurate. It provides the ability to create smaller tasks, which makes it easier to troubleshoot.""The entire tool is valuable because it is an enterprise tool. It is on par with other tools like Automation Anywhere or UiPath with the OCR/ICR facilities, analytics, and the entire package for enterprise-level security. It has the highest level of security as compared to any other tool.""For one, it's easy to set up, and once it gets running it can handle multiple processes in an efficient manner. It's a very robust system.""The use cases range from document ingestion, process enablement, and data management, including financial records cleanup."

More Blue Prism Pros →

"The solution is scalability.""The solution’s performance is good.""IBM Robotic Process Automation has greatly improved the organization by improving the speed of performance, as the speed of the robot is estimated to be 20 times faster than the human being.""I like the integration with Watson and the possibility to have an intelligent reading of all the customers' documents.""The quality is great! It's very strong and has a very strong platform.""It's integrated with all the other products within the Salesforce ecosystem.""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.""It's not inclusive, in terms of automation, you can just do it standalone, in its own silo. It's not going to force your existing system or teams, your admin teams, to create new IDs for you or even force them to create new services or APIs for you or expose something from there. They can just keep the way they are doing it right now, but you still automate it."

More IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Pros →

Cons
"A feature that I would like to see in the next release is the ability to easily call on the robots to fulfill part of the process, and be run by the users in the business, where the robot can simply be activated rather than running mass processes from a control room.""Blue Prism develops its own tools and process automation, but the documentation is unclear and incomplete.""Everyone uses Workday and Salesforce and all that stuff. If they had specific plugins to interact with these enterprise tools, that would be very helpful.""As a user, I cannot directly work with the bot. On a daily basis, I use and do some work in Microsoft Excel, which cannot be directly taken into Blue Prism. Our company majorly runs on Microsoft Excel. Everybody has Excel sheets as their working sheets. Therefore, we need a kind of automation to be able to do things with this program. This bot is almost like an invisible staff that works between the servers but not with the users. This bot works well with SAP and things like that, but it doesn't work with Excel sheets. It doesn't work with the bots that we have, and I cannot invoke an RPA right now as a user. It has to be done by an administrator who has better control than me. It needs better integration with Microsoft Excel. Its price can be improved. It is expensive for us. It should be cheaper for a market like ours. We are based in India.""I would like to see bespoke dashboards allow the front-end to display what is required.""If that bot is running 24/7, we have to allocate people 24/7, 24 hours a day. The cost of support can be quite high.""The control room is its worst feature. It can be laggy, and it is not as user-friendly. We're with staying Blue Prism, but we're moving it from on-premises to Microsoft cloud for cost savings. We looked into Blue Prism cloud. It has a lot of features, but it comes with a lot of costs. Right now, we have six spots, and we're only at 13% utilization. The cost didn't really weigh out for us for moving to Blue Prism cloud, but on-premises, it is working for what we need.""They have OCR technology, but it's not that great."

More Blue Prism Cons →

"We would like a decreased need for customer support.""I would like to have more flexibility in connecting the platform with third-party systems.""Extensibility is the key, especially in terms of the Recorders feature that we have. That should be browser independent. Enhance it because some people have Chrome, some have Internet Explorer, etc. Also, integration with PDFs: Not just the ability to read information from PDFs but the ability to write information from PDFs, make it secure, sign it, etc. Finally, if they can allow a token exchange inside the tool itself, that would help.""I would like to improve the efficiency of this solution and the Surface Level Agreement.""IBM should provide specific solutions for specific problems, like templates for invoicing processes, or general templates for creating efficient processes.""The product must be promoted more.""The users should be allowed to create folders in Control Center.""One of the things I would definitely like to see is more of the machine-learning and cognitive capabilities. For example, now that we're starting to automate more and more tasks, there are some things that still require us to go back and modify the robots when we need to. But if we had more of the machine-learning integrated into it, I believe it would be easier to maintain, so that we wouldn't have to go back and adjust every time."

More IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Blue Prism is pretty steep compared to the others, much more than Automation Anywhere."
  • "We really don't bear the costs. The cost is borne by the customer. It runs into about $100,000 per year per customer for Blue Prism. We normally budget around $30,000 for the first year for the hardware, setup, and people cost."
  • "Other than your infrastructure, in terms of servers that you have to set up, I don't think that there are any costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
  • "Compared to other tools on the market, it is one of the most expensive."
  • "The pricing is really good for an enterprise-level solution. It's quite scalable and it's quite comparable with the market."
  • "Our licensing fees are approximately $5,000 USD per year."
  • "The licensing fees are low compared to other tools."
  • "Blue Prism is less expensive than some of the other RPA solutions."
  • More Blue Prism Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "IBM licensing is annual and based on Virtual Processor Cores (VPC). This provides flexibility as part of the containerization environment."
  • "The license is paid annually."
  • "The product has a yearly licensing fee."
  • "The pricing is reasonable for this solution."
  • "I rate the pricing ten out of ten. So, the pricing is very good for me."
  • "The product is reasonably priced compared to other tools."
  • "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."
  • More IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions are best for your needs.
    768,578 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Hello Netanya, it depends on your needs and your expertise.  In my humble opinion you can start a big RPA project implementation with Blue Prism which is stable and mature software, in order to serve… more »
    Top Answer:I'm very familiar with UiPath and the RPA industry: was hired by Daniel Dines in 2015 when there were 35 employees and left in 2019 when there were 3K+. I'm a big believer in the product, leadership… more »
    Top Answer:Blue Prism provides both on-premises and cloud versions.
    Top Answer:Integrating the tool with SAP, EBS, or other ERPs is easy.
    Top Answer:The product must be promoted more. There are no promotions.
    Top Answer:We're working with different clients from the manufacturing environment. We have implemented end-to-end solutions. We work on web automation and automation of invoices.
    Ranking
    Views
    23,997
    Comparisons
    12,103
    Reviews
    19
    Average Words per Review
    508
    Rating
    8.1
    Views
    3,892
    Comparisons
    2,812
    Reviews
    11
    Average Words per Review
    430
    Rating
    8.0
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    IBM RPA
    Learn More
    Overview

    Blue Prism is an intelligent, business-developed, no-code automation platform for SaaS deployments as well as for on-premises, public cloud, multi-cloud, and hybrid environments. Unlike other automation technology, Blue Prism combines robotic process automation with expanded artificial intelligence and cognitive capabilities. Blue Prism gives users instant access to the tools you need for building and delegating automations, as well as a digital workforce that is already AI-equipped.

    With Blue Prism’s code-free RPA, deployed through use of their Robotic Operating Model, your business can scale efficiently, improve customer satisfaction, reduce costs, and augment its talent to take on new responsibilities. Blue Prism helps to accelerate operational agility and efficiency by making it easy to automate the most important processes. Allocating everyday tasks to your Digital Workforce gives you immediate increased capacity and allows your teams to focus on their strategic goals. In addition, it delivers a return on investment, increases efficiency gains, and can even introduce new revenue streams.

    “Workforce of the Future”

    Blue Prism’s all-in-one intelligent automation platform consists of:

    • Design Studio with drag-and-drop process automation building, reusable “objects” across your business, and updates to objects and processes saved throughout the process library.
    • Control Room where you can assign processes to digital workers, scale digital worker and task volume ondemand, and gain real-time transparency of process proficiencies.
    • Digital Workforce of autonomous software robots that can learn and mimic business processes like humans and are equipped with six intelligent automation skills:
      1. Knowledge and Insight - The ability to harvest, understand, and deliver insights from multiple disparate data sources.
      2. Visual Perception - The ability to read, understand, and contextualize visual information.
      3. Learning - The ability to derive contextual meaning and adapt to evolving process patterns.
      4. Planning and Sequencing - The ability to optimize workloads and identify opportunities for better outcomes.
      5. Problem-solving - The ability to autonomously solve system, logic, and business problems.
      6. Collaboration - The ability to seamlessly work with both people and systems.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Blue Prism stands out for its enterprise-level functionality, which is why many companies choose it over its competitors. PeerSpot users note that the solution is easy to use, stable, and robust scalability-wise. The security is also top-notch. One user pointed out that "One of the most powerful features in Blue Prism is exception handling. It's one of the features that really differentiates it from other platforms." Blue Prism helps businesses with everything from compliance to quality control and error-avoidance.

    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.

    Sample Customers
    Coca-Cola, Walgreens, American Express, Royal Bank of Canada, Pfizer, Shop Direct, O2, Siemens, Ascension Healthcare, Jaguar Land Rover
    The Hanover Insurance Group
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Computer Software Company17%
    Energy/Utilities Company10%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm20%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government6%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company44%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Pharma/Biotech Company11%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Educational Organization8%
    Government8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise7%
    Large Enterprise74%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise70%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business50%
    Midsize Enterprise8%
    Large Enterprise42%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise64%
    Buyer's Guide
    Blue Prism vs. IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Blue Prism vs. IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    768,578 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Blue Prism is ranked 4th in Robotic Process Automation (RPA) with 85 reviews while IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is ranked 6th in Robotic Process Automation (RPA) with 23 reviews. Blue Prism is rated 7.8, while IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Blue Prism writes "Way more efficient for debugging than other tools but the UI is complicated". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) writes "User-friendly interface and good stability". Blue Prism is most compared with Microsoft Power Automate, UiPath, Automation Anywhere (AA), Pega Robotic Process Automation and WorkFusion, whereas IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is most compared with UiPath, Microsoft Power Automate, Automation Anywhere (AA), IPsoft 1RPA and ABBYY Vantage. See our Blue Prism vs. IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) report.

    See our list of best Robotic Process Automation (RPA) vendors.

    We monitor all Robotic Process Automation (RPA) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.