Many RPA tools have sprung up in various niches thanks to the hype and investment in RPA. Here is a list of the top RPA tools (updated in 2021).
We will start with the top four tools as of 2020 as ranked by Gartner.
Top four IA / RPA tools
Uipath
Uipath is an RPA tool that is easy to learn and get started. Your team can download the tool, learn from their academy, and get going. There is a decent community and many programmers if your team like to take external help. Uipath has a comparatively easy licensing model and is easy to procure as well.
UiPath Connect brings things together to get started quickly. It has the Academy, marketplace and Community.
Automation Anywhere
Automation Anywhere has a good depth of functionality and features while being mostly user-friendly. You can get started fairly quickly and scale with this decently robust tool. Automation Anywhere has a complex licensing model and is perceived to be costly.
Automation Anywhere has a bot store that provides an elegant list of bots that you can get started with.
Microsoft Power Automate
A broad cloud-based Automation platform with RPA, AI, and more. Microsoft’s vision is to offer cloud-based Automation services to support its Productivity platform – Office 365.
Microsoft’s Automation platform is called Power Automate and is part of the Microsoft Power Platform. Microsoft Power is a low-code application platform (LCAP) with a broad set of technology capabilities.
Microsoft added the RPA capabilities to its Flow Platform which was rebranded to “Power Automate”. They then acquired Softomotive and expanded its RPA offering with WinAutomation, ProcessRobot, and Robin.
Blue Prism
Blue Prism is the most robust tool in the pack. If you are looking for a safe bet, Blue Prim is the tool. They are one of the pioneers in the field and even claim to have coined the term RPA. Blue prism has an object-oriented architecture that helps manage reusable components better. Overall is a great tool if you use a developer but lacks a recorder if your team is less technically savvy and likes to get things moving quickly.
Other RPA tools
Workfusion
Workfusion delivers an integrated automation platform with native AI -ML, automated machine learning, and NLP capabilities. They augment RPA with prepackaged, pre-trained ML models designed for specific use cases. The current use cases include anti-money-laundering, loan processing, and claims intake
It is a powerful but complex platform that is dependent on direct and highly skilled staff. Their strategy and focus are large Enterprise customers.
Pega Systems
Pegasystems is a business process management (BPM) provider that added RPA with the acquisition of Openspan. OpenSpan uses robotic automation to ease the burden on customer service representatives (CSRs) by automating routine desktop tasks, thus increasing employee productivity and job satisfaction.
EdgeVerve
A subsidiary of Indian Tech giant Infosys Technologies, the main product is AssistEdge. As expected with Infosys, EdgeVerve uses combined services and product approach. It has well-defined frameworks for an automation center of excellence, RPA governance, and process discovery. AssistEdge automation platform includes RPA, Process discovery, Test automation, and industry-specific process templates.
Nice
NICE is an Israeli enterprise software company – one of the largest technology organizations in Israel. It started its RPA journey with the acquisition of E-glue in 2010. NICE started as a workflow automation business for Contact centers. It continues to be strong in that space with NEVA Attended automation.
Kryon
Kryon has tools to mine processes within the organization highlighting the processes that can be automated. It has strong integration with ABBY, the leaders in OCR. Kryon uses computer vision to support Citrix which is a traditionally weak area for many RPA vendors.
Kofax
Kofax has a bunch of products one of which is Kapow RPA which was acquired in 2013. One of the strengths of Kofax is the ability to bring these various products with BPM and OCR capabilities to power automation. Kofax is strong in the content management space and Kofax RPA is a tool that is used to enhance Content management smarts.
HelpSystems
HelpSystems provides tools for IT automation that includes RPA along with file transfer automation, Security, and other infrastructure management tools.
The product consists of Automate Enterprise (RPA) and Insite Operations Console (IT Operations center). HelpSystems has an affordable pricing model compared to other enterprise-level RPA solutions.
Antworks
AntWorks’ is a new and interesting company that claims to have an integrated Cognitive machine learning and autonomous automation in a single stack. Their main product, ANTstein is designed to understand structured as well as semi-unstructured data. The tool also has broader cognitive capabilities that include pattern recognition, photos, and images.
NTT
NTT has a personal-client-based RPA tool called WinActor.
WinActor is best-suited for the automation of stand-alone, PC-based tools. They also have WinActor Cast on Call which is a SaaS RPA service.
Samsung SDS
Samsung Brity RPA is an NLP powered conversational process automation solution. It is an integrated RPA platform that includes process discovery, chatbot, integrated OCR, and native AI.
You can give an order using natural language and Brity RPA does what you want it to do. Brity also has a Process Designer to design processes without coding. It can also write scripts by directly detecting the user’s work and movements.
Jacada
Jacada focuses on customer service automation and is strong on attended automation to support helpdesk agents. They also have unattended automation capabilities.
Its RPA products are Jacada Integration and Automation and Interact. It is offered as a service (RPA-as-a-service) with a well-defined usage-based pricing model.
Servicetrace
Servicetrace RPA platform, XceleratorOne focuses on delivering a secure end-to-end environment for managing the Automation lifecycle. You can even manage bots from other providers with Servicetrace.
Servicetrace’s BPM engine based on Camunda is a unique selling point. With the BPM, you can model and document business processes directly in X1. Existing process models in BPMN 2.0 can also be imported into X1.
AutomationEdge
AutomationEdge offers a cloud-based RPA-as-a-service offering, along with an on-premises RPA model. They have a subscription-based pricing model with different price tiers. AutomationEdge also offers a free bot with one agent.
AutomationEdge has out-of-the-box connectors for leading mainframe, ERP, and CRM platforms. Since they started with IT, they have had partnerships with ITSM providers, such as BMC, ServiceNow, and Cherwell.
Datamatics
Datamatics TruBot product is an RPA tool that develops and runs C# scripts. They have 200+ inbuilt component libraries for faster development. Trubot comes with Integrated Intelligent Data Capture powered by AI. They also have Pattern detection with AI and integrated Analytics.
The TruBot workflow designer has a Windows recorder. It can capture and create c# scripts to interact with the web, desktop, mainframe, and Citrix. If you are tech-savvy and develop scripts manually, this gives you more control to automate.
Open source RPA tools
If you are looking for Open source tools, here is a list of top Open source RPA / Auotmation tools.
More RPA Tools for the List
Don’t see your favorite RPA tool in the list? Please let me know in the comments and I will add them as appropriate. Appreciate your help!
Can you please add the feature of Laiye RPA. It future growth,performance is an added advantage
Hi Nandan, I am partner for AutomationEdge and for that product, I wouldn’t mention that it is focused on IT Process Automation. It does have end-to-end automation, including Cognitive Chatbots, iDDE, RPA tool and a very powerful spreadsheet style processing, while not using spreadsheet licensing. It actually is 10+ times faster then typical RPA with spreadsheets. In one of your blogs you show the HiperAutomation circle, and almost all items that are mentioned, AE covers it.
Suppose because it has been in the HiperAutomation arena for some time, it does not appear on the latest RPA Gartner report.
Updated. Appreciate your comments. Thanks!