Automation Anywhere vs UiPath

In touching on the topic of architecture, Automation Anywhere provides client-server based architecture whereas UiPath provides a cloud-based architecture.

RPA has become so ubiquitous that it has recently made its way into the fight against COVID-19. Most notably, UiPath recently made the announcement that they would be offering its enterprise-level RPA solution to health care entities to free up more time for frontline workers to do the work that matters the most. The Cleveland Clinic was one of the first to leverage UiPath within the sector levergine one of UiPath’s key features in executing a number of routine patient-related intake functions. The United States government has also adopted the RPA solution in rolling out over 500 individual bots, all created to help process and conduct COVID-19-related analysis of data.

According to Gartner's 2019 Magic Quadrant for Robotic Process Automation Software, it is estimated that by the year 2021 over ninety percent of both large and mid-sized gornaications will have at least one process that is supported by RPA. In Accenture’s 3rd Annual Global RPA Survey Report, they collected feedback from over four hundred executives across industries and found that among their top priorities from a strategic perspective that nearly twenty five percent were focused on increasing their efforts in automation and that over thirty five perfect were seeking to achieve continuous improvement. The RPA industry is changing just as fast as it is growing. With significant consolidation expected to occur amongst the key RPA vendors, the category itself is the most rapidly growing portion of the world’s entire enterprise software market.

While RPA use cases span across a multitude of industries, some of those where RPA is becoming most commonly adopted include: Business Process Outsourcing, Finance, Insurance, Health Care, Telecom, Manufacturing, Retail and more. In another report, published by Grand View Research, it was stated that the global size of the RPA had surpassed one billion USD. The same report also indicated that the RPA industry is set to expand by over 33% per year, year over year for the next seven years. As a byproduct of the tremendous growth, the category has become the catalyst to several key players in RPA. Among these leaders are Blue Prism, Automation Anywhere, UiPath, EdgeVerve, Pegasystems (also known as Pega), and AntWorks all of whom are widely regarded as the most prominent figures within the RPA industry.

In this comprehensive breakdown, we are taking a look at two of the most compared RPA software providers in the ecosystem -- Automation Anywhere vs UiPath.

The Basics

In 2019, Automation Anywhere was named a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant in Robotics Process Automation. The company, founded in 2003 is headquartered in San Jose, CA and boasts over 2,500 employees. Notably, Automation Anywhere recently finalized a Series B investment round, backed by Salesforce Ventures, which places the company at a $6.8 valuation. The company describes its solution as being accommodative to all industries that have an interest in achieving advanced levels of automation. The solution is designed in a manner that is compatible with any production environment.

UiPath, launched in 2005, is based in New York, NY and also has a total headcount upwords of 2750. The company recently closed on its series D round of investment to bring UiPath to a total valuation of $7 Billion, which has further solidified its positioning of one of the most valuable AI software companies in the world. Similar to Automation Anywhere, UiPath also is crafted to work for organizations of virtually any industry, and is further able to work for companies of all sizes. Founded on the dedication to providing harmonious automation within any web application and environment.

Ease of Use

UiPath is known for being incredibly user friendly. It’s easy to get started with as a beginner in RPA, and is furthermore generally considered by the industry as one of the easiest RPA solutions to adopt as it offers an incredibly intuitive deployment environment. This is attractive for many companies seeking to adopt RPA as its adoption doesn’t require any pre-existing development or programming experience nor does it require the background of any programming languages to implement it. As one of the fastest growing RPA providers in the world, UiPath offers the ability to create workflows and automations with a simple drag and drop. As one of the most commonly adopted RPA solutions, finding UiPath consulting or implementation partners is relatively easy.

Part of what has driven Automation Anywhere’s success and tremendous growth, is that it, too, is known for its user-friendliness. It is also commonly praised for its incredible accuracy and reliability in its software. Automation Anywhere blends conventional RPA components with cognitive features like natural language process and the ability to process and read raw, unstructured data. Automation Anywhere also leverages workforce analytics, which are designed to generate powerful insights that can inform real business decisions. The software uses what they call IQ Bots to read unstructured data.

Regarding ease of use, Automation Anywhere is more script based than other RPA solutions. UIPath, for example, has visual process designers. While this may seem to suggest you will require significant programming skills to use Automation Anywhere, this is not always necessarily the case; however, this is very much a key point of distinction worth considering. A major point of differentiation is that UiPath offers its very own online training, known as UiPath Academy, which is a place where RPA professionals can obtain a wealth of knowledge regarding the platform while also exploring UiPath’s robust documentation.

Security

Automation Anywhere is equipped with leading security measures and enterprise level provisions that can provide its customers with the assurances that their data is both safe and protected. From its inception, UiPath’s platform contains best in class, enterprise level-security and auditing capabilities that include role based access control (RBAC). Similarly, Automation Anywhere also provides the ability to enforce fine-grained RBAC. Both RPA providers serve some of the largest financial institutions in the world as well as governments alike. With that being said, both platforms are nearly a one-for-one regarding data protection and vulnerability prevention acting as incredibly secure platforms that can be collectively regarded as highly secure, safe, and reliable.

Pricing & Cost

UiPath Robotic Process Automation pricing begins at a base level of $3,990 annually, per user. As mentioned, UiPath does offer a free open source version as well as a standard free trial version that users can test and explore prior to committing to a broader engagement. This is referred to as the standard Studio version of UiPath and it is available for a period of 60 days. The free, community edition of UiPath’s RPA platform offers an easy way for those interested in RPA to immerse themselves. According to Capterra’s website, UiPath RPA pricing begins at $3,990 per individual year, annually

Also according to Capterra, Automation Anywhere Enterprise begins at a starting rate of $995 at a single payment, for each user. Similar to UiParth, Automation Anywhere Enterprise also offers a free trial version; however, there is no open-source version currently available.

Architecture

In touching on the topic of architecture, Automation Anywhere provides client-server based architecture whereas UiPath provides a cloud-based architecture.

Automation Anywhere’s architecture consists of three core components:

1. The Control Room -- this is the server that commands and provides the control mechanism for the bots you create in Automation Anywhere.

2. The Bot Creator -- This is how bots get created, by developers through applications. Here, developers have the ability to create standalone bots that can later be combined.

3. The Bot Runner -- You can consider the Bot Runner as the machine from where you will run the bots.

UiPath’s architecture also contains three key pieces: UiPath’s architecture also contains three key pieces:

1. UiPath Studio -- This is UiPath’s visual designer which is where you create automation workflows from a set of pre-built automations or activities.

2. UiPath Robot -- This is where the workflows that were created in UiPath Studio are triggered by the UiPath Robot.

3. UiPath Orchestrator -- this is what allows the user to arrange the UiPath robots that were previously created in continuously handling the execution of repetitive processes.

Differentiating Features

What stands out about UiPath is that it is truly open source and is dedicated to the broader RPA community, fostering the spirit of collaboration. UiPath is designed to serve companies of any industry, and organizations of all sizes. The company offers a free, Community version of its platform for the purpose of education, training, and even for serving very small teams within small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Driven by its fast-growing community of over a quarter million users, UiPath is one of the fastest growing software companies ever. For these reasons and more UiPath is a major leader in RPA and innovation making it one of the most robust RPA solutions on the market.

While Automation Anywhere is not open source, the company does offer a free trial that enables prospective companies and end users to test the platform and get familiar with its capabilities. While similar to UiPath Automation Anywhere is commonly regarded as being intuitive to use and quickest to scale.

According to a recent Forrester Wave Evaluation, Automation Anywhere scored one of the highest scores possible in multiple categories of review criteria. Perhaps most notably, in terms of differentiation were the platform’s broad capabilities and ability to scale further supported by providing its wide use cases driven by their bot stores for partners. This is where solutions providers can train bots on a specific set of requirements to which it can then be published to the store for others to adopt. Known as the largest bot store within the RPA industry, Automation Anywhere's Bot Store is a major point of differentiation in shortening time to deployment and value with pre-configured solutions.

Certifications

UiPath offers certifications within two separate tracks. Their General Track is designed to establish a solid foundation from both a technical and knowledge-based perspective. Their Developer track is designed to build atop the General Track in establishing a more in-depth level of expertise that involves designing and developing more complicated and advanced RPA experiences. This second track is further intended to test certification seekers ability to problem solve and to identify processes.

These two Tracks consist of two certifications respective to each path. Successfully achieving the General Path will allow users to obtain the UiPath Certified RPA Associate. UiPath describes this accreditation as being best suited for Junior RPA Developers. It is also recommended for RPA Architects, and Business Analysts alike as a first step to the next level of certification.

In proceeding with the Developer Track, those seeking certification will have a chance at obtaining the next level of accreditation as a UiPath Certified Advanced RPA Developer (UiARD). This level will supply certificate receivers with a deeper understanding and familiarity with RPA encompassing the entire RPA framework and will require those seeking the accreditation to build far more complex RPA experiences. UiPath recommends that those seeking this next level of certification first have at least six months of experience with hands-on RPA experience. UiPath recommended UiARD for those in more technical-oriented RPA roles. This includes those either in, or seeking a role such as an Advanced RPA Developer, or RPA Solution Architect. These certifications can be acquired directly from UiPath Academy’s online training platform.

Automation Anywhere provides two categories of certification for those interested in Automation Anywhere development. Similar to UiPath, there are two possible levels of certification, the AA Certified Advanced RPA Professional, and the AA Certified Master RPA Professional.

The Advanced level classification is designed to test users RPA knowledge within the Automation Anywhere RPA Platform, specifically. The Master level on the other hand validates users as a certified RPA developer. You can take each of these courses by simply visiting the You can take Automation Anywhere Certified Advanced RPA Professional exam on the Automation Anywhere University official website.

Support

UiPath provides a significant degree of support to its customers. Regardless of size, or contract value, the company provides high quality support to be able to accommodate any platform related issues whether it be architecture, or engineering their team is quick to respond to client ticket requests. While UiPath does provide a strong degree of support, many RPA adopters will prefer a third-party who can provide more dedicated support for implementations. The benefits of leveraging a vendor such as Edison & Black, are vast they are able to provide either on-demand or dedicated resources that can be leveraged on a project or retainer basis.

Automation Anywhere specifically offers a comprehensive support plan to its global subscription customers by way of its technical support program that includes its end-to-end support plan. This solution is intended to provide Automation Anywhere customers with the help that they need exactly at the moment in which they need it. In order to obtain this level of support, you simply must first have a license to their on premise software, or be subscribed to their cloud services. Either way, this is a stand out benefit that the company provides. As mentioned in the previous section, there will still likely be scenarios where a solutions partner will provide more benefit in terms of the dedicated on services.

Summary

When attempting to assess which Robotics Process Automation solution is right for you, there is no one size fits all approach. As this comprehensive guide suggests, there are a wide degree of criteria that should be taken into consideration when seeking to understand which solution is right for your company’s needs. This analysis is designed not to directly enable or inform your decision, but rather to aid in the process of selection.

From costs to implementation, to ease of use and adoption, there is no clear cut winner in this comparison; however, there are certain factors that will likely determine which solution best suits your organizational requirements.

At Edison & Black, we live and breath RPA and provide our clients with the expertise to determine which RPA solution best fits their needs whether it be UiPath, or Automation Anywhere. Get in touch with a member of our consulting team and we’ll help you determine the right platform for your specific objectives. While we appreciate project briefs, they are certainly not required. We’ll guide you through your journey of selection by further facilitating a direct channel of communication with any of the notable RPA vendors.