RPA gets bought for one specific reason: a process runs on a system old enough, or locked-down enough, that there's no API worth building against, so a bot has to click through the screen the way a person does. That's a genuinely different job from the API-based workflow automation covered elsewhere on this site, and it comes with a different risk profile too — a UI changes, the bot breaks, and someone has to notice before a real error reaches production. This ranking checked what a real bot-building seat costs where that's published at all, whether a genuinely free or community edition exists, and how the market's heaviest consolidation wave in years — Blue Prism into SS&C, Kryon into Nintex, WorkFusion repositioned entirely away from RPA — has reshaped who's actually still selling a dedicated RPA product.
Visibility in this ranking can be paid for. Payment moves a vendor's position within the
shortlist; it never adds a vendor, and it never changes a word of the review. The largest vendors in RPA software
cannot hold places 1 to 3. How it works: placement disclosure ·
editorial process.
How we ranked these
Setup: recording clicks is easy, surviving a UI change is the real job
Standing up a first bot in this category means recording or scripting a sequence of clicks, keystrokes and screen reads against a specific application, then handling the inevitable case where a field didn't load in time or a window opened in the wrong place. A simple, well-defined task — copying values from one screen into another — can be automated in an afternoon with any of the visual recorders in this ranking. The real setup cost shows up in maintenance, not initial build: a UI-driven bot breaks whenever the underlying application changes its layout, a dialog box or a login flow, so the ongoing job is watching for silent failures rather than one-time configuration, which is the opposite of what a team new to this category usually expects.
The real price: genuinely free at one end, five-figure contracts at the other
Pricing in this category runs from genuinely free to five-figure enterprise contracts, and the two ends of that range solve different problems. UiPath and Automation Anywhere both publish a free Community Edition aimed at individuals and small teams; ElectroNeek, Nintex and TagUI also offer a real free trial or a fully free open-source tool. Above that, Microsoft prices Power Automate by the bot ($150 to $215 a month per unattended bot) rather than by seat, IBM publishes a rare transparent enterprise number starting near $981 a month, and the rest of the market — UiPath's Standard and Enterprise tiers, Automation Anywhere, SS&C Blue Prism, Tungsten Automation — is quote-only, with the final number depending on bot count, attended versus unattended licensing, and how many modules get added.
Getting your data out: logs travel, the bot logic itself doesn't
A bot's actual logic — the recorded click sequence, the exception-handling rules, the credential vault it draws from — is the least portable thing in this category. Every vendor here stores that logic in its own proprietary format, and none publish an export standard another RPA platform can import directly, so a real migration between two of these tools means rebuilding every bot from the recording forward rather than moving a file. Execution logs and audit trails typically export as CSV or through an API, which covers compliance reporting reasonably well, but the bot definitions themselves are the genuine lock-in point a buyer should ask about before scaling a program on any single vendor here. The credential vault deserves its own question, too: most platforms store the passwords a bot uses to log into other systems inside their own encrypted store, and losing access to that vault on the way out means re-entering every credential by hand in whatever replaces it.
Independence from the vendor: the category's heaviest consolidation wave in years
This category consolidated harder than most through 2025 and 2026. SS&C Technologies, a US financial-software company, now owns Blue Prism outright, ending its run as an independently traded UK company. Nintex acquired Kryon Systems, whose old domain now redirects straight into Nintex's own RPA product page. WorkFusion repositioned its entire site around financial-crime-compliance AI agents and dropped RPA branding altogether, despite now operating as 'a UiPath company.' None of these changes are prominently explained on the acquired brand's own marketing, so a buyer shortlisting 'Blue Prism' or 'Kryon' as independent options today is actually evaluating SS&C or Nintex, respectively, under an older name.
Who it's for: a specific fix for systems with no usable API
Three different buyers show up looking for RPA, and only one of them is actually solving the problem this category is built for. A team automating a legacy desktop application, a green-screen mainframe terminal, or any system with genuinely no usable API needs UI-driven RPA specifically — that's the job UiPath, Automation Anywhere and the rest of this ranking exist to do. A team whose systems already expose a decent API is usually better served by the workflow-automation and iPaaS tools covered elsewhere on this site, which are cheaper to build and far less fragile than a UI-driven bot for the same result. A developer or student wanting to learn the category, or automate a single personal task, fits the free Community and open-source tiers here — UiPath, Automation Anywhere, TagUI — better than any paid enterprise tier.
The 11 tools, reviewed
#1 ElectroNeek
RPA and AI agents built for MSPs, with a confirmed free trial · United States · electroneek.com
Built for MSPs Confirmed free trial Founded 2019
ElectroNeek is built specifically around how managed service providers sell automation to their own clients, packaging RPA, AI agents and document processing into named bundles rather than a single generic platform — a genuinely different go-to-market from the enterprise-first majors in this ranking. Founded in New York in January 2019 and now based in South San Francisco after joining Y Combinator, it explicitly states it offers a free trial for new users, one of the more straightforward trial confirmations in this whole category.
Where it falls short
ElectroNeek does not publish exact dollar pricing for any of its three named packages, so a real cost estimate still requires a sales conversation despite the confirmed trial. Its MSP-first packaging can also read as more complex than necessary for a single company automating its own internal processes rather than reselling automation to clients.
Wrong for
A large enterprise wanting a single company-wide bot orchestration platform with mature governance tooling, where ElectroNeek's MSP-oriented packaging is a less natural fit than the bigger, more established platforms in this ranking.
Pricing: Three named packages (AI Agents & Process Management, Document Processing, RPA & Integrations) plus a custom Enterprise tier; exact prices require a sales conversation. (free trial)
Visit ElectroNeek →
#2 Nintex RPA
Attended and unattended bots, now including former Kryon Systems technology · United States · nintex.com
Includes former Kryon technology Confirmed free trial Part of Nintex Automation platform
Nintex's RPA product sits inside its broader Automation platform rather than standing alone, which suits a team that wants bot-building in the same system as its workflow and document automation. Nintex acquired Kryon Systems, and Kryon's old domain now redirects directly into Nintex's own RPA product page — the Kryon technology lives on here rather than as an independent product, which this ranking treats as one listing rather than two.
Where it falls short
Nintex does not publish RPA-specific pricing anywhere on its site, and while a free trial CTA is confirmed live on the product page, the exact duration and terms are not disclosed publicly. Nintex itself is US-headquartered and private-equity backed, by TPG Capital and Thoma Bravo, despite originally being founded in Australia, which is worth knowing if company independence matters to a buyer.
Wrong for
A buyer wanting RPA as a fully standalone product with its own dedicated pricing page, rather than one feature inside a larger workflow-automation platform's commercial bundle.
Pricing: Quote-only; not published. (free trial)
Visit Nintex RPA →
#3 TagUI
Free, open-source RPA maintained by AI Singapore · Singapore · github.com
Fully free Open source Government-backed maintainer
TagUI is the one genuinely free option in this entire ranking with no paid tier lurking behind it — the tool describes itself plainly as 'Free RPA tool by AI Singapore,' and it is maintained by AI Singapore, a Singapore-government-backed national AI program rather than a commercial software company. That maintainer structure is unusual for this category, but it means there is no vendor lock-in risk of the kind that runs through every commercial platform in this ranking.
Where it falls short
TagUI lacks the enterprise governance features — centralized bot orchestration, role-based access, audit logging at scale — that a large organization running hundreds of bots typically needs, and as a community-maintained tool it carries no commercial support contract or SLA. Its publisher is a national research program rather than a company with a traditional pricing and support structure, which some procurement processes are not set up to handle smoothly.
Wrong for
A large enterprise needing commercial support contracts, guaranteed SLAs and centralized governance across hundreds of bots, which is not what a community-maintained open-source tool like TagUI is built to provide.
Pricing: Free, fully open source. No paid tier exists. (open source)
Visit TagUI →
#4 Laiye
RPA-to-AI-agent automation platform, market leader in China by its own count · China · laiye.com
RPA to AI agent roadmap Confirmed free trial China market leader by self-report
Laiye frames its own product roadmap explicitly as a three-stage evolution — traditional RPA, then RPA plus document AI, then autonomous AI agents it calls Digital Workers — and claims the top share of the agentic process automation market in China. It offers several clearly confirmed 'start for free' pathways and a dedicated free-trial page, which is more self-serve access than several larger Western platforms in this ranking provide.
Where it falls short
Laiye does not disclose an exact HQ address or founding year on the pages checked, and its go-to-market content is heavily weighted toward the Chinese market, referencing customers like China Mobile and Sinopharm, which makes it a less obvious first choice for a Western buyer than the more globally documented vendors here. No dollar pricing is published anywhere.
Wrong for
A Western enterprise buyer wanting a vendor with a fully documented US or European legal entity and published dollar pricing, where Laiye's China-market focus and undisclosed HQ make procurement diligence harder than with better-documented competitors.
Pricing: Not published; multiple free-trial and free-download pathways exist instead of listed tiers. (free trial)
Visit Laiye →
#5 Datamatics TruBot
RPA product inside Datamatics' Intelligent Automation Platform · India · datamatics.com
Part of a broader automation suite Industry templates for BFSI, insurance and healthcare Established outsourcing heritage
TruBot is the RPA component of Datamatics' broader Intelligent Automation Platform, sold alongside a document-processing product, TruCap+, and a BI tool, TruBI, rather than as a fully standalone product. Datamatics itself has a long heritage as a business-process and data-services company headquartered in Mumbai, which shows up in TruBot's industry-specific templates for banking, insurance and healthcare workflows.
Where it falls short
No pricing page or free trial could be confirmed for TruBot specifically during this review — the dedicated product page was not reachable, leaving only the vendor's general marketing to go on. That makes TruBot the least self-serve-transparent vendor in this ranking; a buyer should expect to start with a sales conversation rather than any public pricing signal.
Wrong for
A buyer wanting to self-serve a trial or see published pricing before talking to sales, since neither was confirmed available for TruBot at the time of this review.
Pricing: Not published; no dedicated pricing page was reachable for this review. (none)
Visit Datamatics TruBot →
#6 Tungsten Automation (Kofax) RPA
RPA inside a document-and-workflow automation suite, rebranded from Kofax · United States · tungstenautomation.com
Rebranded from Kofax Private-equity owned Document-capture heritage
Tungsten Automation is the 2023 rebrand of Kofax, following a restructuring under private-equity owners Clearlake Capital and TA Associates, and its current site leans heavily toward document capture, AP/AR automation and print automation rather than leading with RPA the way it once did. The RPA capability itself is still present and combines low-code bot building with the company's long-standing cognitive-capture technology.
Where it falls short
No pricing page, free trial or community edition could be found anywhere on the current site — every path leads to a demo or sales-contact request, making this one of the least self-serve-accessible vendors in this ranking. Its own marketing emphasis has also visibly shifted away from RPA toward document processing, which is worth confirming directly if RPA specifically is the priority.
Wrong for
A buyer specifically prioritizing RPA as the lead capability rather than document capture and AP/AR automation, since Tungsten Automation's current positioning and site structure lead with the latter.
Pricing: Quote-only; no pricing or free trial found on the pages checked. (none)
Visit Tungsten Automation (Kofax) RPA →
#7 UiPath
The category's largest dedicated platform, with a genuinely free Community Edition · United States · uipath.com
Founded in Romania, now NYSE-listed Free Community Edition 60-day Standard trial
UiPath was founded in Bucharest, Romania in 2005 and still leads its own about-us page with that origin story, but it is publicly traded on the NYSE under ticker PATH and legally headquartered in New York today. It combines the deepest bot-building toolset in this ranking — Studio for building, Orchestrator for fleet management, AI-powered document understanding — with a genuinely free Community Edition, an unusually generous entry point for a company of its scale.
Where it falls short
UiPath's Basic paid tier is capped at just 2 robots and restricted to EU-only customers, which limits how far a small team can grow before hitting a full sales conversation for the Standard or Enterprise tiers, both quote-only. Its size and market position also mean pricing negotiations and implementation projects can move at an enterprise pace even for a mid-sized buyer.
Wrong for
A very small team or solo automator wanting to grow past a handful of bots without eventually facing a quote-only enterprise sales process, since UiPath's free and low-cost tiers are capped fairly low.
Pricing: Community: free forever. Basic: $25/month (5 Basic + 5 Plus + 1 Pro user, 2 robots max, EU only). Standard: quote-only, 60-day free trial. Enterprise: quote-only. (free plan)
Visit UiPath →
#8 Automation Anywhere
Cloud-native automation platform with a free Community Edition for students and developers · United States · automationanywhere.com
Free Community Edition Cloud-native control room Bot Store
Automation Anywhere states it created RPA in 2003, making it one of the category's original vendors, and it now runs as a fully cloud-native platform rather than an on-premises-first one. Its Cloud Community Edition is explicitly marketed as free, full-featured automation for students and developers, positioning it alongside UiPath as one of only two major platforms in this ranking with a genuinely free way to build a real bot.
Where it falls short
No dollar pricing is published anywhere on the site beyond the free Community Edition; every paid tier requires a sales conversation, which makes budgeting difficult without direct vendor contact. The dedicated pricing page also returned a 404 during this review, suggesting the current site structure makes even the sales-contact path less discoverable than it should be.
Wrong for
A buyer wanting to compare an exact published enterprise price against competitors without a sales call, since Automation Anywhere's paid tiers are entirely quote-only.
Pricing: Not published in dollar tiers; a Cloud Community Edition is confirmed free. (free plan)
Visit Automation Anywhere →
#9 Microsoft Power Automate
Cloud workflows plus true desktop RPA, priced transparently per bot · United States · microsoft.com
Published per-bot pricing Deep Microsoft 365 integration 30-day free trial
Power Automate is the most transparently priced platform in this entire ranking, publishing exact monthly figures per bot rather than routing every serious buyer through a sales call: $150 a month for an unattended desktop bot, or $215 including a Microsoft-managed Azure VM to run it on. For a team already standardized on Microsoft 365 or Azure, it also offers the deepest native integration with those systems of any vendor here.
Where it falls short
Power Automate's desktop RPA capability is less mature and less deeply tooled than UiPath's or Automation Anywhere's dedicated Studio environments, and its pricing, while published, can still add up quickly once multiple unattended bots and the process-mining add-on, $5,000 a tenant a month, are combined. It is also most natural for a team already inside the Microsoft ecosystem rather than a heterogeneous one.
Wrong for
A team running mostly non-Microsoft systems with complex, high-volume bot orchestration needs, where a dedicated platform like UiPath or Automation Anywhere offers deeper tooling than Power Automate's desktop RPA layer.
Pricing: Free 30-day trial. Premium: $15/user/month (yearly), includes attended desktop RPA. Process: $150/bot/month (yearly), unattended desktop flows. Hosted Process: $215/bot/month (yearly), includes a Microsoft-managed Azure VM. Process Mining add-on: $5,000/tenant/month. (free trial)
Visit Microsoft Power Automate →
#10 IBM RPA
AI-driven RPA with a published starting price and a no-cost 30-day trial · United States · ibm.com
Published starting price 30-day free trial, no credit card AI-driven document handling
IBM is unusually transparent for an enterprise vendor of its size, publishing a concrete indicative starting price near $981 a month for both its cloud and on-premises RPA offerings, and backing it with a genuine no-cost, 30-day trial that requires no credit card to start. That combination of published pricing and a real trial is rare among the largest names in this ranking.
Where it falls short
IBM's RPA product requires a Windows environment, and the published starting price is explicitly indicative rather than a firm quote, varying by country and tax, so the real number still needs confirmation before budgeting against it. It is also a narrower, more IBM-ecosystem-oriented product than the broader platforms from UiPath or Automation Anywhere.
Wrong for
A team running primarily non-Windows infrastructure, or one wanting the widest third-party integration ecosystem rather than IBM's own stack, where a more platform-agnostic vendor fits better.
Pricing: Cloud (SaaS): starting around $981/month. On-premises: starting around $981/month, indicative, varies by country and tax. Requires Windows OS. (free trial)
Visit IBM RPA →
#11 SS&C Blue Prism
The RPA pioneer, now owned by SS&C Technologies after its UK company was acquired · United States · blueprism.com
Coined the term RPA Now US-owned via SS&C Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader 2025
Blue Prism, originally a Warrington, UK company whose team is credited with coining the term robotic process automation in 2012, was acquired by SS&C Technologies in 2022 and now operates as SS&C Blue Prism, a subsidiary of the US financial-software group rather than an independently traded business. It was named a Leader in Gartner's 2025 Magic Quadrant for RPA and has expanded into AI agent orchestration under its WorkHQ platform.
Where it falls short
SS&C Blue Prism publishes no pricing anywhere on its site, and while a free-trial link exists in the main navigation, exact terms and duration are not disclosed publicly. Its 2022 acquisition by SS&C is not prominently explained on the product's own marketing pages, which matters for a buyer assuming they're evaluating an independent UK company rather than a subsidiary of a US financial-software conglomerate.
Wrong for
A buyer specifically prioritizing an independently owned vendor, or one wanting transparent published pricing before a sales conversation, since Blue Prism is both now-subsidiary-owned and fully quote-only.
Pricing: Quote-only; no pricing tiers published. (free trial)
Visit SS&C Blue Prism →
What the data says about this market
The RPA market's biggest brand names changed hands or changed direction through 2025 and 2026. SS&C Technologies, a US financial-software company, completed its acquisition of Blue Prism — the UK company whose founders are credited with coining the term 'robotic process automation' in 2012 — and now operates it as SS&C Blue Prism, ending Blue Prism's run as an independent, separately traded business. Nintex acquired Kryon Systems, whose website now redirects directly into Nintex's own RPA product pages. WorkFusion, once a well-known name in this exact category, rebuilt its entire homepage around financial-crime-compliance AI agents and dropped RPA branding altogether, while now describing itself on-site as 'a UiPath company.'
Pricing transparency splits along an unusual line in this category: it's not simply majors-versus-challengers, since two of the biggest names, UiPath and Automation Anywhere, both publish a genuinely free Community Edition alongside their quote-only enterprise tiers, while a smaller vendor like Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax) publishes no price or trial at all. Microsoft is the most transparent of the major vendors, publishing exact per-bot monthly pricing — $150 for an unattended bot, $215 including a Microsoft-managed hosting environment — and IBM publishes a rare concrete enterprise starting price near $981 a month rather than routing every buyer through a sales call.
ICT services have grown faster as a share of global trade than most other service categories, from 9.1% of world service exports in 2013 to 14.48% in 2023, with the European Union's share rising even further, from 10.58% to 17.55% over the same period (World Bank). RPA sits inside that growth as one of the more consolidated corners of it: despite the category's origins spanning the UK (Blue Prism), Romania (UiPath's founding) and Israel (Kryon), the vendors still actively selling a dedicated RPA product today are overwhelmingly headquartered, or now owned, in the United States, a pattern this ranking's independence criterion above covers in more detail.
The 11 ranked vendors, counted
- Headquarters by region: North America 8, Asia-Pacific 3
- By country: United States 8, China 1, India 1, Singapore 1
- Pricing model: Quote-only 3, Not published 2, Free tier + published entry tier + quote-only enterprise 1, Free tier + quote-only enterprise 1, Open source 1, Published per-user and per-bot pricing 1, Published starting price (indicative) 1, Quote-only, packaged 1
- Free option: Free trial 6, Free plan 2, None 2, Open source 1
Counted from the 11 vendors on this page. More in our market data.
For the wider market behind RPA software, read our report The Global Shift to ICT Services,
or browse all industry reports.
Questions and answers
What is the best RPA software in 2026?
UiPath remains the most complete platform in this ranking, combining a free Community Edition with the deepest Studio and Orchestrator tooling of any vendor here, though its legal headquarters moved from Bucharest, Romania to New York years ago. Automation Anywhere is the closest direct competitor on capability and also offers a free Community Edition. For a smaller team or MSP, ElectroNeek and Nintex are the strongest non-enterprise options, both with a confirmed free trial and a lower price floor than the two largest platforms.
What's the difference between RPA and workflow automation tools like Zapier or n8n?
RPA bots operate an application's user interface directly — clicking, typing and reading the screen — which is necessary when the system being automated has no usable API. Workflow automation and iPaaS platforms like Zapier, Make and n8n connect systems through their APIs instead, which is cheaper to build and far more reliable, but only works when a usable API actually exists. A team should default to API-based workflow automation and reach for RPA specifically when that option isn't available.
Is there a free RPA tool?
Yes. UiPath and Automation Anywhere both publish a genuinely free Community Edition for individuals and small teams, not just a time-limited demo. TagUI, maintained by AI Singapore, is fully free and open source with no paid tier at all. ElectroNeek and Nintex both offer a confirmed free trial rather than a permanent free plan.
What happened to Blue Prism?
Blue Prism, the UK company whose team is credited with coining the term 'robotic process automation' in 2012, was acquired by SS&C Technologies, a US financial-software company, and now operates as SS&C Blue Prism. It is no longer an independently traded business, and the acquisition is not prominently explained on Blue Prism's own current marketing pages.
What happened to Kryon Systems and WorkFusion?
Kryon Systems was acquired by Nintex; its old domain now redirects directly into Nintex's own RPA product page, and it no longer operates as a separate vendor. WorkFusion rebuilt its entire site around financial-crime-compliance AI agents, dropped RPA branding, and now describes itself on-site as 'a UiPath company' — it is not recommended as a standalone RPA option in this ranking.
How much does RPA software cost?
Microsoft Power Automate publishes the clearest per-bot pricing in this category: $150 a month for an unattended bot, or $215 a month including Microsoft-managed hosting. IBM publishes a rare concrete enterprise starting price near $981 a month. UiPath's Basic tier starts at $25 a month for a small EU team, but its Standard and Enterprise tiers, along with Automation Anywhere, SS&C Blue Prism and Tungsten Automation, are all quote-only.
Is UiPath a European company?
UiPath was founded in Bucharest, Romania in 2005, and its own about-us page still leads with that origin story. Its current legal and operating headquarters, however, is in New York, United States, where it is publicly traded on the NYSE under ticker PATH — it is a US company today, not a European one, despite its founding history.
Can I run RPA on Linux or only Windows?
Most of the enterprise platforms in this ranking, including IBM's RPA product, are built primarily for Windows-based desktop automation, which reflects how much legacy business software still runs on Windows. TagUI and a handful of open-source tools support broader operating-system coverage; check a specific vendor's system requirements directly if Linux or macOS support is a hard requirement.
What's the difference between attended and unattended bots?
An attended bot runs alongside a human on their own machine, triggered on demand to help with part of a task the person is still doing — a call-center rep pulling up account data mid-call, for example. An unattended bot runs on its own schedule with no human present, typically on a server, handling a full end-to-end process like nightly batch reconciliation. Most vendors in this ranking price the two differently, since unattended bots usually need a dedicated licensed machine, and several, including Microsoft and IBM, charge noticeably more per month for an unattended bot than for an attended one because of that dedicated infrastructure requirement.
Is Kofax (Tungsten Automation) still an RPA vendor?
Kofax rebranded to Tungsten Automation, and its current site positions the product primarily around document processing, AP/AR automation and print automation rather than leading with RPA branding. It still offers RPA capability and is included in this ranking on that basis, but a buyer specifically shopping for RPA first should check its current positioning directly, since the company's own marketing emphasis has shifted.
How often is this ranking updated?
Whenever a fact underneath it changes: a pricing update, an acquisition like SS&C's purchase of Blue Prism or Nintex's purchase of Kryon, or a vendor repositioning away from RPA entirely, the way WorkFusion did. Every ownership change documented in this guide was confirmed directly on the vendor's own current site rather than from a press release, and this category will be re-checked the same way going forward.
