UiPath Or Automation Anywhere?

RPA developers ask themselves this question all the time.

Would it be wise to explore other RPA tools or should I stick with the one I know? Will it improve my career prospects, or should I learn something else?

I could just answer those questions in few lines and be done with it, but that won’t do justice to the topic at hand.

So I will have to torture you with a 1000+ words long essay before finally giving you the answer you are looking for.

And no, you won’t find the answer if you scrolled towards the end of this article. I will embed it somewhere within the article.

Meh.

Brief History of The Giants

Let’s look at a Brief History of Time on RPA, which is a tagline I didn’t plagiarize from Stephen King.

RIP Stephen King. Your theory on Hawking radiations emitted by Blackholes was spot on.

Go be great.

Go be fabulous.

Tethys Solutions was founded in 2005. Oh, you’ve never heard of Tethys Solutions? Me neither.

That is what Automation Anywhere was once called, before it redefine itself because it didn’t believe that the name it had at the time fully represented what it stood for. Automation Anywhere has continued to grow, and is now a leader in the field of RPA.

Why All the Different Name?

Like I stated before, Automation Anywhere is still growing, and growing at unprecedented rates. The partnerships it has bagged along the way, goes to show just how serious and dedicated they are to the craft, and of the impact they wish to make on the world.

I bet that would make you envious.

Since it is growing at a rapid rate and expanding its suite of products and services, Automation Anywhere will go through several cycles of refining and redefining to establish itself in the market.

The latest Automation Anywhere suite is entirely cloud based, which is a massive leap from where it was just a few years back.

And that’s not all, if you were to compare the earlier versions of Automation Anywhere to the current version which is called Automation 360, you will realize that you cannot draw any sort of comparison.

It’s like a totally new product, with its new look and feel and not to mention, its continuous addition of new features and functionalities which makes it stand out from other RPA tools.

I’ll admit, I am biased since I work predominantly with Automation Anywhere, but trust me, learning this tool will enrich you by automating the boring stuff that you have to deal with on a daily basis, as well as providing you with some amazing career prospects.

Hate it? Automate it.

Love it? Still gonna have to Automate it.

UiPath was founded under the name of DeskOver in 2005. I guess Desktop was a little generic, so they went for something that would make them stand outSide from the crowd.

Be a dear, and place that onto the deskover for me would you. Grandpa is getting old, and won’t be able to keep getting off his chairtop.

But they decided to change the name once more to something that represented what they stood for, something that U and I could traverse along the same Path with, while the robots took over our jobs.

And that something would be a job with UiPath.

You won’t lose your job to the robots, if you are the one responsible for developing them.

Which Tool is Better?

I am not writing this with the expectation that you will stick with either Automation Anywhere or UiPath.

Choosing RPA, means learning anything and everything you can about it.

Different tools have different strengths and weaknesses.

For example, Tables are easily processed in UiPath, since UiPath operates much like a mini Microsoft Visual Studio would, except with a lot of cool features that enable you to automate dull and boring tasks into oblivion.

With Automation Anywhere, the approach is a little different.

You have to pull the Table into a Loop and iterate through the records until you either find what you need, or perform the operations you want onto them.

I’ll say it once more, different tools have different strenghts and weaknesses which means your approach has to be tailored accordingly. Learning various approaches widens your ability to find unique ways to resolve issues.

This is why I believe you gotta learn em’ all.

And that is extent of my designing skills.

It not only increases your career prospects, but also exposes you to a myriad of business processes that you can use to formulate solution which cater to the needs of the organization, either today or in the days to come.

In plain English, the resolutions you develop will help you not only with future clients, but also with your personal tasks.

Maybe a client of yours is fairly proficient with excel VBA and macros and uses them routinely in his excel sheets.

When you start working with him, some of that expertise will rub off onto you, once you are done rubbing those tears off your face from having to learn VBA as well.

I Think <Enter RPA Tool> is Better.

There is no good or bad when it comes to RPA.

You have to understand that you are a RPA Developer, not a UiPath Developer or Automation Anywhere Developer.

Your job is to automate, and the more tools you have at your disposal, the better your career prospects.

That being said, UiPath is incredibly vast, and comes loaded with tons of cool features that Automation Anywhere currently doesn’t have or supports.

I love using LINQ, and plug snippets of LINQ wherever I get the opportunity to, but Automation Anywhere doesn’t support that feature, which makes my eyes swell with tears for some mysterious reason.

Who’s chopping onions here?

So I completely understand why you have that sort of bias, but Automation Anywhere has something UiPath doesn’t.

Partnering up with IBMDelloite and not to mention, Google Cloud is no small feat, mind you. They have partnered up with other companies as well, but these are the ones that stood out the most.

Automation Anywhere is always scaling up, and is definitely worth investing into.

You Mean To Say, Automation Anywhere is Better?

I don’t think any tool is “Better”.

Maybe you could draw a comparison between the two in few aspects, but overall, they are separate products and have their own customer pools, hence come with their own set of unique features and functionalities.

Automation Anywhere targeted BPO processes, and has only recently expanded into other areas, whereas UiPath started off as a Desktop Automation software, made the transition early on, giving it a head start which is why it is where it is today.

You might be comfortable working with UiPath, others might be comfortable working with Automation Anywhere, and the smart ones learn a little of both.

Here’s my advice to you,

Be smart.

I Don’t Get It, Why Not Stick To One Tool? Won’t Learning Both Be a Hassle?

There was a time when BluePrism reigned supreme.

Today it’s UiPath.

Tomorrow it could be Automation Anywhere, or some other tool.

This is why it is important to expand your knowledge base and absorb as much as you possibly can.

And besides, its fun to explore new software, and it only adds to your repertoire.

You’re Probably Right.

I know I am.

Now get to work.

Learning whatever you can about RPA and become an automation pro!

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