Top 2 Open Source and Commercial RPA Tools — Part III
In Part 1 of our Open Source RPA Blog series, we discussed the need for Open-Source RPA solutions and in Part 2 we discussed one of the foremost Open-source RPA software available — OpenRPA. Well, in this blog we look at a few other Open-Source alternatives which have garnered quite some attention.
Meet me in the Middle: Open Source RPA Options
1. Automagica
The Automagica project began in 2018 with a focus on creating open-source software to ensure that Robotic Process Automation technologies were accessible to all.
Key Differentiator
- Works on python. No need to learn a proprietary coding language. Resources are widely available and free. The key differentiator as python is the language of choice for ML and AI
- Can be run in a single core or 500 MB m/c or a container in headless mode. Containers allow to easily scale the solution really fast.
Everything required to build and run the robot is opensource. The business model relies on the Automagica portal for sustainability. Here is where one would find orchestration features that enterprises need. E.g. managing the robots, audit logging, security features, scaling up robots, managing jobs, queuing jobs, etc. Intelligent queuing can be used to configure multiple robots for the same tasks.
Robots can be triggered with an API call or with email. Monitoring and reporting of robot activities which can be sent over the web and integrates with various tools like MS Teams and Slack.
The portal is a commercial offering as a cloud-based SAAS or an on-premise deployment (usually containerized). The architecture is flexible for hybrid cloud deployments. Agents on the desktop are connected to the packages on the portal.
The portal is offered free under the community plan — it can be used for non-commercial purposes or evaluation purposes. It is generally a paid service through limited capabilities free tier for commercial use is being explored as well.
2. Robocorp
Robocorp has a developer-first philosophy to experiment and create products that liberate humans to use their energy on what’s important at work.
Key Differentiator
- Built on top of Robot Framework — a generic open-source RPA and test-automation framework built using python.
Key Features of Robocloud
- Robocloud has a dashboard, a list of processes, activities that can be automated, of workers, and a credentials vault.
- Activities can be uploaded from a local workstation or by linking it to a GitHub URL.
- Processes can contain multiple activities that can be scheduled. Processes are controlled through the use of APIs as well.
- Each of the activities can run on separate workers. Activities can be hosted on containerized workers as well.
- Activity run details can be viewed in logs and in an execution output console for output trace.
Unattended mode Robots can be executed in a containerized runtime environment. This requires zero infrastructure. Clients can bring in their virtual machines that run within the corporate network.
Robocorp provides Support for paid tiers. Different tiers have a different level of support. There is a flat subscription fee for Robocloud. It has a free tier as well for non-commercial uses. Developer-tools are open-source. Orchestrator service is always in the cloud. Workers can be on the cloud or on-premises. The developer has control over what data moves between the orchestrator and workers. Robocorp operates a Slack channel and a Forum for developer queries and support.
What’s Next?
Ask us anything. We are with you every step of the way.
