Choosing the right (BPA) business process automation tools is vitally important to your business. In today’s digitalization race, organizations are always looking for technology tools to help them drive their business operations efficiently. In this guide, I ranked and reviewed the 8 best business process automation tools, along with my top 4 choices, so that you can pick the best one for your organization.
The best business process automation tools are Nanonets, Camunda, BonitaSoft, Kissflow, ProcessMaker, Appian, Webcon, and Nintex.
PLAN - PRICE
Description
Nanonets
Automate form-intensive, approval-based processes across departments and systems.
Camunda
Design, automate, and improve any process across your organization
BonitaSoft
Re-invent your business processes: streamline, automate, deliver innovation continuously – and create new business opportunities.
KissFlow
An end-to-end workflow platform for all your business needs
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Over 80% of corporate leaders say they are accelerating work process automation and growing their usage of remote labor. The greatest method to accelerate automation is to select the right business process automation tools, which may assist produce faster outcomes with less coding skills and follow the latest business process automation trends.
However, this is easier said than done.
Business process automation can be a difficult endeavor, and selecting the right automation solution to meet your company’s demands is simply one of the project’s successes factors.
What tools are used for business process automation?
Business process automation tools (BPA) are computer programs that automate and streamline both simple and sophisticated organizational processes in businesses of all sizes and across all sectors. They help organizations enhance productivity, cut expenses, and improve customer service by automating time-consuming, repetitive, and error-prone tasks.
Here is a list of the top business process automation tools for your business:
1- Nanonets
Nanonets is an AI-based IDP and workflow automation software that businesses leverage for all kinds of business process automation tasks. Nanonets can help automate any manual business process that involves import, data entry, data validation, data formatting/enhancements, and finally export into some external business software, ERP or accounting tool. Define custom business rules and build automated workflows in a simple no-code environment.
Businesses of all sizes use Nanonets to automate all sorts of business processes end-to-end such as customer/employee on-boarding, KYC, accounts payable, expense management and general accounting/finance workflows.
Pros:
- No-code UI with an intuitive and powerful workflow builder
- Out of the box integrations and connectors with popular business tools and software
- Supports AI-based pre-trained data extractors that can also be customized
- Transparent pricing policy
Cons:
- API documentation needs improvement
- On-prem version is pretty expensive
Best for businesses of all sizes
Pricing:
Starter: First 500 pages free, then $0.3 per page/doc
Pro: Starts at $499/month, then $0.1 per page/doc
Enterprise: Get a quote
2- Camunda
This business process automation tool was founded in 2008 with the goal of helping organizations build automation solutions faster that can scale as your business needs.
Camunda enables business users to collaborate with developers to model and automate processes using BPMN-powered flowchart software that execute with the speed, scale, and resiliency required to compete in today’s digital-first environment.
Hundreds of businesses, like Allianz, Deloitte, and Airbus, use this technology to design, automate, and enhance mission-critical business processes in order to accelerate digital transformation.
Camunda BPA software provides one of the best developer communities to help your team design, build, and automate any complicated business process, with over 100.000 developers. Having such a large network is critical for your team to have a technical reference whenever needed.
On-premises and in the cloud deployment options are available with Camunda.
Pros:
- Editor navigation is simple, and the user interface is fluid
- Extensive out of the box connectors to help integrate with other systems within organizations
- Good integration with JAVA
- Powerful REST API
- High availability and scalability
Cons:
- A consistent learning curve is required
- Documentation needs improvement
- The free version is less reliable than the commercial version
- Database and state persistence are complicated and occasionally sluggish.
Best for small to large businesses
Pricing:
They offer 2 pricing plans: Self-Managed and SaaS.
3- BonitaSoft
Founded in 2009, BonitaSoft is a French open-source business process automation (BPA) software that provides all the components needed to help drive digitalization within organizations.
Bonita enables professional and citizen developers to collaborate to deliver automation projects and applications quickly utilizing best-of-breed DevOps processes and tools.
Hundreds of businesses, like Vodafone, Cisco, and the French Department of Defense, use this technology to design, automate, and enhance mission-critical business processes in order to accelerate digital transformation.
BonitaSoft requires several experiences with different programming or scripting languages including JavaScript, Java, Groovy Script, AngularJS, and BPMN.
On-premises and in the cloud deployment options are available with BonitaSoft.
Pros:
- Easy to use development environment
- Applications can be developed per business needs
- Powerful REST API
- Powerful UI designer with the ability to easily design responsive forms for mobiles, tablets, and laptops
- Supports multiple database engines
- Robust administration modules to install and configure processes at runtime
- Good Reporting & Analytics options
- High availability and scalability
Cons:
- A consistent learning curve is required
- Small out of the box connectors list (you can always create your own custom connector)
- Documentation needs improvement
- Complex to debug processes
- Small active community
- Handling exceptions is complex
Best for small to large businesses
Pricing:
They offer 2 versions: Community and Enterprise.
The community version is completely free to use. However, you don’t get any support from the company unless you upgrade to the enterprise edition.
In case you choose the enterprise edition, you have to contact the company for pricing.
4- Kissflow
This business process automation tool is cloud-based software that allows users to automate business applications with low coding skills. This BPA software offers a straightforward, optimum, and efficient platform for managing and tracking all of your processes.
This BPA tool is used by over 10.000 customers, like PepsiCo, Domino’s, and Uber, to improve their digital experience and aggressively position themselves in competitive marketplaces.
KissFlow is easy to use and hosted in the cloud. It integrates smoothly with Google products such as Gmail, Google Calendar, and so on.
It is only available on the cloud.
Key Features:
- Forms Management
- Customizable Dashboard
- Collaboration Tools
- Process Change Tracking
- Process Modeling & Designing
- Rules-Based Workflow
- Cloud, SaaS, Web-Based
Pros:
- Easy to use
- Powerful Form builder
- Ease of Access
- Excellent support
- Easy to customize
- Easy to generate apps and reports
- Excellent collaboration tools
- Office 365 Support
Cons:
- A steep learning curve is required
- Process modeler has limitations
- Complex to debug processes
- Doesn’t use any standard modeling notation
- Difficult to set up advanced behaviors
Best for small to large businesses
Pricing:
They offer 4 plans detailed below
5- ProcessMaker
Founded in 2000, This business process automation tool is on the mission to simplify the way custom business processes are built and run.
This BPA software offers a low-code workflow automation platform that enables business users to quickly create and deploy complicated workflows. It enables users to easily automate processes and integrate with other third-party systems with low coding skills.
ProcessMaker is a flexible and intuitive software suite that allows you to create, manage, and deploy complex workflows using visual design, and an integrated UI for management, simulation, and testing.
It requires several experiences with different programming or scripting languages including JavaScript, PHP, and MySQL.
On-premises and in the cloud deployment options are available with Processmaker.
Key Features:
- Process modeling & designing
- Reporting/Analytics
- Rules-Based Workflow
- Third-Party Integrations
- Process Modeling & Designing
- Workflow Management
- Cloud, SaaS, Web-Based
Pros:
- Easy to use
- Good administration features
- Reliable architecture
- Excellent support
- Highly flexible form designer
- Rich documentation
- Great support
- Powerful API integration
Cons:
- UI/UX could be improved
- Code debugging features need improvement
- Limited escalation functionalities
- Expensive license price
- In large environments, user management and user assignment become more complicated.
- Poor document management capabilities
Best for medium-sized enterprises
Pricing:
They offer 4 plans detailed below
6- Appian
Appian was founded in 1999 and is considered one of our key business process automation tools. It is a platform that is open, enterprise-grade, and trusted by industry leaders.
It enables you to automate processes considerably more quickly than we are accustomed to doing with conventional development technologies. The wonderful thing about Appian is that you don’t have to write your application’s code line by line; instead, you simply drag and drop the components needed to create your user interfaces.
This BPA software features a free version that can be downloaded and used to test the platform in real-world circumstances. This should give you an idea of how easy it will be to automate procedures.
Appian is only available on the cloud.
Key Features:
- Process Modeling & Designing
- Drag-and-drop Interfaces
- Platform user management
- Third-Party Integrations
- Highly scalable
- Workflow Management
- Cloud, SaaS, Web-Based
Pros:
- Easy to develop processes
- Intelligent case management
- Extensive integration with third-party systems
- Quick application delivery
- Highly flexible form designer
- Great support
- Intuitive user interface
Cons:
- Needs additional database options
- Documentation needs improvement
- Limited user interface customization
- More accurate error handling
- Lack of source control
- Needs more improved debug capabilities
Best for medium to large enterprise
Pricing:
They offer 4 plans detailed below
7- Webcon
Webcon is simple to set up and use. it provides powerful functionalities to give users the ability to design workflows, forms, and business processes with minimal coding needed.
Because of its smooth interface with SharePoint, this BPA software has become the go-to business process automation tool for enterprises that use SP as their document management system.
Getting started with this BPA tool is quite simple and takes very little effort. After a few days of training, you will be ready to begin your process automation adventure. It is most effective when documents must be circulated amongst team members or departments.
Even though it is not widely recognized, I recommend giving it a shot.
They provide a free trial version with no time limit if you use the on-premise version and 30 days trial from their cloud server.
Most of their customers are medium-sized enterprises. On-premises and in the cloud deployment options are available with Webcon.
Key Features:
- Process designer
- Form builder
- Business rules engine
- Content management capabilities
Pros:
- Advanced OCR engine
- Multilingual system interface
- Graphical forms, workflows & business rules designer
- Out of the box integrations including SharePoint Server, SharePoint Online (O365)
- Process development has a low entrance barrier
- Short learning curve
Cons:
- Missing process simulation
- Support for modeling languages
Pricing:
Their pricing module differentiates between the tool as Saas, cloud-hosted virtual machines, or on-premise.
8- Nintex
This business process automation (BPA) tool enhances your productivity by providing simple tools for visually managing, quickly automating, and continually optimizing business processes and workflows.
Nintex makes creating forms and workflows easy. No programming experience is needed. They provide an extensive list of document management capabilities including eSignatures.
Any business process that requires approvals, particularly if those approvals change, is well suited to automation using the Nintex business process automation platform. Nintex also includes a robotic process automation tool that enables the automation of manual operations utilizing any software that is available from a user’s workstation.
I personally haven’t tried it but from the online reviews, I can summarize that this tool is powerful but could be expensive.
The good thing about it is that they provide training and certifications for employees that will be using this business process automation tool to digitize processes.
On-premises and in the cloud deployment options are available with Nintex.
Pros:
- Simple workflows can be created very fast
- The training materials and classes are fantastic
- No-code to low-code
- Integration with SharePoint’s user interface
- Document management capabilities
- eSignatures
Cons:
- Expensive
- Web-version is certainly in need of some enhancements
- Error logs should be enhanced
Pricing:
Nintex workflow standard starts at 910$ per month for 10 workflows
All these prices are for annual billing. Nintex offers a free trial for the product.
Comparison of Best (BPA) Business Process Automation Tools
| BPA Software | Best For | Free Trial | Price | Deployment |
| Nanonets | Businesses of all sizes | Available | Starter: First 500 pages free Pro: Starts at $499/month Enterprise: Get a quote | Cloud and on-premise |
| Camunda | Small to large businesses | Available | Starting 990$/month for 10 users | Cloud and on-premise |
| BonitaSoft | Small to large businesses | Available for unlimited users | Free community edition Enterprise Licensing: Get a quote | Cloud and on-premise |
| Kissflow | Small to large businesses | Available | Basic: 200$/20 users Advanced: 495$/50 users Fully Loaded: 1900$/100 users Enterprise: Get a quote | Cloud |
| ProcessMaker | Small to large businesses | Available | Platform fixed amount billed annually. Plus per-user pricing | Cloud and on-premise |
| Appian | Small to large businesses | Available for unlimited users | $90/user/month. Application Licensing: Get a quote | Cloud |
| Webcon | Small to large businesses | Available | 700$/25 users Enterprise: Get a quote | Cloud and on-premise |
| Nintex | Small to large businesses | Available | Standard: 910$/unlimited users/10 workflows Enterprise: 1400$/unlimited users/10 workflows | Cloud and on-premise |
