Robomotion

I have tried more than a dozen RPA tools from API integrations like Make, ActivePieces, Boost, and n8n to the browser/desktop automations like UIPath, ZeroWork, Power Automate, RTILA, and Taskmagic. I have refunded other AppSumo automation deals and let some mothball, but the one I go back to again and again is Robomotion. If you want to automate browser actions and desktop programs, it is simply head and shoulders above the others.

Robomotion has let me build so many cool automations for myself and my colleagues. We have RM handling file conversions and transfers, uploads and downloads to/from password-protected sites, reading and modifying Excel and Word files (even triggering Excel macros), sending API calls to all kinds of services (including LLMs/AI), and much more--things no other platform could do (or if they could they required a much steeper learning curve).

I was on RM T2 for a year and then upgraded to T4 because I was using it so much and needed to implement queues. Best investment of the decade. I tell anyone who asks me about desktop automation to buy this and ignore the rest. And I have learned a ton from the folks on their Discord, going from being decent at RPA to blowing people's minds. I recommend at least T2 for triggers.

Now, nothing is perfect, so a few caveats about RM just so you can buy it fully informed (but you should definitely buy it!):

1. RM cloud run hours are expensive. I love RM and want to support them, but if you're going to use a lot of cloud run hours, it's cheaper to spin up your own VPS and host a robot there to run your cloud hours. Ubuntu is the preferred OS for that. Or do what I did and repurpose an old PC as a 24/7 server in your home/office and let it run RM in addition to whatever else you need. I did that and then bought just a few cloud run hours "a la carte" as a backup in case my home server is offline.

2. RM runs best on Windows in my opinion. People will differ on this, as the Ubuntu install is good and runs really nicely, but you get better automation of desktop actions and Excel with RM running on Windows than any other OS. The reason for that is no fault of RM's -- it's just that Microsoft has baked a bunch of desktop automation tools right into their OS and others have not. That just makes a lot more possible in Windows than on other platforms, regardless of which RPA tool you use.

3. There is a learning curve. Spend some time with the Robomotion Academy videos and reading the documentation, then play around with it and learn by doing. If you run into trouble, ask on the Discord. Support there is awesome but there is a very reasonable expectation that you have spent a little effort to learn the platform and tried to build it yourself before asking for help. If you are doing browser automation, learn Xpath selectors. I have no idea why people use CSS selectors anymore, as Xpath is quite easy once you get the hang of it and is incredibly powerful with boolean operators, truncators, etc. Tons of sites/videos on this and you can learn it in under an hour. Xpath will up your browser automation game 1,000%.

4. JavaScript helps but isn't essential -- and Sonnet 3.5 or 3.7 (or some other LLMs) can write 99% of the JavaScript you might use. Once you start integrating some basic JS (even if it's 100% written by AI), you will find you can do so much more with RM.

5. Other tools are for other needs. RM isn't a replacement for Make/Boost, n8n, Activepieces, etc.. Those are just API integrations with some basic automation functions, not RPA platforms. They aren't designed to handle local files (or really handle any files well) and they can't interact very effectively with Excel (though some do ok with Google Sheets). They also are not going to do any kind of desktop automation and probably not any browser automation either. BUT, they are really good and connecting together APIs with some logic and maybe custom JS, then running in the cloud 24/7. I use ActivePieces a lot for API to API interactions that are triggered by webhook, form, or date/time. It's just a different tool for a different purpose.

Zerowork is also good if you only need browser automation. I really like ZW and their development has been great, but it's designed to do one thing well: browser automation. It scrapes really nicely and plays well with most APIs, but it lags far behind RM in file handling and can't do desktop automation. But, ZW is still a tool I love and use when I am strictly working in the browser and APIs.

Past that, it's hard for me to recommend any of the other options. UIPath and Power Automate are too hard to learn for most. RTILA made no sense to me, I could not get it to do what I need. Taskmagic I poured hours into learning and found completely unusable and non-functional (and the lead dev terribly rude and condescending).

In the end, Robomotion wins. There's simply nothing else I can recommend as highly in this space.