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Microsoft Power Automate vs. Microsoft Visual Studio

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Microsoft Power Automate

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Power Automate is an advanced automation platform offering a range of features, including AI-powered automation, robotic process automation (RPA), business process automation (BPA), digital process automation (DPA), and process/task mining. The platform aims to empower organizations to securely automate their operations at scale by leveraging low-code and AI technologies.

    $15

    per month per user

    Visual Studio

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AVisual Studio (now in the 2022 edition) is a 64-bit IDE that makes it easier to work with bigger projects and complex workloads, boasting a fluid and responsive experience for users. The IDE features IntelliCode, its automatic code completion tools that understand code context and that can complete up to a whole line at once to drive accurate and confident coding.

    $45

    per month

    Pricing
    Microsoft Power AutomateVisual Studio
    Editions & Modules
    Power Automate Premium
    $15
    per month per user
    Power Automate Process
    $150
    per month per bot
    Hosted RPA add-on
    $215
    per month per bot
    Process Mining add-on
    $5,000
    per month per tenant
    Professional
    $45.00
    per month
    Enterprise
    $250.00
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft Power AutomateVisual Studio
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Microsoft Power AutomateVisual Studio
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    Chose Microsoft Power Automate
    within my scope of work here, we did not evaluate competitive software. Primarily we looked at homegrown solutions that were massive shell scripts and nested code blocks... the power automate tool integrates MUCH better with the azure environment,
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Power Automate
    Microsoft Flow has a lot of resources to study, and it is from a reputed company.
    Incentivized
    Microsoft
    Chose Visual Studio
    I have not developed with other products since a lot of years because this is the official development application in our company. I think other applications could be similar as I was developing in other but this was a lot of years ago, so it is not a good question to answer.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    93%
    Would buy again
    78 Answers
    98%
    Would buy again
    40 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    75 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    40 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    93%
    Happy with the feature set
    78 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    41 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    51 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    32 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    58 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    36 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft Power AutomateVisual Studio
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    Medium-sized Companies
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    Score7.3 out of 10
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    Score9.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    ServiceNow AI Platform
    Score8.5 out of 10
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    Score9.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft Power AutomateVisual Studio
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.6
    (89 ratings)
    9.1
    (118 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.3
    (9 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    9.2
    (15 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.9
    (12 ratings)
    8.8
    (15 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.9
    (2 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.3
    (39 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Professional Services
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft Power AutomateVisual Studio
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    Very useful RPA tools for automating processes with minimal coding and drag-and-drop functionality, with a wide variety of triggers, including scheduled time-based triggers and activity-based triggers, such as modifying a file/list in SharePoint to run a Power Automate flow. Very easy-to-use UI with native integration with every Microsoft product, and a very low automation failure rate for deployed workflows.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    When working with base C# code for desktop and web projects, then Microsoft Visual Studio is ideal as it provides the libraries and interfaces needed to quickly create, test and deploy solutions. It is when slightly more complex scenarios are required that issues can arise. The built-in integration for things like PowerBI Paginated Reports and dashboards is far from ideal.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Microsoft
    • Sending confirmation email to clients and user once the flow is triggered.
    • Fetching or Dumping files from one location to another if the flow is triggered.
    • Schedule flow helps to send alerts and triggers the flow at a specific interval of time to carry out the required task.
    • Power Automate also be used to convert any file format to a specific file format and save it to the required location
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • I like how the tabs and panels are organized; everything is gathered together so you can find what you're looking for quickly.
    • If you can't find something, there's a thorough search engine that searches all of Visual Studio's features.
    • The Team Foundation Server feature is fantastic since it allows us to easily deploy and roll back changes on the server.
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • Steep learning curve.
    • It can be slow to develop simple solutions compared to other automation platforms such as Smarsheet.
    • Troubleshooting and developing can be frustrating without proper access to edit the code directly.
    • Only able to edit through the GUI and with expressions.
    • Many ways to do the same thing can be frustrating when you need to rework your flow.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Would be great if there was a better way to save and restore open tabs.
    • The built-in test runner can be improved, for example, by adding the ability to save a set of commonly run tests, etc.
    • Better integration for Microsoft SQL server would be great.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    The tool is very useful when used with its various native connectors, taking great advantage of the integration between the components and systems of the Office365 universe. However, its cost is still high, and automation using more advanced components containing AI resources becomes unfeasible for some companies. Due to the financial crisis that many companies are currently experiencing, investment in automation systems or tools is taking a back seat.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    VS is the best and is required for building Microsoft applications. The quality and usefulness of the product far out-weight the licensing costs associated with it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Microsoft
    Power Automate features a clean and intuitive user interface that allows users to create, manage, and monitor workflows easily. The UI is designed to be accessible to both technical and non-technical users, with drag-and-drop functionality for building workflows. Power Automate supports integration with a wide range of Microsoft and third-party applications. This flexibility in integration allows users to automate workflows across various systems, enhancing overall productivity and efficiency.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    I love the overall usability of Microsoft Visual Studio. I’ve been using this IDE for more than 20 years, and I’ve seen it evolve by leaps and bounds. Today, with AI and code-suggestion/completion features, developers no longer need to remember countless libraries, methods, or language syntax, or invest a huge amount of programming effort to complete a project. It truly offers everything a developer needs to program, debug, test, and deploy in a single IDE.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    both Community support and Microsoft official support typically respond to (and resolve) reported issues in a VERY expedient manner, usually going above and beyond for education and bugfixing. I have been thoroughly impressed with the level of support I had been provided in the past.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    There are many resources available supporting Visual Studio IDE. Microsoft whitepapers, forum posts, and online Visual Studio documentation. There are countless demonstration videos available, as well. If users are having issues, they can call Microsoft Support, but depending on the company's agreement with Microsoft, the number of included support calls will vary from organization to organization. I've found that Microsoft support calls can be hit or miss depending on who you get, but they can usually get you with the right support person for your issue.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Microsoft
    after reviewing the main features of Power Automate, the Microsoft trainer focused on some of our real life use cases implementation, from simple to more advanced.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    IT is very complicated to understand all the functions that the environment has if you are not familiar with this type of development environments. It is important to select a good in-person training to achieve to understand all the possibilities and the capacity of the application. In this case, you will be able to develop a lot type of different applications.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Microsoft
    although it was productive, it is more difficult to stay focused and in a 7 hours a day online training (including screen share issues and the fact that the trainer just can't precisely show the exact location of your mistake)
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    If you are not accustomed to develop in this type of development environments it would be complicated to follow all the parts of the course because if the course does not include a great tour with all the concepts to develop you will not have the option to understand all the functions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Microsoft
    Overall, our experience implementing Microsoft Power Automate has been positive, with a relatively low barrier to entry and a fast time-to-value—especially because it integrates natively with Microsoft 365, which we were already using extensively. With Respect to migration, I had a very good experience where existing workflows were reviewed and simplified. Unnecessary steps were removed. Business rules were reimplemented using Power Automate logic. We migrated Approval workflows, email-based notifications, SharePoint-centric processes, and simple integrations.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Power Automate is worlds ahead of Zapier in so many ways. The looping, DOM access, and flow controls are much better. I feel that accessing different data within previous connectors used in a flow is much easier in Microsoft Power Automate as well. The custom connector creation process is a lot more pleasant in Microsoft Power Automate. The DateTime data type is handles MUCH better in Microsoft Power Automate, which is reason enough to use it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    I personally feel Visual Studio IDE has [a] better interface and [is more] user friendly than other IDEs. It has better code maintainability and intellisense. Its inbuilt team foundation server help coders to check on their code then and go. Better nugget package management, quality testing and gives features to extract TRX file as result of testing which includes all the summary of each test case.
    Read full review
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Microsoft
    I have not done any participations
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Professional Services
    Microsoft
    Microsoft's professional services provide hands-on support throughout the implementation lifecycle of Power Automate.This includes initial setup, configuration, integration with existing systems, testing, and deployment. They ensure that workflows are correctly designed, optimized for performance, and aligned with security best practices.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • You can automate a lot of process very easy like automatic mails for status updates and such. This will save a lot of time and is more accurate, faster and up-to-date than a user can be.
    • Task approval is centralized and automatic reminders save us a lot of time.
    • The ROI is good if you have a lot of use cases and things to automate
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Using the integration between Visual Studio and our source control service, the cost of re-work and losing code is drastically reduced.
    • Paid versions of Visual Studio enable developers to be so much more productive than hacked-together open source solutions that it's hard to imagine developing in Windows without it.
    • When combined with support subscriptions and the vast array of free online help options available, Visual Studio saves our developers time by keeping them coding and testing, not wasting their time trying to guess their way out of problems or spend endless hours online hoping to find answers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Microsoft Power Automate Screenshots

    Screenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Work Queues, Initial pageScreenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Signed-in web portal home pageScreenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Signed-in web portal create pageScreenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Desktop designerScreenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Hosted RPAScreenshot of Microsoft Power Automate (Interface Screenshot) - Display of DLP violations (on Run)