Boomi vs Microsoft Power Automate

Boomi is an integration platform as a service (iPaaS) from Boomi, LP, headquartered in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. Rick Nucci founded it in 2000, its cloud integration service launched in 2007, Dell bought it in 2010, and Francisco Partners and TPG acquired it from Dell in 2021 for about $4 billion. Steve Lucas has been chairman and CEO since 2022. It connects applications, data and APIs across cloud and on-premise systems for more than 30,000 customers, by its own count.

The platform covers low-code integration with a large connector library and runtimes that can run in Boomi's cloud or on your own servers, B2B/EDI, event streams, Flow for low-code apps, and managed file transfer from the 2025 Thru acquisition. API Management grew through the 2024 purchases of Mashery and APIIDA's business, Data Hub handles master data, and Data Integration (from Rivery) adds ELT and CDC. Agentstudio and Agent Control Plane build and govern AI agents with MCP tools. Pricing is a $99/month pay-as-you-go tier plus usage, or annual editions quoted by sales.

Boomi fits mid-size and large IT teams with hybrid estates of ERP, CRM and legacy systems. It is complex for business users, edition pricing is opaque, and Zapier or Make are far simpler for SaaS-to-SaaS automation. Workato targets business-led automation, while Fivetran and Matillion focus on warehouse ELT.

In March 2026 Boomi was named a Leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for iPaaS for the 12th year in a row, placed highest for Ability to Execute. Prototype on the 30-day trial or pay-as-you-go before negotiating an annual edition.

Microsoft Power Automate is the workflow automation and robotic process automation (RPA) service in Microsoft's Power Platform. It launched in 2016 as Microsoft Flow and was renamed Power Automate in late 2019, and Microsoft's 2020 purchase of Softomotive brought in the desktop RPA engine. Its core job is automating repetitive work across Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365 and other apps, from approvals to legacy desktop software.

Cloud flows run on triggers or schedules and use more than 1,000 connectors. Desktop flows record and replay actions in Windows apps and websites, attended on a user's PC or unattended on bots. Copilot builds flows from plain-language descriptions, and process and task mining show where work stalls. Many Microsoft 365 licences already include flows with standard connectors; the Premium plan adds premium connectors, attended RPA and Dataverse, while Process and Hosted Process license unattended bots.

Power Automate fits organizations that already run on Microsoft 365, Teams and SharePoint, especially when legacy desktop apps need RPA. It is clumsier for non-Microsoft SaaS stacks, and licensing is confusing. Zapier is faster for simple SaaS-to-SaaS automations, Make offers a more visual builder at lower cost, and n8n can be self-hosted with full code control.

In May 2026 Microsoft put self-healing desktop flows, which recover when buttons move or other UI elements change, into public preview, and its 2026 release wave 1 deepens Copilot Studio links between agents and cloud flows. Check what your Microsoft 365 licences already cover before buying.