The Kofax alternative for buyers who need capture, not a suite.
Tungsten's footprint is the widest in this market: capture, orchestration, RPA, analytics, an e-invoicing network, and — since 2026.1 — LLM classification, email intake and MCP. If you need all of that, buy it. If you need capture, you are paying an order of magnitude more for the parts you will never switch on.
The honest read
- The scanner ecosystem, with VRS as the image-processing benchmark
- Orchestration far beyond capture: RPA, analytics, process modelling
- An e-invoicing network sold as a service
- An analyst-recognised position that clears procurement on its own
- Price by an order of magnitude — flat licence, no page meter, no module unlocks
- Deployment simplicity: one artifact, PostgreSQL, done in an afternoon
- MCP parity — an agent surface with OAuth 2.1, scopes, risk tiers and its own audit channel
- Multi-tenancy without a second deployment
- Browser-only hubs, embeddable in your own product
The renewal conversation. When a capture-only need is quoted against an automation-suite price list, the gap is not a discount away.
KognitCapture vs Kofax / Tungsten Automation, side by side
| Capability | KognitCapture | Kofax / Tungsten Automation |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Capture platform, deliberately | Capture inside a process automation suite |
| Typical contract | Flat licence for the deployment | $50k – $500k a year, plus services |
| Services to first value | Blueprint provisions a working project in one action | Commonly $20k – $150k+ |
| Agent surface | 100+ curated MCP tools, scoped and audited | MCP shipped in TotalAgility 2026.1 |
| Image processing | 16-step chain, ordered per project | VRS — the market benchmark |
| Tenancy | Native tenant → organisation → project | Per-deployment |
What each one costs to run
Put in your own volume →| KognitCapture | Kofax / Tungsten Automation | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence shape | One annual licence per installation, by turnover band; unlimited pages | Users + modules + volume |
| Typical annual outlay | Licence from €900 + your infrastructure and team | $50k – $500k a year |
| Marginal cost per page | €0 local · tokens only if you choose a remote model | Metered |
| Who runs it | You do, on your own hardware | Heavy; services $20k–150k+ |
Moving from Kofax / Tungsten.
Tungsten now owns Ephesoft as well. Consolidation under one owner tends to arrive with one price list, which is exactly when a flat, self-hosted platform gets a hearing.
Read the migration brief →Questions buyers ask us about Kofax / Tungsten
01We already run TotalAgility for process automation. Why change capture?
You may not need to. The strongest shape is often capture here, feeding your existing orchestration through REST, JDBC, message bus or file drop — you keep the process estate and stop paying capture volume fees.
02Does anything replace VRS?
The pre-processing chain covers deskew, despeckle, binarize, crop, line and punch-hole removal and colour dropout, ordered per project. VRS remains the benchmark on hostile paper; on ordinary departmental scanning the difference rarely survives a bake-off.
Compare against something else
All nine →Product and company names are trademarks of their respective owners and are used for identification and comparison only. KognitCapture is not affiliated with any of them.