Paxray vs. Celonis – What’s the Difference in Task Mining and Process Mining? 

Process mining is a powerful enabler of transformation, but in practice, it comes with its own set of challenges. As Utrecht University researcher Dr. Vinicius Stein Dani notes: 

“There is much more work involved before and after process mining techniques can be used, which people often underestimate.” 

Enterprise teams handle challenges, like data preparation, complex deployments, and longer-than-expected time-to-value. A 2023 research study shows 23 factors that can delay adoption, ranging from limited stakeholder buy-in to continued maintenance requirements. 

These obstacles do not diminish the usefulness of process mining, but indicate the need to set reasonable expectations, think things through, and have solid change management to keep the changes sustainable. 

 And that’s exactly what Paxray avoids. 

 Contrary to Celonis (a process mining software), which depends on system logs, interviews, and sometimes screenshots to reconstruct workflows, Paxray focuses on granular task execution data from teams and individuals in real-time. The tool tracks actions like keystrokes, data input, and mouse clicks to know what’s happening. 

 So, which of these is right for your transformation goals? Check out Paxray vs Celonis to learn which is best for you. 

Paxray vs Celonis: An overview 

We all strive for efficiency, but rarely take the time to track it. Unless you track, you cannot improve, evolve, or focus on business process management. For this reason, you need at least a basic understanding of task mining and process mining technologies. 

 And, for that you have Celonis (process mining tool) and Paxray (task mining tool). Both help businesses visualize how work is done, but using very different approaches. 

About Celonis 

Celonis uses system event logs to map how work moves across platforms like SAP, Salesforce, and CRM tools. It shows users who did what, when, and in what sequence. It’s a process mining solution with a high-level view. 

 Key differentiator: 

• Powerful process visualization and dashboards 
• Enterprise-grade integrations with major SAP, Salesforce, and CRM systems
• Excellent for identifying delays, deviations, and compliance gaps

About Paxray 

Paxray is a task mining platform that tracks real-time user activity, such as clicks, keystrokes, data entry, and app switching, directly from the desktop.  Instead of relying on logs or interviews, it shows precisely how teams work across tools.  This means you can identify friction points, such as copy-pasting, tab juggling, or context switching, that traditional process mining may miss. 

This is how the task mining from Paxray looks: 

 Key differentiator: 

• Task-level monitoring: Understand the actual steps employees take to complete work. 
• Rapid setup: There are no integrations, code, or screenshots involved. 
• Zero API dependency: Paxray works across apps, even the most dreaded legacy and homegrown tools.
• Real-time visibility: The tools capture workflows in real-time. 

If you’re comparing Celonis process mining competitors, Paxray provides more detailed and useful information. Why? 

• Celonis tells you what’s supposed to be happening. 
• Paxray shows you what’s actually happening. 

Why is Paxray better than Celonis: Feature breakdown 

The following provides more detailed insights into the individual features of Celonis and Paxray in comparison. 

Technology and approach 

Celonis employs a process mining approach that analyzes event logs from core enterprise systems, such as ERPs and CRMs. While this is powerful for structured processes, it’s limited to the data captured by the systems. Manual steps, media breaks between spreadsheets and email, and everyday user behavior remain invisible. Additionally, Celonis requires extensive setup of system integrations, connectors, and data mapping before you can effectively use it. This complexity leads to long delays before you see value. 

Paxray, by contrast, takes a task mining approach, capturing workflows directly from the user’s perspective. Every click, keystroke, and application switch is recorded, providing teams with a comprehensive view of how work is actually performed. It works across all systems without requiring APIs or integrations. This helps you visualize structured steps within core platforms and media breaks where employees switch between applications.  

By surfacing these hidden variants and exceptions, Paxray reveals the real inefficiencies in cross-application workflows, helping you identify where improvements will make maximum impact.  Implementation is quick and straightforward, as it does not depend on system integration, meaning that Paxray projects are ready to use almost 

Deployment speed 

Celonis typically requires months of preparation because it relies on deep system integrations. Above all, you need IT coordination, access to logs, and different process modeling workshops to start using the software. During that time, known inefficiencies continue to drag on performance, making the wait costly and frustrating.   Many users report delays of up to six months between purchase and full operational readiness. 

Paxray is known for its quick deployment speed. Deployment takes just a few days, and projects are ready to start almost immediately after purchase. This rapid setup enables you to transition from discovery to action quickly, resulting in improvements in weeks rather than waiting months. The ability to see results soon accelerates ROI but also builds momentum for ongoing process optimization. 

 Interesting stats:[1]  Experts estimate it takes 500+ hours per process to manually document real workflows. Paxray automates the whole thing. You get insights in days without log files, downtime, and disruption. 

Data scope and quality 

Celonis is a process mining approach that relies heavily on event logs from systems such as SAP or Salesforce. That’s great if your processes are integrated within those platforms. However, most teams rely on emails, spreadsheets, and other unstructured tools that don’t appear in those logs. As a result, Celonis delivers an incomplete picture of how work really flows.  

The messy handovers and media breaks between tools remain invisible. What happens between those moments, the manual steps involved, delays, and tool-hopping is hidden. And when you can’t see the whole process, it’s impossible to make fully data-driven improvements.  

For instance, Celonis shows you when a ticket was opened or an invoice approved. However, it doesn’t show the 47 clicks, three tools, and 12 minutes of tab switching that occurred in between. 

The true strength of Paxray lies in how the work actually happens across non-standard tools. It records mouse actions, keyboard actions, screen actions, and tab actions in real-time, at the desk level itself. It doesn’t matter whether your team is using Excel, swapping between emails in Outlook, browsing in Chrome, or moving between internal tools. The tool captures all tasks and applications. 

With Case ID tracking, Paxray ensures end-to-end process measurement and control. It tracks customer numbers, order IDs, or tickets across different systems to provide a crystal-clear view of: 

• Where work slows down 
• How much time is being spent 
• What’s holding your team back

Paxray captures what happens during media breaks, those moments when employees switch between systems, such as copying data from Excel into an ERP or responding to emails. These are often the hidden points where efficiency slips, and areas that Paxray brings to light. This level of insight shows how work flows and reveals where it breaks down. Paxray identifies repetitive, manual tasks that are perfect candidates for robotic process automation (RPA). You know exactly where the effort is and where there are opportunities for automation. 

This is how Paxray tracks measurement points and case IDs: 

Interesting stats: 64% of experts in Paxray’s study said they relied on gut feeling because clean data was hard to get. And 68% admitted that rare but critical process variants often go completely unnoticed. Paxray solves both problems by tracking everything, automatically, and objectively. 

Implementation time 

One of the biggest differentiators between Paxray and Celonis lies in how quickly you implement both. Celonis requires deep backend integration, and your APIs must be connected to each system to generate event logs. In enterprise settings, this often means a year or more of IT effort just to start mining data. You won’t get visibility into your workflows until all systems are synced, which significantly delays the ROI timeline. 

Paxray takes a different approach. It’s frontend-based, so there’s no integration work, and you can set it up in just one day with your IT team. It reads UI elements directly from the application that employees already use, minimizing downtime. 

That makes it easy to start small and test one process as a proof of concept. If the ROI adds up, expand at your pace and optimize step-by-step. It’s a lean rollout that delivers value fast. Celonis, by contrast, requires full system integration before insights can be generated. Your break-even point may be 12–24 months away, locking you into a long period before results are realized. 

 Interesting stats: Process mining implementation takes several months per process, with projects often requiring six- to seven-figure budgets. 

Privacy and security 

Celonis is also known as a data collection tool, but it has less transparency at the user level. The processing of the data is primarily outside the premises, and the results are sent back within 10-14 days, which poses a risk to privacy and slows down the operations. Since the platform uses login IDs, it tracks employees at all times, and in most cases, without their consent. Although vendors have stressed that monitoring is not intrusive, most employees will not even realize that their activity is being tracked. In most situations, systems work silently in the background, monitoring user activity using login IDs 24/7. 

In short, micro-level transparency in Celonis is hard to achieve. 

But, Paxray is built keeping users in mind: 

• Employees see a pop-up when tracking is active 
• They can pause or delete sessions at any time 
• Anonymization happens at the workstation level before any data leaves the device 
• Teams can deploy fully on-premise or in a private cloud 

Sensitive details, such as customer names, are automatically masked (e.g., replaced with a phrase like “CUSTOMER NAME”) and the masking is often permanent. Once anonymized, the information is irreversible. Consequently, the information on employees and customers remains secure and protected. The need for enhanced data protection, security, and transparency, as is the case with task mining, are some of the reasons why companies are looking for Celonis process mining alternatives. 

Holger Loos, specialist lawyer for IT law and data protection, describes his experience with Paxray after using it as follows: 

“With the Paxray team, we have developed a solution for a privacy-sensitive software topic that I am proud of.”  

Interesting stats:  In Paxray’s expert study, 46% of respondents reported that employee resistance is a major blocker in business process optimization. The tool addresses this upfront through clear opt-ins, user controls, and a privacy-first design, resulting in less pushback and faster adoption. 

Price and ROI 

Paxray is more affordable to purchase and deploy compared to Celonis. Because it does not require professional services or complex integrations, the initial investment is transparent, and the ROI path is much shorter. When using Paxray, there’re no hidden costs for large internal IT teams or complex integrations. Setup takes just a few days, so teams start seeing value almost immediately. The pricing model and lightweight deployment make it appealing for mid-sized companies that want quick results without the heavy overhead of enterprise-level projects. 

Celonis, on the other hand, is the established “Goliath” in the process mining space because of it’s strong track record with Fortune 500 companies. However, this positioning comes at a steep price. High license fees, costly professional services, and heavy IT involvement are usually required.  

What works well for a global enterprise can feel oversized, rigid, and expensive for smaller and mid-sized organizations. In fact, companies often find that the service costs alone can match or exceed the license cost, turning a €50k license into a €100k+ investment. With such dependencies on specialized resources, ROI is harder to achieve. 

Interesting stat: Compared to manual current-state analysis, which can cost up to €20,000 per subprocess, Paxray’s automated model delivers full visibility at a fraction of the cost, often staying comfortably in the five-digit range. 

Paxray vs Celonis: A quick comparison 

Here’s a quick process and task mining tool comparison:  

Which should you use: Paxray vs Celonis? 

The choice between Paxray and Celonis boils down to what kind of visibility you’re looking for:  

When is Celonis a better choice? 

Celonis integrates well with systems that have clean event logs, such as SAP or Salesforce. You can use them to track structured processes such as your order-to-cash or invoice approvals. It provides you with a clear picture of how processes flow and helps you spot areas where processes are potentially going to malfunction. 

 When is Paxray a better choice? 

If you need to understand what’s happening on the ground at the desk, across tools, in real time, you need Paxray. The tool is perfect if: 

• You’re struggling with manual work, copy-paste steps, or tab-hopping 
• You want quick deployment with no integrations or IT delays 
• You need process visibility in Excel, Outlook, or internal platforms
• You value privacy, control, and user transparency, and these are non-negotiable 
• You want to spot automation opportunities with minimal IT efforts

FAQs 

What are alternatives to Celonis? 

One standout alternative to Celnois is task mining by Paxray. Unlike Celonis, which focuses on system-level process mining using event logs, Paxray tracks real user activity like mouse clicks, keystrokes, app switching, and more. 

Why is process mining not enough for automation? 

Process mining is not enough for automation because it only tells part of the story. It maps workflow sequences between systems, but it completely misses manual, repetitive actions. If you want to automate real work, you need to look beyond dashboards and into user behavior. 

 How long does Celonis take to implement? 

Most teams report a full Celonis rollout takes 3 to 6 months. It involves deep system integration, event log mapping, and training time. 

Is task mining better than process mining? 

Yes, task mining gives you visibility into what people actually do. It delivers more accurate and efficient results, offering a significant advantage over process mining. 

Choosing the best tool for your business 

Some tools give you the big picture. Others zoom in on repetitive steps. A few, like Paxray, show you the whole process, end-to-end. 

The point is: one size doesn’t fit all. So, choose based on what you need: clarity at the system level, or visibility into real work. The best task mining tools don’t just generate dashboards; they show what really matters. 

 Get it right, and these platforms won’t just document processes. They’ll help you fix them.  

And if you’re looking for a fast way to see business process improvements, try Paxray’s task mining platform.