A lighter alternative for browser tasks
If your task lives in a web page — a form, an admin panel, a portal — you don’t need a desktop RPA suite. RowPlay records it once in your browser and replays it for every row of your spreadsheet. No desktop app, no licence, no flow designer.
FREE · NO ACCOUNT · ANY OS CHROME RUNS ON
Short version: Power Automate Desktop is a Windows app for automating the whole desktop, with licensing tiers and a flow-designer canvas. RowPlay is a free Chrome and Firefox extension that does one job very well: replay a recorded browser task once per spreadsheet row, with dry run, retries and a results sheet built in. If the work happens in the browser, you can run your first batch in minutes.
One macro. Every row of your spreadsheet.
No flow to design and no data-table actions to wire up. Record the task, paste your rows, run.
Three steps
- 1
Record the task once. Fill in the form the way you normally would. Each click and field becomes a step, shown in plain English.
- 2
Paste your rows from Excel and link each field to a column — or drop in a .xlsx or .csv file. A normal table with headers works.
- 3
Dry run, then Run remaining. Check the first row, then RowPlay does the rest, one row at a time, in your own browser.
Test before you commit
Dry run fills just the first row. If it worked, Run remaining carries on from row 2, so nothing is entered twice.
Retry only what failed
A failed row doesn’t stop the batch. Afterwards, one click re-runs just the rows that failed.
Resume after a crash
Progress is saved after every row. If the browser closes mid-run, pick up from the first row that didn’t run.
A results sheet
Your rows come back with a status column, the reason for any failure and any values you extracted — ready to paste into Excel.
Every kind of field
Text, dropdowns (including custom menus), checkboxes from yes/no columns, and fields that only appear when a box is ticked.
Values that fill themselves
{{today}}, {{row}} and {{random}} add dates, row numbers and unique codes without a column.
Full walkthrough: auto-fill web forms from Excel.
RowPlay vs Power Automate Desktop
| RowPlay | Power Automate Desktop | |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | Any OS Chrome/Firefox runs on | Windows 10/11 only |
| Install | Add the browser extension, nothing else | Separate desktop application install |
| Scope | Anything in the browser — any website, including ones behind your login | Whole desktop — Excel, SAP, legacy Win32 apps, terminal emulators, and the browser via its own extension |
| How you build a flow | Record the task once by doing it | A visual flow-designer canvas, plus optional recording |
| Looping over data | Paste rows from Excel, replays once per row, with dry run, retry and a results sheet | Loop/data-table actions inside the flow designer |
| Cost | Free, one tier | Free tier exists but is capped; unattended/at-scale use needs a paid Power Automate plan |
| Setup for a first-time user | No account, no admin approval | Often needs a Microsoft 365/tenant conversation before it's usable at work |
| Where it runs | Your own browser, locally | Locally (attended) or via a configured unattended machine/gateway |
When each one is the better fit
RowPlay is the better fit when…
- Everything happens inside a web page — a form, an admin panel, a dashboard.
- You want to be running in under a minute, no IT ticket.
- You're not on Windows, or don't want a second desktop app installed.
- The whole job is "do this once per row of a spreadsheet."
- You want to see which rows failed, and retry just those.
Power Automate Desktop is the better fit when…
- The task spans multiple desktop apps, not just the browser — e.g. read from Excel, key into SAP, save a file, email a result.
- You need enterprise governance — centralized deployment, audit logs, orchestrated unattended bots across many machines.
Using both together
A common shape: Power Automate Desktop (or a Power Automate cloud flow) orchestrates the overall business process and touches the desktop apps it needs to, while a single step in that process — "go fill in this web form forty times" — is genuinely easier to hand to a dedicated browser recorder than to build inside a general-purpose flow designer. If your automation is currently 90% browser clicks and 10% "because that's the only tool I had," RowPlay may be worth trying as the browser piece specifically.