Power Automate vs Power Automate Flow vs Power Automate Desktop vs Power Automate Cloud

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Posted on by F_DPuthuff

Good Morning all you very smart people.

I am struggling with semantics and the apparent interchangeable names for two different applications.

Power Automate Cloud:

and Power Automate Desktop.

What I am ultimately looking for are the 'Official' names that Microsoft uses for these products, not what most people call things.

The terms I see in various Microsoft Documentation are:

Power Automate
Power Automate Desktop
Power Automate Flow
Power Automate Cloud Flow
Power Automate Desktop Flow

I'm trying to be able to read the Microsoft documents and quickly tell if that document is explaining about the application I am using.

TIA for any help on this.

David P.

Categories:

Power Automate Desktop

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Deenuji_Loganathan_ 6,250 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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@F_DPuthuff

Power Automate term generally encompasses both cloud-based and desktop flows.
Power Automate Flow/Power Automate Cloud Flow - refers specifically to the cloud-based variant, enabling the creation of automated flows that operate via APIs.
Power Automate Desktop/Power Automate Desktop Flow - on the other hand, denotes the desktop-based version, designed for automating tasks within legacy applications that may lack APIs.
In the Microsoft documentation below, they refer to cloud flows within the Power Automate documentation, which pertains to Power Automate Cloud. Similarly, they also mention desktop flows.

Thanks,
Deenuji Loganathan 👩‍💻
Automation Evangelist 🤖
Follow me on LinkedIn 👥

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AK88 453 on at

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Hi @F_DPuthuff .

Kind find the difference between the keywords as you mentioned,

Power Automate: This is the overall platform for creating automated workflows across various applications and services. It encompasses both cloud-based and desktop automation tools.
Power Automate Desktop: This refers to the desktop application used for creating and managing desktop flows. It is specifically designed for automating tasks on your local machine.
Power Automate Flow: This term generally refers to any automated workflow created using Power Automate. It can be used interchangeably with other types of flows unless specified otherwise.
Power Automate Cloud Flow: These are flows created and run in the cloud. They typically connect to cloud services like SharePoint, Outlook, and Dynamics 365 to automate tasks, processes and each action based on API requests.
Power Automate Desktop Flow: Using the existing robotic process automation (RPA) capabilities in Microsoft Power Automate and enable you to automate all repetitive desktop processes, including legacy applications.

If you look over this document, hope it would be much more better, sharing the url https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/flow-types .

Thanks,
If you like my response kindly mark it as Solution and give Thumps UP!

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