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VisualCron vs akaBot comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Automate
Sponsored
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
akaBot
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
18th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Agentic Automation (3rd)
VisualCron
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
16th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Managed File Transfer (MFT) (16th), Workload Automation (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automate is 1.9%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of akaBot is 0.2%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VisualCron is 1.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
 

Featured Reviews

Anabel Marco - PeerSpot reviewer
Automates processes efficiently with cost-effective scaling and robust customer support
Web scraping is quite good since it offers a lot of possibilities. Another important feature for me is its compatibility with MBI, the Power that is ISEQUADO Centers. I appreciate the ability to scale and increase the number of bots or studios without additional expense. Automate's non-reliance on additional orchestrators makes it quite cost-effective.
Duy Lương Minh - PeerSpot reviewer
User interface streamlines task automation and improves efficiency
akaBot made a noticeable difference at Wika because it is lightweight and easy to use, and moreover, akaBot has a forum to answer many questions. The ease of use stands out because the design of akaBot is very friendly. The best features that akaBot offers in my experience include the UI automation in the browser or in the Windows application. What I appreciate most about the UI automation in browsers or Windows applications is the auto-generate selector in a browser and Windows application. This feature makes a difference because it reduced most of the time developing the bot.
Sourav-Dutta - PeerSpot reviewer
It's user-friendly, and I didn't need long to understand the process
We use VisualCron for all our automation needs, like connecting to FileZilla, calling APIs, generating PGP keys, creating encryption files with the PGP key login to Azure, etc. It can automatically log in to SQL Server and execute SQL script jobs in bulk. We had 2,000-3,000 users at my previous…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We are still in the process of rolling it to production and tweaking it (our AD groups are a mess), but the improvements are priceless. Having users ID's created the same way every time without human error is the best part. We don't need to worry about why groups were not added, user rights not set to folders or missing a private folder being created, typos or just even knowing when things are done and logged."
"I like the interface; it makes managing automation easy. We can set different schedules and templates for each task."
"Compared to other vendors, it's the scheduling tool because a lot of vendors want to charge you extra for their enterprise-level license to have a scheduling tool built in to give you the ability to set up regular schedules to run and do certain data checks."
"I would rate the technical support as a nine out of ten because it is quite fast and courteous."
"The product effectively handles all the tasks we require."
"Fortra's Automate has effectively replaced the workload of an entire employee, saving us significant time and money."
"It's very easy to use. That's a big selling point for it. It has got a drag-and-drop interface, so you can quickly deploy bots."
"A great feature that you seldom see in these kind of systems is the ability to use a database as trigger to launch a task. This is something I asked for a few years ago and that was added."
"akaBot made a noticeable difference at Wika because it is lightweight and easy to use, and moreover, akaBot has a forum to answer many questions."
"The cost is affordable, and it fits our requirements."
"I love VisualCron because we previously spent a lot of time writing Power switches to connect to SQL Server. VisualCron makes it easier to execute services or connect to FileZilla by only adding the credentials to the master credentials stored in the solution."
"The most valuable feature of VisualCron is its ability to schedule interactive jobs so that you can have interdependencies within the job and interdependencies of a job on another job, and so on."
"We don't have to do any coding. We just plug and play and it works."
"'ve only had a few cases where I've had to request support in the past 12 years of use, but the support response time and resolution were was extremely quick."
"VisualCron is a very powerful program to automate different steps in your business processes. We use it to automate replacing files and inform departments about the replacement."
"The tool has reduced our operational costs by 40%."
"The ability to clone jobs to shorten the time it takes to implement a process has been invaluable, but its flexibility also gives us the ability to create a job that can handle a multifaceted process with a complex workflow."
"What I like about VisualCron is that like its name, it's a very visual tool. In my previous company, there were a lot of scripts for all kinds of services, and through VisualCron, you get to group all flows and get a nice visual overview. VisualCron also has an alerting feature, so you receive alerts from it. VisualCron makes everything clearer and easier to maintain. Every other solution that I was looking for almost always needed a programmer, but with VisualCron, you can do what you need to do without programming skills, so this is another valuable feature of the tool."
 

Cons

"The intelligent automation feature could be improved. It's interesting because it's simple, but the automation quality isn't always good. It's easy to use, but sometimes you need to make a slight improvement to the automation, and that's not so easy."
"Sometimes when we communicate with the ERP system and there is an issue, we are not always aware of the specifics of Automate and the source of the problem."
"There is room for improvement regarding cloud functionality; there are a few missing features, and the logging could be better, especially air logging. We can go into logging events and create our own task, but it would be nice if this were more detailed."
"Fortra's Automate is not as reliable as I would like it to be."
"The vendor is currently working on a solution that allows us to automatically create a process that is based on a document that we receive via email."
"Some challenges include the system being too loaded or delayed in taking instructions and responding quickly as needed."
"The interface could be more user-friendly and easier to navigate."
"While this solution is continually improving, as it is now, the user interface could use improvement when I compare it to a product like UiPath."
"If they can provide more intelligent automation, it would be beneficial."
"I used UiPath before akaBot, and I think UiPath has more features than akaBot."
"VisualCron seems to operate like an efficient machine when it comes to improvements and enhancements and new features. I always appreciate the quick response I get when bringing up an issue or coming up with suggestions. I've mentioned before that it would be great to see a move away from SQLCE and XML configuration files."
"The documentation is a bit weak."
"An area for improvement in VisualCron is its cluttered interface. It isn't always easy to find all functionalities, so what VisualCron needs is a user interface expert who can improve the interface. There's a learning curve in terms of finding what you need from the interface of VisualCron. The technical support for VisualCron also needs improvement in terms of response time. Currently, there's no live support or hotline you can call to get quick answers, so this is what I'd like to see in the next version of VisualCron. A less cluttered and more streamlined interface, where you don't need to hunt for some of the features, is also what I'd like to see in the next VisualCron update."
"The error timeout and info could be better. When making web request calls, it will time out sometimes and we won't get any useful info out of the error response."
"Our suggestion to make it better and more manageable in terms of GDPR: Implement it in a very partnership way."
"I would like for VisualCron to expand audit log to show who changed job variables that are initialized per job run."
"I want to improve the UI in VisualCron, as it's not as user-friendly, particularly when setting up the task scheduler. If you're familiar with the tool, then no problem, but if not, you'll have a problem typing text because sometimes, the cursor points to other places, so there's an issue with text box alignment in VisualCron. That was painful for me when I was just a VisualCron novice, but when you become used to it, there won't be a problem."
"The only problem I face when I use the tool is that it doesn't contain much documentation or it doesn't have many video tutorials on its features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It comes with a package that costs approximately $20,000 USD per year."
"Once you buy the software, you just pay for the support for backend help."
"Compared to other products, the pricing model for this solution is much more convenient, flexible, and adaptable to the Portuguese reality."
"From a distributor's side, one of the biggest selling points is its price point. Without going into any numbers, compared to UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and Blue Prism, we're significantly cheaper. The main difference is that other competitors usually charge you per process. However, in Automate's case, it's priced per bot. So, a bot can run multiple processes at the same time, but you are only priced for a single bot."
"I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost."
"It has gone up in price. The price of Fortra's Automate has increased since we first started using it. It does a lot but also costs a lot. It was a lot more affordable before Fortra owned the software."
"While solutions like UiPath and Blue Prism cost around $11,000-$12,000 for each license, this product costs around $7,000 and you can keep it forever."
"From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point."
Information not available
"The price is a bit high."
"ROI is 95 percent."
"VisualCron is correctly priced because it wasn't very cheap, and it wasn't overly expensive, so the price for it was set correctly. When my previous company bought VisualCron, it was €800 per server per year. On a scale of one to five, I would rate the pricing for VisualCron a five because it was just right. The tool was affordable, and it has one of the most competitive pricing in the market."
"ROI is one month."
"The pricing is extremely fair, and because of that I recommend purchasing multiple instances to split out the processing load across multiple application servers."
"We are fine with a rather cheap setup. Licensing with VisualCron is fair. You have a simple one-year licence in different sizes. There isn't a licensing jungle with hundreds of options and opt-ins."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Performing Arts
6%
No data available
Computer Software Company
27%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Insurance Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about HelpSystems AutoMate?
We use it for specific cases, mainly secure file transfers, which are vital for us. And it works for us.
What is your primary use case for HelpSystems AutoMate?
The main purpose is for automation. That has been the purpose why I have been using it so far.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?
Regarding pricing, it is very friendly. I would not say that it is really cheap or very expensive, but it fits within...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for akaBot?
The pricing is low and the setup process is very easy.
What needs improvement with akaBot?
akaBot should integrate more artificial intelligence in their product.
What is your primary use case for akaBot?
As an RPA developer, my main use case for akaBot is to automate repetitive tasks in many industries such as banking a...
What do you like most about VisualCron?
The tool has reduced our operational costs by 40%.
What needs improvement with VisualCron?
The documentation is a bit weak. The tool must provide a better set of documentation.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aldergrove Financial Group, Preferred Health Professionals, Mindbeam Technologies, First Credit Union in British Columbia, Vestcom International, Prime Liberty Benefits, University of Tampa, CNLBancshares, World Precision Instruments, BJ's Restaurants, Globe Pequot Press, Accudata Technologies, Norton Healthcare, Pacific Toxicology Laboratories
1. Aetna 2. Accenture 3. Adidas 4. AIG 5. Air France KLM  6. Allstate 7. Amazon 8. American Express 9. AmerisourceBergen 10. Aon 11. Apple 12. ATT 13. Autodesk 14. Bank of America 15. Barclays 16. Bayer 17. Berkshire Hathaway 18. Boeing 19. BNP Paribas 20. Citigroup 21. CocaCola 22. Comcast  23. ConocoPhillips   24. Cisco Systems  25. CocaCola  26. Dell 27. Disney
7 Eleven, ABB Sécheron SA, Adobe Systems Incorporated, Amazon Europe Core, Apple, Assa Abloy, Aston Martin, Banco Santander, BMW (Australia)
Find out what your peers are saying about VisualCron vs. akaBot and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.