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Aspera Managed File Transfer vs VisualCron comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

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

Aspera Managed File Transfer
Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)
11th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VisualCron
Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)
20th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Workload Automation (25th), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (30th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category, the mindshare of Aspera Managed File Transfer is 3.0%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VisualCron is 2.3%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed File Transfer (MFT) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Aspera Managed File Transfer3.0%
VisualCron2.3%
Other94.7%
Managed File Transfer (MFT)
 

Featured Reviews

BK
Deputy General Manager Information Technology at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Data transfer improvements with an easy setup and responsive support
There are other products of Aspera which come as add-ons, however, we haven't purchased those, like report generation, since that was not our requirement. The features we needed were included in the basic edition, and that works for us. If there is any failure in the data transfer and it can automatically detect and reinitiate it, that would be great.
Sourav-Dutta - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead - Database Administrator at SMART ENERGY SYSTEMS LLC
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 were able to effectively nullify the China firewall since the China firewall was disrupting our data transfer."
"Aspera Managed File Transfer is an optimal solution for customers who want to transfer large files to remote sites with lower bandwidth and in less time."
"I would say that the user interface was a good feature, and the ability to set up multiple file transfer jobs was also an asset."
"The main feature of Aspera Managed File Transfer is that it's an incredibly fast protocol, you can use all the bandwidth available. If I need to send large amounts of data this is the fastest protocol on the market. I have been using it for some minor projects and it is very powerful."
"It helped us reduce manual steps."
"VisualCron is a handy tool that we (the IT department) provide for the business departments to obtain easy access when automating and scheduling."
"VisualCron has enabled us to efficiently automate and maintain many tasks with minimal effort from our internal IT resources."
"Using the Windows Task Scheduler means you have to do some coding while using VisualCron means the tool takes care of the coding from the backend; you're just using the visual interface of VisualCron, creating the logic, and telling the tool what actions need to be performed, so VisualCron would take care of everything on the backend for you, which helps you manage time better."
"VisualCron makes everything clearer and easier to maintain."
"What I found most beneficial from VisualCron is that you can directly connect it with different databases, user accounts, and credentials. You can run queries from one machine to another using the credentials, unlike PowerShell, that's run by the machine itself. With VisualCron, you can directly ask other machines and run requests through user credentials. Suppose you have an AWS or Azure environment. In that case, you can maintain the connection between on-premises and cloud-based machines, which is the type of setup in the organization I'm working for. You can directly call some of the services via VisualCron on your local on-premises machine, and I found that an excellent feature of the tool."
"'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."
"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."
 

Cons

"Deployment of the product is somewhat complex and it was also difficult to get support, very difficult to get support."
"The solution's pricing is high and should be reduced."
"If there is any failure in the data transfer and it can automatically detect and reinitiate it, that would be great."
"Aspera Managed File Transfer should be packaged into another solution. Explaining to customers you need to have multiple solutions from multiple vendors for their use cases can get complicated for them to understand."
"Aspera Managed File Transfer is not an inexpensive solution."
"If you want to do a file transfer between two countries, and one is not China, then you have other more affordable options."
"Our suggestion to make it better and more manageable in terms of GDPR: Implement it in a very partnership way."
"There are some conditions in the mail trigger, but you can only use them as an "AND" condition, not as an "OR" condition."
"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."
"I've mentioned before that it would be great to see a move away from SQLCE and XML configuration files."
"An area for improvement in VisualCron is its cluttered interface."
"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."
"I would like for VisualCron to expand audit log to show who changed job variables that are initialized per job run."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It was close to $10,000 to $20,000."
"Aspera Managed File Transfer is not an inexpensive solution. I am not aware of many competitors to determine how affordable the price is overall."
"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."
"The pricing is extremely fair, and because of that I recommend purchasing multiple instances to split out the processing load across multiple application servers."
"The price is a bit high."
"ROI is one month."
"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
20%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Insurance Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Aspera Managed File Transfer?
There are other products of Aspera which come as add-ons, however, we haven't purchased those, like report generation, since that was not our requirement. The features we needed were included in th...
What is your primary use case for Aspera Managed File Transfer?
We have an office in China, and we wanted to transfer data from China to the UK. We have an office in the UK as well.
What advice do you have for others considering Aspera Managed File Transfer?
For our requirements, IBM Aspera fit very well into the budget. It's subjective. I'd rate it nine out of ten. If you want to do a file transfer between two countries, and one is not China, then you...
Ask a question
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Gwinnett County Public Schools, Evonik, Voith, BITMARCK, Oracle
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 Aspera Managed File Transfer vs. VisualCron and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.