Automation Anywhere vs VisualCron comparison

Automation Anywhere and NetCart AB are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. Automation Anywhere is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.3, while NetCart AB is ranked #19 with an average rating of 8.5. Automation Anywhere holds a 10.4% mindshare in RPA, compared to NetCart AB’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Automation Anywhere users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NetCart AB users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

Automation Anywhere and VisualCron are competitors in the automation industry. Automation Anywhere is often considered superior for its enterprise-level automation capabilities, while VisualCron is favored for its flexibility and ease of use.

Features: Automation Anywhere includes advanced AI integration, comprehensive analytics, and scalable robotic process automation. VisualCron offers versatile task scheduling, scripting capabilities, and custom triggers that allow for highly customizable automation.

Room for Improvement: Automation Anywhere could improve its deployment process for easier accessibility. It's occasionally considered complex for smaller businesses. VisualCron might benefit from enhancing its AI features to compete with more AI-intensive tasks and provide more detailed analytics for better business insights.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VisualCron is known for a straightforward deployment process and responsive support. Conversely, Automation Anywhere’s deployment can be intricate, reflecting its comprehensive features. It offers enterprise-grade support but may require more setup time.

Pricing and ROI: VisualCron tends to have lower setup costs and quicker ROI due to its flexible pricing model. Automation Anywhere, while higher in initial investment, offers a strong ROI, leveraging its extensive automation capabilities for long-term enterprise benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed Automation Anywhere vs. VisualCron Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Automation Anywhere vs. VisualCron

April 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automate is 1.6%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Automation Anywhere is 10.4%, down from 13.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VisualCron is 0.9%, 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

Account Director at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

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.

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Vatsal Mehta

Co-Founder & CEO at HEDEHI Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

Accommodates diverse use cases and effectively meets customer requirements

AI agents need further improvements. AI agent technology in agentic process automation is still evolving. We have only scratched the surface, and there are many potential use cases yet to be explored. As technology advances, I believe it will enable us to implement more comprehensive automation solutions. Document Automation has issues related to speed. When I compare Document Automation with IQ Bot, IQ Bot is faster than Document Automation. My understanding is that they are still evolving Document Automation, and this issue of slowness will be resolved in the upcoming .35 version, so we are good with that. They are working on signature identification and validations for handwritten documents. Currently, we are able to extract data out of scanned but digital images, but there is still scope for improvement for handwritten documents.

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Sourav-Dutta

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…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the drag-and-drop interface, which is very Windows-like."

"I actually quite liked the no-coding functionality."

"The interface is simple, user-friendly, and very intuitive."

"We have found the pricing to be very reasonable."

"We use it for specific cases, mainly secure file transfers, which are vital for us. And it works for us."

"This product is quite easy to install, learn, and use, with our new employees being able to start using it in projects for clients after only two weeks of internal training."

"The pricing is excellent. I would give them perfect marks in that regard."

"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."

More Automate pros

"The development of the company from Automation Anywhere V11 to a2019 was valuable. I found many important and new features, like changing the way we write code and programming. It became much easier and very flexible in version 2019A. It became very easy to use and the recording was also good. Excel became very good too."

"Speed is the most valuable feature. E.g., for a human, it could take around 60 minutes to create a report with a few errors. Occasionally, a person will miss something. With this bot, we can get the work done in around five minutes. So, it takes only five minutes for a report to scan and be created with fewer errors."

"AA allows you to create processes using 3 types of robots: Task Bot, Meta Bot, and IQ Bot. Instead of rewriting redundant code for processes, a meta bot can be used instead. This type of robot is best used for complex scalable processes. IQ Bot: The most powerful of the 3 types of robots is the IQ Bot."

"The recorders are highly beneficial when automating web scraping or web automation tasks."

"It saves a lot of effort and hours. It is time-efficient and cost-efficient."

"Automation Anywhere is stable, scalable, and easy to use."

"The MetaBot is a very good feature that allows me to do things that were not available in earlier versions."

"My clients have seen tremendous value when it comes to automating business processes. The robust nature of the application allows them to scale their business processes pretty quickly."

More Automation Anywhere pros

"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."

"The tool has reduced our operational costs by 40%."

"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."

"It has improved our organization with more automation within the business departments and less administration and development in the IT department. Usually, as the IT department, we are the bottleneck for many requirements within the business. With this tool, the business departments are able to perform many task themselves."

"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."

"We don't have to do any coding. We just plug and play and it works."

"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 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."

More VisualCron pros

Cons

"I find that most important features are strong, however, there is a lack of good development for artificial intelligence, such as machine learning."

"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."

"I would like the updates to be easier to deploy. Integration with Amazon S3 is somewhat lacking."

"The technical support could be better. We suffer from language barriers, as we are in Argentina."

"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."

"The workflow for variables could be better. The input and output of task-level variables could be made a little clearer in terms of passing those around from one task to another upon success, etc. Things like that could be a little easier potentially."

"I currently have three bugs open with them that I don't know if they are addressed in the new release."

"It's possible that they could use a stronger community for seeking guidance and help."

More Automate cons

"When we are moving from one version to another version, it's very difficult because most of the features stop working. They should first test everything and then release the new version. For example, there's a system variable known as the Excel Cell Row.... When going from version 11.1 to 11.3, this variable was suddenly not supported, and most of our bots were dependent on that. Everything went down..."

"In the next release of this solution, I would like to see a plug-and-play tool for NLP programming."

"The license cost is high and needs improvement."

"Automation Anywhere should improve its OCR command, as it's my observation that I have faced data loss or improper data being extracted."

"With Oracle, Blue Prism was easier and a little bit more stable than Automation Anywhere. Even with ServiceNow, the automation was very unreliable. It did not work as expected."

"The product's technical support could use improvement."

"There is room for improvement when this application is used in a Citrix-based environment."

"Product support for our customers needs improvement. They should increase the support personnel."

More Automation Anywhere cons

"There are some conditions in the mail trigger, but you can only use them as an "AND" condition, not as an "OR" condition. This is an improvement that could be useful. For example, some people put "invoice" in the subject and others put "invoice" in the body. If I want to make a trigger for everybody whose sending invoices, I have to make two jobs for this now."

"VisualCron is software, and you will experience performance degradation when you scale up. VisualCron takes too much memory or CPU power. We have to increase the hardware resources of a specific server or system."

"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."

"The documentation is a bit weak."

"VisualCron's command console is a little bit difficult to understand and needs to improve."

"Our suggestion to make it better and more manageable in terms of GDPR: Implement it in a very partnership way."

"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."

"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."

More VisualCron cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."

"I believe the price falls within a reasonable range, which significantly influenced our decision regarding the product. This aspect is crucial for any technological solution, especially in our country where enterprises might be hesitant to invest heavily in something untested or uncertain about its practicality and potential returns."

"Once you buy the software, you just pay for the support for backend help."

"From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point."

"The pricing is quite reasonable. We can run the process with one bot. The limitation is at the server level because they have some resources, and sometimes that is enough. It isn't too expensive, so you can get a good return off of one, and you can also have a pack of five bots that is quite competitive."

"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."

More Automate pricing and cost advice

"The cost of Automation Anywhere is high in Turkey due to the weak economy."

"Approximately, for a developer, it is around $750 for a license a year. For Bot Runners, it is about $550."

"We just did a round of price comparison on a global scale and found it's so hard to compare the license prices. But, Automation Anywhere, in general, is on the same price level as the other vendors, a bit lower in some cases."

"In terms of pricing, this is a good product."

"We have a few licenses. They cost roughly $10,000 each."

"The pricing and licensing of Automation Anywhere plays an important rule in the Indian market because in the Indian market $10,000 USD is too much. Hence, the pricing tends to go down depending on the customer relationship with the partner: A starter pack is $10,000 and an enterprise pack is $100,000. If you go through an implementation partner, you can get good deals. They can save some money."

"Automation Anywhere is flexible in terms of costing and licensing."

"Initially, they charged a premium, but now the rest of the vendors have increased their overall pricing and Automation Anywhere is not that high at this time. It's pretty viable."

More Automation Anywhere pricing and cost advice

"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 95 percent."

"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."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

27%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Insurance Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for HelpSystems AutoMate?

I am a consultant and I am making a lot of processes in human resources, payroll, certifications, trainings, web scra...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?

The pricing is quite good compared to its competitors. Competitors are often more expensive than Automate. I would ra...

See all answers

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...

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How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...

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How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.

See all answers

What do you like most about VisualCron?

The tool has reduced our operational costs by 40%.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VisualCron?

The price is a bit high. However, it is okay.

See all answers

What needs improvement with VisualCron?

The documentation is a bit weak. The tool must provide a better set of documentation.

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Power Automate vs Automate

Compared 38% of the time

UiPath Platform vs Automate

Compared 35% of the time

Blue Prism vs Automate

Compared 7% of the time

MOVEit vs Automate

Compared 5% of the time

More Automate Competitors

Microsoft Power Automate vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 28% of the time

UiPath Platform vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 22% of the time

Blue Prism vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 10% of the time

Python RPA vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 7% of the time

Tricentis Tosca vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 4% of the time

More Automation Anywhere Competitors

Microsoft Power Automate vs VisualCron

Compared 41% of the time

Control-M vs VisualCron

Compared 19% of the time

OpCon vs VisualCron

Compared 8% of the time

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

Stonebranch vs VisualCron

Compared 5% of the time

More VisualCron Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automate

April 2025

Download Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

Automation Anywhere

April 2025

Download Automation Anywhere product report

Buyer's Guide

VisualCron

April 2025

Download VisualCron product report

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise

No data available

Overview

Automate offers a user-friendly solution with a drag-and-drop interface for efficient task automation and integration with major platforms like SAP and Azure, making it ideal for quick deployment with minimal coding and training.

Automate provides powerful features for businesses seeking efficient automation, offering compatibility with databases, email integration, and cloud platforms. Its simple interface supports both beginners and experienced users, simplifying tasks like invoice processing, HR automation, and data transformation. Cost-effective pricing and flexible licensing enhance its appeal while integration capabilities and scheduling tools ensure smooth workflow automation.

What are Automate's Key Features?

Drag-and-Drop Interface: Simplifies automation with intuitive design.
Integration Capabilities: Connects with platforms like SAP and Azure for seamless data flow.
Database and FTP Triggers: Enhances automation potential through direct data interaction.
Efficient Scheduling: Automates tasks with precise timing and control.
Web Scraping: Automates data extraction for quick analysis and reporting.

What Benefits and ROI Should Users Expect?

Rapid Deployment: Minimizes coding efforts for quick implementation.
Cost-Effectiveness: Offers flexible pricing models to suit budget constraints.
Operational Efficiency: Reduces manual workloads and enhances productivity.
Comprehensive Integration: Facilitates improved data management across systems.
Scalability: Adapts to growing business needs with ease.

In industries such as healthcare, banking, and logistics, Automate is used for tasks like invoice payment automation, data transformation, and task automation. This leads to streamlined processes and reduced manual workload, illustrating its value in enhancing operational efficiency through diversified workflows.

Fortra

Automation Anywhere offers a robust automation platform known for its user-friendly interface, flexible scalability, and advanced automation capabilities. It's designed to streamline operations across industries by automating manual and repetitive tasks.

Automation Anywhere empowers organizations with its easy-to-use platform that simplifies automation processes through its drag-and-drop functionality. With features like MetaBot and IQ Bot, it provides advanced automation solutions. The platform seamlessly integrates with business applications, ensuring efficient operation and data protection through security features like the credential vault. Despite its strengths, there is room for improvement in integration with source control systems and third-party applications. Enhancing UI friendliness, IDE capabilities, and licensing flexibility, along with improved support in the Citrix environment, are needed. Better OCR accuracy, AI functionalities, and Excel integration would enhance user experiences.

What are Automation Anywhere's key features?

Ease of Use: Offers a user-friendly platform that allows straightforward automation of processes for non-technical users.
Advanced Bots: Includes MetaBot and IQ Bot for complex automation tasks.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with business applications for smooth operations.
Security: Features like credential vault ensure robust data protection.
Scalability: Provides flexibility and scalability for expanding automation needs.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Efficiency: Automates repetitive tasks, enhancing process efficiency.
Accuracy: Improves accuracy in operations like finance and HR.
Scalability: Offers scalable solutions for growing enterprises.
Cost Reduction: Reduces operational costs by streamlining processes.
Flexibility: Adapts to various industry requirements allowing broad implementation.

In the finance sector, Automation Anywhere is used for tasks like accounts payable, accounts receivable, and invoice processing. In HR, it's implemented for onboarding, payroll, and attendance verification. Its deployment also extends to supply chain, compliance, and customer service, providing streamlined operations by automating complex business processes.

Automation Anywhere

VisualCron automates tasks like file encryption, scheduling SQL jobs, system integration, data workflow management, and application triggering, making it ideal for handling nightly syncs, FTP server file replacements, job scheduling, and invoice processing.

VisualCron provides an efficient automation solution with features like error and status reporting, API connections, PGP key generation, encryption file creation, and bulk SQL script execution. It simplifies task automation through its mail and event triggers, job variables, conditional execution, and logging with error alerts. Users benefit from its integration capabilities, scheduling flexibility, visual interface, and support for databases and credential management without extensive coding.

What are the most important features?

Simplicity: Easy-to-use interface for seamless automation.
Mail and Event Triggers: Automate tasks based on specific events.
Job Variables: Customize tasks using various input variables.
Conditional Execution: Execute tasks based on predefined conditions.
Error Alerts: Logging and error reporting to ensure task reliability.
Integration Capabilities: Easily connect and integrate with systems and APIs.
Scheduling Flexibility: Create complex schedules with ease.
Visual Interface: User-friendly GUI for efficient management.
Database Support: Manage and automate database tasks efficiently.
Credential Management: Securely handle credentials for various tasks.
PowerShell Commands: Execute PowerShell commands directly.

What are the benefits or ROI users should look for in the reviews?

Efficiency: Streamline and automate repetitive tasks to save time.
Cost Savings: Reduce manual labor and associated costs.
Reliability: Ensure consistency and accuracy in task execution.
Integration: Enhance workflows by integrating with different systems.
Flexibility: Adjust quickly to changes and handle complex scheduling needs.
Support: Benefit from extensive post-sales support and configuration options.
Innovation: Foster innovation by eliminating the need for coding.

Industries like finance, healthcare, and logistics implement VisualCron to automate data workflows, secure file transfers, and schedule critical tasks. It is used to streamline invoice processing, manage large-scale data operations, and ensure compliance through encryption and error reporting. VisualCron enhances operational efficiency, scalability, and security in various sectors, making it essential for businesses requiring robust automation capabilities.

NetCart AB

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

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics

7 Eleven, ABB Sécheron SA, Adobe Systems Incorporated, Amazon Europe Core, Apple, Assa Abloy, Aston Martin, Banco Santander, BMW (Australia)

Buyer's Guide

Automation Anywhere vs. VisualCron

April 2025

Free Report: Automation Anywhere vs. VisualCron

Find out what your peers are saying about Automation Anywhere vs. VisualCron and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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