Automic Automation vs VisualCron comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Broadcom and SMA Technologies are both solutions in the Workload Automation category. Broadcom is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.2, while SMA Technologies is ranked #25. Broadcom holds a 4.8% mindshare in WA, compared to SMA Technologies’s 2.2% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Broadcom users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of SMA Technologies users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Automic Automation and VisualCron based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Workload Automation solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Automic Automation vs. VisualCron Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Automic Automation vs. VisualCron

September 2026

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Helped 911,994 peers since 2012

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

JAMS Scheduler

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of JAMS Scheduler is 3.4%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Automic Automation is 4.8%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VisualCron is 2.2%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Workload Automation Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Automic Automation	4.8%
JAMS Scheduler	3.4%
VisualCron	2.2%
Other	89.6%

Workload Automation

Featured Reviews

Latha Viswanathan

Principal Data Base And Infrastructure Engineer at a outsourcing company with 501-1,000 employees

Automation has replaced nightly monitoring and delivers reliable, unified job scheduling

We have really enjoyed working with JAMS in terms of notifications, alerts, and streamlining. There used to be a process with Automate, which is another product from Fortra, but even before that, the other division of the company that we were merging with had a tool that was built in-house called a file handler or file distributor. It was an in-house developed tool, but it was not as streamlined or as efficient as JAMS is. We literally had to have a dedicated nighttime person monitoring. Although we are 24/7, the divisions of the company that we were using JAMS for have been small scale. While we have automated it, we have streamlined it in such a way that notifications go out and alerts go out, but if there is anything, then we get paged and alerted, and if anything needs to happen at midnight, we can wake up. On the other hand, with the tool I mentioned, the file handler and distributor, we used to have a dedicated nighttime person that had to be sitting and monitoring it to see when a file arrived, whether it met the conditions, and then execute the next particular job. By using JAMS, we have gained a lot more efficiencies in terms of all of those to streamline it, and there is no necessary need for having an overnight engineer just keeping an eye on all of this.

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Peter Grundler

Senior Consultant at Tricise

Helps to move away from manual tasks and offers wide platform support and web-based interface

Customers want to move away from manual monitoring and checking processes. Automating these processes helps in time-saving and reduces human error. When you automate business processes, it reduces mistakes. It eliminates the risk of manual errors such as typos. There is a 20% to 30% reduction in human error. It fulfills all the needs when it comes to visibility and control across various operating platforms. It is the perfect product for managing processes that span multiple operating platforms. Automic Automation has the widest platform support compared to other products, such as Control-M, Tivoli from IBM, or Stonebranch. It definitely helps with compliance processes. We have had a lot of customers for two years with a focus on compliance, and it works. They were successful. Due to the fact that our customers can automate a lot of things, it reduces operating costs. It is hard to give a number because the savings are different for each customer. If a customer never had any automation, there could be about 80% savings after implementing Automic Automation, whereas for a customer who already has automated tasks, the difference will be less by adding Automic Automation. They might see 5% to 10% more savings. Automic Automation helps improve our ability to meet SLAs. In the recent versions, SLA management has been integrated, which previously was an external component. Because a lot of customers used it and asked Broadcom to implement SLA management into the workload engine, Broadcom included it. We see more and more customers running their SLA management via the Automic Automation product.

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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

"We also use the solution’s Interactive Agents. If we need to push something to our dealer portal, we can just drop a file in a folder and it goes. Running interactive tasks helps me users focus on business processes since I don’t have to take care of running the jobs manually."

"It has definitely drastically improved our capabilities to scale our automation. Before JAMS, there were a lot of manual processes. We had a couple of operators who spent all day doing that. A lot of the time with human intervention and human processes, it is as good as the person who may be following a procedure and human error is a big problem."

"JAMS has improved my organization by taking a myriad of manual processes and allowing us to automate them. It enables our folks to focus more on tasks that require their human intelligence and their creativity and less on just mundane tasks. It increases efficiency, accuracy, and consistency."

"Being able to create a series of chained jobs, which are basically linked jobs is valuable."

"Because we have gone from a lot of manual processes to automated processes with JAMS, we have been able to free up IT staff time, and for just the Technical Operations Center team that I manage, it has saved about 20 hours a week."

"JAMS has been a beneficial monitoring tool for our project in terms of being able to deliver data that is essential for users."

"We can see all the batch execution status within the tool itself, which saves money, time, and cost, allowing us to handle everything in one single tool."

"JAMS positively impacts my organization because it helps make it easier to manage JD Edwards scheduled jobs and fills the gap that the JD Edwards application has with scheduling, resolving a lot of those issues."

More JAMS Scheduler pros

"One of the big features that they did implement, that a lot of people, us included, were asking for for a long time, is the ability to do zero downtime upgrades. They have introduced that."

"Typically we use the product to automate the delivery of the files that we pick up from clients and use for processing, and once processing is over, we use it to deliver results downstream to the client's delivery center, and so far it has been outstanding, saving us money and improving our overall quality without any issues."

"It is an easy product to use, and we use it for end-to-end process automation."

"We use it with automation, getting more speed to solve business processes."

"They just talked about adding support for hundreds of thousands of agents, and I know it goes up to about a thousand clients per engine, so you can do a lot with that. It's a very scalable solution."

"Being able to script, create something I want the software to do for a specific job. This allows me to do that. Very powerful."

"The solution is integrated across all applications and platforms in our company, and we can provide everything from the very first data source to the data target in one immense code."

"Automic stands out from the ordinary tools because handling SAP processes is absolutely easy with it."

More Automic Automation pros

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

"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."

"It helped us reduce manual steps."

"'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."

"Support is AAA+, fast, and very detailed."

"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."

"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."

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

More VisualCron pros

Cons

"The biggest area with room for improvement is the area that my organization benefits the most from using JAMS, and that is in custom execution methods. I happen to have a very good C# developer. Ever since we got JAMS, he has spent a lot of time talking to JAMS developers, researching the JAMS libraries, and creating custom execution methods. He's gotten very good at it. He is now able to create them and maintain them very easily, but that knowledge was hard-won knowledge. It was difficult to come by, and if I should ever lose this developer, then I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who could create JAMS custom execution methods quite as well as he can since there really isn't all that much help, such as documentation or information, available on how to create custom execution methods."

"One thing that I know that the JAMS people said that they were working on that would be huge for us is a search capability so that you could search for tasks. It may be available in version 7 or in a future release of 7. I think that's on their roadmap. But right now, for us to do a search, we have to search through database queries."

"The UI is completely unintuitive. We had to go and open up a support ticket with JAMS just to get something back."

"The JAMS automation code isn't so clean."

"We have had a lot of people working from home who can't always connect to the JAMS server. We use VPN, as most companies do, and we have it set up so that everybody can access the JAMS server. But many times, our people cannot access it... JAMS could do a better job of telling you what the problem is when you try to log in to the server."

"The cost has definitely gone up tremendously. That is where I do know, as much as the feature sets are there, and if the newly acquired company is going to be doing a pushback, they might just say, 'Do we still need to pay this much? Or at that point, should we look into an alternative?'"

"I'm not sure if they have fixed it in a newer version, but there is no global search in the version I have. If I have multiple sub-folders that are named for business units, like HR or IT, and I have to search for a job, I cannot search from the top. I have to go to the HR folder to search for a particular job, or to the IT folder."

"JAMS handles exceptions fairly well but there are some areas where it might improve a little bit. It has to do with being able to automatically handle exceptions, out-of-the-box, rather than having to code them."

More JAMS Scheduler cons

"The interface could be made more user-friendly in terms of job creation and scheduling, especially when doing bulk job creation."

"If you're getting deep into some of these workflows, you may have 20 different windows open and, if you didn't already have that deep understanding of how enterprise orchestration works, it would be very overwhelming to get up to speed on something like that... It needs some way to minimize the amount of windows and get it to where you could have all the information you need available on the screen."

"Recent changes in Broadcom's licensing model are making some customers reduce tasks or replace Automic Automation. This is something Broadcom should consider."

"The calendar with the new version is a little bit goofy."

"Every time we have an upgrade for a new version, we have stability problems, because the versions are not as good as they should be."

"From a features perspective, we still need some agents to connect to specific systems that Automic doesn't have. Expanding their available agents would make the tool more compatible with various systems that other customers may have."

"There were many bugs in the last version."

"The manage file transfer area could be better."

More Automic Automation cons

"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."

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

"I've mentioned before that it would be great to see a move away from SQLCE and XML configuration files."

"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."

"Some preferences and permissions are not quite self-explanatory, but those are rather advanced features."

"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."

More VisualCron cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Take advantage of its scalability. You can start small. The initial cost is very reasonable. Once you have started picking up the tool and adopting it, then you can scale up from there and buy more agents."

"The product is reasonably priced, and we don't have any add-ons."

"For what it does, the product is priced very well."

"It was $10,000 for the first year. Then, there is a maintenance cost for licensing every year that we get billed $5,000 for every year."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"There are no additional costs other than the license for Fortra's JAMS which is affordable."

"This is a good product at a fair price."

"In the end, you'll find that it's really worth the price. There is some sticker shock, but it's worth every dime."

More JAMS Scheduler pricing and cost advice

"The cost of arrays is high. If you want to buy an array for an application, and see value from it, you need about half a million dollars. That is too expensive."

"It costs to scale. While, it is scalable, the add-ons are expensive."

"Its price is way up there with BMC. It is a little bit on the expensive side."

"We came to a very good deal, but it took us three years to finalize."

"The pricing of Automic Automation varies depending on the specific contract terms."

"We have increased efficiency with this application."

"Automatic is heavily integrated in our organization. The cost to change would be a huge factor for us, and we have not found any other product that is better out there."

"The pricing was client-wise, but they are changing it to execution-wise pricing. So, we are in negotiation."

More Automic Automation pricing and cost advice

"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."

"The price is a bit high."

"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 95 percent."

"The pricing is extremely fair, and because of that I recommend purchasing multiple instances to split out the processing load across multiple application servers."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Construction Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Outsourcing Company

Computer Software Company

23%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	23

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	67

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	5

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JAMS?

I was not really involved in the pricing, setup cost, and licensing at that level. I am more involved in the technica...

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What needs improvement with JAMS?

In terms of improvements, I believe JAMS can enhance its user interface for better user experiences. I would like to ...

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What is your primary use case for JAMS?

My primary use case for JAMS is enterprise workload automation and batch job orchestration. I use it to schedule and ...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Automic Workload Automation?

The pricing was client-wise, but they are changing it to execution-wise pricing. So, we are in negotiation.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Automic Workload Automation?

Automic Automation has some disadvantages; it is more simplified, and sometimes it can be complicated. The technical ...

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What is your primary use case for Automic Workload Automation?

I have been dealing with Automic Automation for probably around ten years. I have been both a partner with Automic, w...

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Comparisons

Control-M vs JAMS Scheduler

Compared 11% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs JAMS Scheduler

Compared 8% of the time

Stonebranch vs JAMS Scheduler

Compared 7% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs JAMS Scheduler

Compared 6% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs JAMS Scheduler

Compared 5% of the time

More JAMS Scheduler Competitors

Control-M vs Automic Automation

Compared 12% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Automic Automation

Compared 7% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Automic Automation

Compared 7% of the time

AppWorx Workload Automation vs Automic Automation

Compared 5% of the time

Fortra's Automate vs Automic Automation

Compared 3% of the time

More Automic Automation Competitors

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs VisualCron

Compared 10% of the time

UiPath Platform vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

Control-M vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

CData Arc vs VisualCron

Compared 4% of the time

More VisualCron Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

JAMS Scheduler

August 2026

Download JAMS Scheduler product report

Buyer's Guide

Automic Automation

September 2026

Download Automic Automation product report

Buyer's Guide

VisualCron

August 2026

Download VisualCron product report

Also Known As

No data available

Automic Dollar Universe

No data available

Interactive Demo

JAMS Software

Demo not available

Broadcom

Demo not available

SMA Technologies

Overview

JAMS is an automation orchestration and job scheduling solution that runs, monitors, and manages critical IT processes from a single console, from simple batch jobs to complex, cross-platform workflows. JAMS automates jobs across Windows, Linux, UNIX, IBM i, z/OS, and OpenVMS, with native integrations for the databases, BI tools, and ERP systems already running your business, including SQL Server and SAP. Jobs run on any schedule or trigger off other events, and dependency management keeps multi-step workflows in the right order.

Every job is centrally monitored, with notifications on success or failure and an audit trail of every execution. Built-in conversion tools migrate existing jobs from Windows Task Scheduler, SQL Agent, or Cron without rebuilding them, and JAMS replaces homegrown, single-platform scripts with one centrally managed system.

JAMS includes two AI capabilities at no additional cost. JAX is an AI agent built into the JAMS Web Client. Ask it a question in plain language, and it finds a job, troubleshoots a failure, or looks up how to do something, grounded in JAMS documentation, not general AI guesswork. It acts only when asked, and every change waits for your approval. JAMS MCP brings JAMS into the AI coding tools teams already use, including Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, and Claude Desktop.

Both run inside the customer's network with the signed-in user's permissions and no elevated AI account, and every action, AI-driven or not, lands in the same audit trail as everything else in JAMS.

For teams managing thousands of jobs across SQL Server, ADF, Airflow, SAP, JDE, and Banner, this cuts tribal knowledge and middle-of-the-night troubleshooting. Knowledge that once lived in one person's head becomes something any team member can ask about directly.

The AI lives in the product, not in the support queue. Support is staffed by humans JAMS will never outsource, based in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. New tickets go to long-tenured engineers, and every JAMS customer has the CEO's cell phone number.

JAMS' mission is to reduce the operational burden of critical automation, so teams spend more time on the work automation was meant to free them for.

JAMS Software

Automic Automation offers a web-based GUI for high scalability and flexibility, integrating with platforms like SAP and Oracle. It promotes efficient process automation and supports multiple OS environments, benefiting diverse industries with its robust predictive capabilities.

Automic Automation facilitates process automation and workload management, providing valuable integration with applications like SAP and Oracle. It supports a wide range of operating systems and environments, enabling seamless workflow automation. It features a web-based interface accessible across devices, ensuring scalability and flexibility for complex job automation. Users find its predictive capabilities and platform support instrumental in enhancing operations, although improvements are noted in reporting, cloud integration, and documentation. Licensing and pricing structures also present room for optimization, along with workflow dependency management and smoother upgrade paths.

What are the key features of Automic Automation?

Web-based GUI: Accessible on any device, enhancing user convenience
Application Integration: Supports SAP, Oracle, and others for robust workflows
Comprehensive Scripting: Allows detailed automation customization
Process Automation: Powers efficient and complex job automation
Scalability and Flexibility: Expands across various platforms and environments

What benefits and ROI should users expect from Automic Automation?

Improved Efficiency: Reduces manual tasks and streamlines processes
Extensive Platform Support: Cost-effective management of different systems
Predictive Capabilities: Enhances operational decision-making
Robust Integration: Harmonizes with diverse applications, aiding business functions

Automic Automation sees implementation in industries like banking, finance, and telecommunications, where it automates ERP systems, schedules batch jobs, integrates workloads, and manages file transfers. By supporting SAP, Oracle, and ETL tasks, it aids efficiency and workload automation across varied environments including cloud and mainframe systems.

Broadcom

VisualCron offers task automation through a visual interface, eliminating the need for programming skills. With capabilities like alerting and variable usage, users benefit from integration with databases, timely task execution, and cross-platform operations.

VisualCron empowers users by simplifying complex workflows. It allows seamless task automation through features like interactive scheduling and role-based operations. Users appreciate its integration capabilities, replacing multiple tools with a comprehensive automation solution. The support system ensures quick assistance, making it a reliable choice for workflow visualization and task execution. However, areas like error handling and interface design require enhancements for improved user experience.

What are the key features of VisualCron?

Visual Interface: Users automate tasks without needing programming skills.
Integration: Connects with databases and multiple systems to streamline operations.
Alerting: Notifies users about tasks and system statuses.
Task Scheduling: Allows interactive management of automated tasks.
Credentials Management: Enables cross-platform operations securely.

What benefits can users expect when evaluating VisualCron?

Increased Efficiency: Reduces the time spent on manual processes.
Cost Reduction: Eliminates the need for multiple tools by consolidating functionalities.
Enhanced Support: Offers robust post-sales support for quicker assistance.
Streamlined Workflows: Simplifies complex task automation.

Organizations leverage VisualCron in industries like finance and logistics to automate tasks such as encryption and secure file transfers. It's also integral in managing data operations, facilitating communications between systems, and executing SQL jobs, enhancing operational efficiency across sectors.

SMA Technologies

Sample Customers

Teradata, Arconic, General Dynamics, Yum!, CVS Health, Comcast, Ghiradelli, & Boston’s Children’s Hospital

ING, Adidas, 84.51, ESB

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

Buyer's Guide

Automic Automation vs. VisualCron

September 2026

Free Report: Automic Automation vs. VisualCron

Find out what your peers are saying about Automic Automation vs. VisualCron and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.

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