Blue Prism vs VisualCron comparison

SS&C Blue Prism and SMA Technologies are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. SS&C Blue Prism is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.8, while SMA Technologies is ranked #30. SS&C Blue Prism holds a 3.9% mindshare in RPA, compared to SMA Technologies’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of SS&C Blue Prism users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of SMA Technologies users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

Blue Prism and VisualCron are competing solutions in the field of process automation and scheduling tools. Blue Prism appears to have an advantage in automation capabilities with robust work queues, whereas VisualCron stands out in job scheduling efficiencies.

Features: Blue Prism provides advanced automation options with reusable processes, a robust work queue, and easy integration with existing systems. VisualCron specializes in job scheduling, job dependencies, and seamless connections with varied databases.

Room for Improvement: Blue Prism needs enhanced AI capabilities, wider integration options, and improved customer support. Its interface, especially in attended automation and OCR, could be modernized. VisualCron could benefit from a more streamlined user interface, better technical documentation, and faster customer support, possibly through a community forum.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Blue Prism offers multiple deployment options but faces criticism for slow customer support, impacting users' experience. VisualCron, available on similar platforms, is noted for straightforward licensing but relies heavily on community interactions for customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Blue Prism is often criticized for high costs, though some justify this with significant ROI. VisualCron provides a more competitive and simple licensing model, enhancing cost-efficiency for simpler job scheduling needs.

To learn more, read our detailed Blue Prism vs. VisualCron Report (Updated: August 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Blue Prism vs. VisualCron

August 2026

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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

Automation Anywhere

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automation Anywhere is 5.4%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Blue Prism is 3.9%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VisualCron is 1.2%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Automation Anywhere	5.4%
Blue Prism	3.9%
VisualCron	1.2%
Other	89.5%

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash

Management Consultant at Accenture

Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions

Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.

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Pavan-Sharma

Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

Impressive flexibility and support enhance integration and performance

The best feature of Blue Prism that I value the most is the simplicity of their pricing and licensing model, which is easy to understand. The tool is very robust and, being a pioneer in the sector, it is also very stable, particularly in finance where many companies rely on Blue Prism for its reliability and security standards. From a developer perspective, I find developing on Blue Prism simple, clean, and intuitive, making maintenance considerably easier compared to other tools. These AI features have helped in developing scalable and flexible solutions for my customers, as I worked on use cases that involved natural language processing to turn free text into structured data, enabling automation of previously unautomatable tasks. Additionally, I processed voice feedback for sentiment analysis and information extraction, making interactions more intuitive and voice-driven for customers.

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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

"It frees individuals up from mundane tasks so they can concentrate on being more active and creative other things that they need to do."

"Automation Anywhere is very good for rapid development. It has all the capabilities in terms of giving a stable automation framework. It has very cool technical capabilities, like MetaBots, dev controls, and object cloning."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the automation of manual tasks, which save us time."

"It is highly accurate and gets up and running in a very short period of time."

"With this innovative tool's automation, it is very dynamic, easy to develop, and deliver results quickly."

"I find the terminal emulator feature very valuable, particularly in how it interacts with IBM mainframe automation."

"The most valuable feature of Automation Anywhere is the ease with which it integrates with our existing APIs."

"Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten."

More Automation Anywhere pros

"The solution enables process creation and is object oriented."

"We've automated web applications in the banking domain using Blue Prism. This involved automating long and complex banking processes. Every action we automate with the tool generates an audit log, which is safe within the LogRhythm environment. I do find the Decipher feature very useful when it comes to document automation."

"The credential manager and logs are most valuable. We are using Blue Prism for complex processes because it is easier to troubleshoot in Blue Prism, and the logs are very accurate. It provides the ability to create smaller tasks, which makes it easier to troubleshoot."

"This solution is scalable because they have an object library, which others do not have, and in terms of reusability, it's great."

"The most valuable feature is that people with zero coding knowledge can use Blue Prism very well."

"The performance is very good and it is a valuable feature."

"The technical support is very good."

"I think Blue Prism is a wonderful product."

More Blue Prism pros

"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."

"It helped us reduce manual steps."

"VisualCronv is currently handling so many different critical processes for our company, it's become a key factor in our livelihood and success."

"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."

"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."

"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 handy tool that we (the IT department) provide for the business departments to obtain easy access when automating and scheduling."

More VisualCron pros

Cons

"I would like to see them continue building out documentation with more video-aides."

"Automation Anywhere changed OCR features in A2019. My suggestion is to improve the OCR command scope and usability. We use OCR for PDF data extraction as we use in V. 11.x product."

"Investment effect is almost none, unfortunately."

"We have explored the AI Agent Studio in our automation process, and we have done some POCs with a couple of use cases that created value for us. However, we have encountered some technical challenges, which is why we haven't proceeded with production yet."

"The pricing is a little bit high compared with other tools."

"The product is good, no doubt about it, but we need the OCR for handwritten documents, the web-based solution, and the licensing has to be improved."

"The integration is not always seamless. Sometimes, it takes a while to get everything to communicate and be ready to go into production."

"I had an issue lasting for the better part of three years, and it was quite severe."

More Automation Anywhere cons

"There are a lot of things coming up, such as Discovery Bot and Process Discovery. A lot of other aspects are also maturing. We have definitely started using it for our clients, and it is maturing as a solution, but it is all about how you integrate the enterprise with all the automation projects, such as your chatbot, Conversational AI, and robotics. How they are integrated and talk to each other creates a very good business case with all three aspects. The next level should be about integrating it with other automation tools as well. It can have integration with other tools or automation projects, such as your chatbot, Conversational AI, and robotics."

"The deployment of the bots should be much faster and more intuitive."

"Blue Prism is lagging in terms of artificial intelligence. There is no artificial intelligence in version 4 or 5, which most people are still using as far as I'm aware. To be fair, they do have AI in version 6. Still, it's lagging terribly. Blue Prism is the inventor of the name of the term "RPA," and it's disappointing to see they are sitting around... Cognitive learning, for example, where it can actually follow your movements on the screen, is not there in Blue Prism."

"It isn't very easy or intuitive for our developers to program the bot to make intelligent decisions. A bot, for the lack of a better word, is stupid, and it can only do what we program it to do. It cannot make intelligent decisions. For example, if we are reviewing Uber charges, they could be posting their transactions under different corporation names, even though they are under the same parent company or group. A human can easily understand that it is the name of the same company, and it just has an asterisk or space, but a bot cannot do that. When a bot cannot complete the transaction, it sends out an exception rate, business exception, or system exception for a human to do a manual review. The exception rate has been high because the bots cannot make decisions that we think are very simple, which is understandable because that's how they were programmed. There is potential in utilizing the higher intelligence side of the tool, but it is not easy to code higher intelligent actions. It is a very lengthy process to get the provisioning to ensure that it is kind of doing what it needs to do. Provisioning involves multiple things, and it is quite complicated and not the best experience, but it is not just because of Blue Prism. Blue Prism is easy, but it takes a long time to onboard into our in-house system."

"Unfortunately, developing with Blue Prism takes more time than developing with UiPath or other platforms, because each action requires multiple actions."

"The control room is still the desktop version, which restricts access. You can't really access it from anywhere."

"For me, I feel that it is lacking in features. It consists of simple actions that work quite well together, and the integration is good but the scope of things that you can do is too narrow."

"We would like to have inbuilt scheduling and resource pooling to distribute the bots on servers from within the platform."

More Blue Prism cons

"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."

"I want to improve the UI in VisualCron, as it's not as user-friendly, particularly when setting up the task scheduler."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More VisualCron cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are interested in saving manual engineer man-hours. So far, we have saved $100,000."

"Annual licensing costs would be about $100,000."

"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."

"Its price is competitive with all other products in the market."

"We were paying approximately $30,000 for a year license."

"We are currently negotiating a contract. Depending upon that, we will definitely look at increasing usage."

"It is not too expensive, but there are many tools available in the market that can provide the same functionality at a cheaper price."

"As our team size increases, we may get some more licenses for the tool."

More Automation Anywhere pricing and cost advice

"Licensing is on a yearly basis."

"The solution is not that expensive and a five-year license costs about 20k euros."

"With Blue Prism, there are no additional fees"

"They work on a big partnership kind of program with our organization, and they also give us a lot of discounts. Its price is pretty much comparable to the other solutions like UiPath and Automation Anywhere."

"Other than your infrastructure, in terms of servers that you have to set up, I don't think that there are any costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"Its license is costlier than UiPath and AA. They should improve its price. We have a two-year contract with them."

"It's an expensive product. For what they are providing in terms of capabilities and features for the price, I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten."

"Blue Prism is an expensive solution, especially in Southeast Asia, while in Europe and the UK, it can be considered moderate in terms of cost."

More Blue Prism 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."

"ROI is one month."

"ROI is 95 percent."

"The price is a bit high."

"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

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Construction Company

11%

Outsourcing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

Outsourcing Company

Construction 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	157
Midsize Enterprise	82
Large Enterprise	558

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	18
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	77

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

Questions from the Community

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.

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Should I choose Blue Prism or Microsoft Power Automate?

Hello Netanya, it depends on your needs and your expertise. In my humble opinion you can start a big RPA project imp...

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I am evaluating Blue Prism and UiPath for RPA for my company. Which one do you recommend?

I'm very familiar with UiPath and the RPA industry: was hired by Daniel Dines in 2015 when there were 35 employees an...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Blue Prism?

If I rate the satisfaction with Blue Prism licensing cost from one to ten, I can mention eight to nine for satisfacti...

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Comparisons

UiPath Platform vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 9% of the time

AutomationEdge vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 3% of the time

WorkFusion vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 2% of the time

Appian vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 2% of the time

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UiPath Platform vs Blue Prism

Compared 15% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs Blue Prism

Compared 13% of the time

Pega Robotic Process Automation vs Blue Prism

Compared 5% of the time

WorkFusion vs Blue Prism

Compared 4% of the time

Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition vs Blue Prism

Compared 3% of the time

More Blue Prism Competitors

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs VisualCron

Compared 10% of the time

UiPath Platform vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

Control-M vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

Stonebranch vs VisualCron

Compared 6% of the time

More VisualCron Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automation Anywhere

August 2026

Download Automation Anywhere product report

Buyer's Guide

Blue Prism

August 2026

Download Blue Prism product report

Buyer's Guide

VisualCron

July 2026

Download VisualCron product report

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)

No data available

Interactive Demo

Automation Anywhere

Demo not available

SS&C Blue Prism

Demo not available

SMA Technologies

Overview

Automation Anywhere offers ease of use, robust system connectivity, and GenAI-driven document automation through a cloud-native platform, significantly enhancing productivity across multiple industries with advanced AI features.

Delivering a comprehensive suite of tools designed for easy integration and rapid deployment, Automation Anywhere drives efficiency by reducing costs and automating repetitive tasks. Its cloud-native platform supports broad industry adoption, including advanced AI features like process automation and Co-Pilot, streamlining complex workflows with minimal technical skills required. Users benefit from robust integration capabilities, which facilitate seamless interaction with multiple systems. However, there is room for improvement in areas such as user-friendliness for beginners, stability, flexible licensing, and enhanced OCR functionality. Organizations in sectors such as banking, finance, manufacturing, and healthcare gain from the improved operational efficiency and ROI Automation Anywhere offers.

What are the important features of Automation Anywhere?

Ease of Use: Simplifies automation tasks with a user-centric interface.
Robust Connectivity: Provides seamless integration with multiple systems.
GenAI-Driven Document Automation: Leverages AI to automate document management.
Process Automation & Co-Pilot: Enhances workflow automation with advanced AI.
Cloud-Native Platform: Enables rapid deployment and integration.

What benefits should be evaluated in reviews?

Time Savings: Automation drastically reduces manual processing time.
Cost Efficiency: Decreases overall operational costs by automating tasks.
Productivity Enhancement: Streamlines workflows with AI-driven tools.
Improved Integration: Enhances ability to work with multiple systems.
Scalability: Supports growth with a flexible cloud-native architecture.

In the insurance industry, Automation Anywhere is utilized for automating processes such as enrollment management and compliance checks. Its applications extend to supply chain management, financial transactions, and business performance monitoring across sectors like banking, finance, manufacturing, and healthcare, helping organizations to automate routine tasks, improve efficiency, and reduce costs.

Automation Anywhere

Blue Prism offers advanced automation features with integration capabilities and robust exception handling. Its scalability and reliability make it ideal for automating complex and repetitive tasks across industries like banking and manufacturing.

Providing a user-friendly design studio, Blue Prism stands out with enhanced automation features such as unassisted bots, strong security measures, and Visual Basic Objects. Its integration capabilities with analytics tools like Tableau and a simplified licensing model contribute to its appeal. Despite its complexities in UI design and training resource limitations, it remains stable and reliable. Blue Prism addresses tasks such as invoice processing and data entry, but improvements in AI, cognitive capabilities, and customer support are needed. Enhancements in OCR technology, unstructured data handling, and web-based interfaces could significantly boost its accessibility.

What are Blue Prism's most important features?

Enhanced Automation: Streamlines complex tasks with a robust interface.
Security Measures: Provides strong security protocols to safeguard processes.
Integration: Seamlessly interacts with analytics tools for data insights.
Exception Management: Facilitates easy handling of process exceptions.

What benefits or ROI should be evaluated?

Scalability: Ensures stable performance for varying organizational needs.
Licensing: Offers a straightforward model for simplified deployment.
Operational Efficiency: Reduces manual labor in complex tasks.
Cost-Effectiveness: Despite higher costs, delivers high value in automation efficiency.

Organizations in industries like finance and manufacturing harness Blue Prism to automate repetitive tasks, boosting efficiency in back-end operations. In banking and insurance, it's used for auditing, compliance, and report generation, enhancing accuracy and reducing manual efforts.

SS&C Blue Prism

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

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

Coca-Cola, Walgreens, American Express, Royal Bank of Canada, Pfizer, Shop Direct, O2, Siemens, Ascension Healthcare, Jaguar Land Rover

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

Buyer's Guide

Blue Prism vs. VisualCron

August 2026

Free Report: Blue Prism vs. VisualCron

Find out what your peers are saying about Blue Prism vs. VisualCron and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.

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