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BotFarm vs VisualCron comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 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

Automate
Sponsored
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
BotFarm
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
21st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VisualCron
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
16th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Managed File Transfer (MFT) (16th), Workload Automation (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automate is 2.0%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BotFarm is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VisualCron is 1.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Automate2.0%
VisualCron1.0%
BotFarm0.5%
Other96.5%
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
 

Featured Reviews

Ibukun Shweta - PeerSpot reviewer
Automation optimizes scheduling, but improvements needed in error reporting and script execution
In my particular use case, for session management, it would be better if I could get a more granular view into connectivity issues to servers. Sometimes, although your flows or tasks are running as scheduled, connecting to the servers can hit a snag without alerts or error logs to check. Some servers might need patching or could be affected by network issues or latency. The workflow sometimes gets stuck without clarity on the errors. An explicit error report would be helpful, especially when the connection fails unexpectedly. It's complex to analyze problems that might arise from firewall issues or other anomalies that could hinder the flow from executing as expected. The depth of these connection challenges would benefit from better debugging capabilities. As for improvements, if Automate wasn't designed primarily for script execution, that's understandable. However, for Linux, I would prefer to see less complexity in workflows to achieve a natural completion of scripts. There are features, such as 'wait for terminal output,' that should more intuitively detect completion based on the shell prompt. Improving those aspects would make Automate more efficient for my needs. Regarding error reporting, I think Automate should offer better error reporting when connecting to servers. Currently, there are many instances where I see empty logs, indicating that, while tasks are scheduled, commands are not executing successfully. This is a significant concern, especially with critical workloads where visibility into errors is essential.
Ganesh-Subramanian - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers enhancement in data accuracy with low-code requirements and easy onboarding
It's a scalable product. In our organization, we sometimes write a script once and reuse it several times, which improves workflow efficiency. Our team inputs the datasets one by one or in a batch mode into BotFarm and schedules them or calls individually as needed. For instance, if one individual has 15 or 20 forms that need to be scanned and logged immediately, it's possible to implement with BotFarm and its scheduling operations. The solution is ideal for small and medium-sized enterprises and can fit in for large enterprises as well, depending upon the use case. For instance, if 100 agents are working across different locations through a mobile app, all the data from the agents can be stored in a common repository and scheduled. BotFarm can be configured based on the architecture and business operations.
Sourav-Dutta - PeerSpot reviewer
It's user-friendly, and I didn't need long to understand the process
We use VisualCron for all our automation needs, like connecting to FileZilla, calling APIs, generating PGP keys, creating encryption files with the PGP key login to Azure, etc. It can automatically log in to SQL Server and execute SQL script jobs in bulk. We had 2,000-3,000 users at my previous…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Overall, the whole product is really nice and provides significant benefits."
"We have tried other RPA solutions like UiPath or Automation Anywhere. They are fantastic products but complex, and it's hard to understand everything. It would be best if you had a skilled developer or several. Automate is easy to implement, administer, and use. It's appropriate for us because our cases are simple and easy to automate. We don't need complicated tools with many features; We prefer to get a significant ROI quickly."
"The peace of mind I have using Automate for scheduling tasks allows me to focus on other responsibilities without worrying about operational issues."
"The ability to connect to websites and pull data is the solution's most valuable feature."
"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."
"This tool has machine learning and voice recognition and computer vision, which are both quite useful aspects. These aren't available in other tools. It's a good addition to this tool and it gives the solution an edge on the market."
"The solution is continuously adding more integrations to help with workflows and bot and task creation."
"We have found the pricing to be very reasonable."
"The solution seems to offer high stability. We haven't seen any bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze."
"It is easy to use and very stable. It is a rugged product, and it doesn't break so easily."
"BotFarm is an easy solution to use and the interface is better than older versions."
"One of the most valuable features is the solution's simple automation regarding object cloning and strings variables."
"The record option and the OCR technology have been great."
"They recently released the newest version that has a good program flow, quality, and blueprints that are all good improvements to the automation. They also have good integration with SAP."
"The most valuable features are PDF extraction and emailing."
"The most valuable feature of BotFarm is the fact that we can use escalations when we need more computer power to fulfill all embargo that we receive in one day."
"The most valuable feature of VisualCron is its ability to schedule interactive jobs so that you can have interdependencies within the job and interdependencies of a job on another job, and so on."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"'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."
"We don't have to do any coding. We just plug and play and it works."
"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."
 

Cons

"They do not encrypt passwords, so this is an issue with HIPAA compliance."
"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."
"There is a lack of good development for artificial intelligence, such as machine learning."
"I currently have three bugs open with them that I don't know if they are addressed in the new release."
"Regarding customer support, I face challenges sometimes. They're not always available, and you may need to wait for assistance, but overall their support is acceptable."
"The OCR for Hebrew text needs to be improved."
"We really need a free development environment for customers. Building and testing automation on production isn't ideal."
"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."
"The deployment could be made a little bit easier."
"BotFarm newer version has been difficult to install, we have been in contact with the support on this matter."
"There should be more support for developing in environments such as Citrix and Linux."
"The machine learning needs to be improved so that they perform better in terms of predictive analysis and sentiment analysis."
"Although I like the OCR technology, it could still be further improved."
"The stability needs to be improved."
"We have connectivity and integration with pretty much every single tech stack across the table that we have in the world, and there are a few areas that they don't do that well yet. I'd be looking for some improvement there, in terms of their integration with certain products."
"The discovery suite that they just acquired could be included."
"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."
"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 documentation is a bit weak."
"I would like for VisualCron to expand audit log to show who changed job variables that are initialized per job run."
"I want to improve the UI in VisualCron, as it's not as user-friendly, particularly when setting up the task scheduler. If you're familiar with the tool, then no problem, but if not, you'll have a problem typing text because sometimes, the cursor points to other places, so there's an issue with text box alignment in VisualCron. That was painful for me when I was just a VisualCron novice, but when you become used to it, there won't be a problem."
"VisualCron seems to operate like an efficient machine when it comes to improvements and enhancements and new features. I always appreciate the quick response I get when bringing up an issue or coming up with suggestions. I've mentioned before that it would be great to see a move away from SQLCE and XML configuration files."
"The 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."
"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

"I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost."
"Once you buy the software, you just pay for the support for backend help."
"The cost is a bit high for a small business like ours, but we manage with Fortra's Automate."
"It has gone up in price. The price of Fortra's Automate has increased since we first started using it. It does a lot but also costs a lot. It was a lot more affordable before Fortra owned the software."
"While solutions like UiPath and Blue Prism cost around $11,000-$12,000 for each license, this product costs around $7,000 and you can keep it forever."
"From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point."
"I like the way this solution is priced because you can buy a license, or you can buy the software outright."
"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."
"Licenses are paid on a yearly basis and the cost is quite high."
"Our licensing costs are approximately $3,000 USD annually."
"The pricing is fair."
"I am very happy with the pricing."
"The pricing model could be simplified."
"The license of this solution is on an annual basis. The price is fair. However, what we did initially was a POC, but now we are looking at moving from a POC to expanding it out further. I would appreciate some kind of discount."
"We are on an annual license for the solution and is priced well."
"There is a license for this solution and it is on an annual basis. I am satisfied with the price."
"The pricing is extremely fair, and because of that I recommend purchasing multiple instances to split out the processing load across multiple application servers."
"We are fine with a rather cheap setup. Licensing with VisualCron is fair. You have a simple one-year licence in different sizes. There isn't a licensing jungle with hundreds of options and opt-ins."
"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."
"ROI is one month."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Performing Arts
6%
No data available
Computer Software Company
27%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Insurance Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about HelpSystems AutoMate?
We use it for specific cases, mainly secure file transfers, which are vital for us. And it works for us.
What is your primary use case for HelpSystems AutoMate?
The main purpose is for automation. That has been the purpose why I have been using it so far.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?
Regarding pricing, it is very friendly. I would not say that it is really cheap or very expensive, but it fits within...
What do you like most about BotFarm?
The product has increased efficiency and reduced the time spent on tasks.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BotFarm?
The product is slightly expensive. In comparison to competitor tools like UiPath, BotFarm's cost is greater. Our orga...
What needs improvement with BotFarm?
The solution can improve the accuracy of hand-written data reading. In some situations, the data needs to be hand-wri...
What do you like most about VisualCron?
The tool has reduced our operational costs by 40%.
What needs improvement with VisualCron?
The documentation is a bit weak. The tool must provide a better set of documentation.
 

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aldergrove Financial Group, Preferred Health Professionals, Mindbeam Technologies, First Credit Union in British Columbia, Vestcom International, Prime Liberty Benefits, University of Tampa, CNLBancshares, World Precision Instruments, BJ's Restaurants, Globe Pequot Press, Accudata Technologies, Norton Healthcare, Pacific Toxicology Laboratories
Cisco, CocaCola Bottlers Japan, Macy's, Whirlpool, Unilever
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 BotFarm vs. VisualCron and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.