BotFarm vs VisualCron comparison

Automation Anywhere and SMA Technologies are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. Automation Anywhere is ranked #22 with an average rating of 8.0, while SMA Technologies is ranked #18 with an average rating of 9.0. Automation Anywhere holds a 0.5% mindshare in RPA, compared to SMA Technologies’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Automation Anywhere 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 SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

BotFarm and VisualCron are competitive automation solutions in the realm of streamlining operations. BotFarm is seen as having an advantage in pricing and support, while VisualCron is considered superior due to its advanced features.

Features: BotFarm offers scalable RPA capabilities, extensive bot management tools, and portability across tasks, making it ideal for diverse enterprise needs. VisualCron excels in task scheduling, workflow automation, and database integration, providing a comprehensive and customizable solution adaptable to various systems.

Room for Improvement: BotFarm could enhance its user interface and expand features beyond basic automation to improve overall functionality. It may also benefit from better integration capabilities with third-party tools and improved reporting features. VisualCron could strengthen its alerting system, offer better documentation, and expand its range of plugins to increase versatility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: BotFarm is recognized for its straightforward deployment process and efficient onboarding, supported by responsive customer service. VisualCron provides a flexible deployment model complemented by comprehensive support solutions, catering to businesses requiring personalized setup and detailed guidance.

Pricing and ROI: BotFarm offers a cost-effective structure with a rapid ROI, appealing to budget-conscious businesses. In contrast, VisualCron, with higher initial costs, justifies its investment through enhanced productivity and long-term gains, offering a compelling ROI for companies seeking feature depth over initial spend.

To learn more, read our detailed BotFarm vs. VisualCron Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

BotFarm vs. VisualCron

September 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 October 2025, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automate is 2.0%, up from 1.1% 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 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Automate	2.0%
VisualCron	0.9%
BotFarm	0.5%
Other	96.6%

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Featured Reviews

Jane Rachma Kiniti

IT Project Manager at Labo des histoires

Automate has streamlined workflows and increased efficiency with powerful automation

The best features of the solution are the flexible automation features, it is rich with beautiful connectors, and it is easy to use with little to no coding knowledge required to get started, so anybody can use the tool. The intuitive interface of Automate has an intuitive design, which makes it easy to learn and use even without a strong technical background, and it has a drag-and-drop interface, which makes everything so easy and straightforward. The error handling capabilities in complex automation tasks are powerful, as it handles all types of tasks, whether complex or simple. I've never faced any problems even when dealing with complex tasks, so everything is super smooth and highly reliable, even when dealing with big tasks, as it has never slowed down. Automate's compatibility with existing IT infrastructure has impacted our business operations positively by providing smooth integration with other software that we use, such as Gmail, Jira, and Microsoft 365 apps, which gives us a unified platform instead of having to keep switching from one software to another, saving a lot of time and streamlining the whole workflows. The automated analytics have helped improve our business processes since it has increased our efficiency by automating our everyday tasks, freeing up time for us to focus more on strategic activities such as analyzing data and developing new business strategies. It is also cost-saving. By minimizing manual labor, it decreases human errors that can lead to costly mistakes. By automating the tasks, it helps to save costs, and it also improves our accuracy by reducing these errors to ensure that tasks are done almost perfectly.

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Ganesh-Subramanian

Digital Transformation Lead at Expleogroup

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.

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

"I would recommend Automate because it has made my work much easier."

"The best features of the solution are the flexible automation features, it is rich with beautiful connectors, and it is easy to use with little to no coding knowledge required to get started, so anybody can use the tool."

"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."

"The licensing of the product is very good. You only need to license it once and then you have it forever."

"I find the ease of use from a programming perspective very valuable."

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

"I find it very user-friendly. Our IT department and other departments can seamlessly collaborate without requiring extensive training. As a business department, we particularly value this aspect, as our team doesn't consist of many IT users. However, we couldn't solely rely on a drag-and-drop approach to implement and utilize the solution within our departments."

More Automate pros

"Automation Anywhere has good document extraction features where it can learn patterns."

"The most valuable feature is the interface, which helps to provide a good user experience."

"The dashboards are quite good, especially on the latest versions."

"The main features of the solution are the IQ Bot and web-based automation."

"The most important feature of BotFarm is web automation."

"It is easy to use and very stable. It is a rugged product, and it doesn't break so easily."

"From a solution standpoint, screen capture and tight integration with Outlook are valuable features."

"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."

More BotFarm pros

"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."

"'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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More VisualCron pros

Cons

"The interface could be more user-friendly and easier to navigate."

"I would like to see some better web automation, a wizard like the one in the product WinAutomation would be very nice."

"The user interface could be slightly enhanced to make it more modern."

"There is room for improvement regarding cloud functionality; there are a few missing features, and the logging could be better, especially air logging. We can go into logging events and create our own task, but it would be nice if this were more detailed."

"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."

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

"While this solution is continually improving, as it is now, the user interface could use improvement when I compare it to a product like UiPath."

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

More Automate cons

"The only challenge that we have faced with BotFarm is that there is no continuous deployment. The whole world is moving to the DevOps model, but BotFarm is still not on the DevOps model. It should have integration with the DevOps model. The migration of the bots or bots pipeline is currently purely manual."

"Normally we need to monitor the solution using an AWS console and the control room. We would like to have a standardized dashboard to see all the information in one place."

"Although I like the OCR technology, it could still be further improved."

"It would be ideal if the solution offered more language options, such as Arabic."

"Sometimes I feel like it doesn't work properly and we are not able to provide the dexterity needed."

"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 OCR command needs to improve. This feature is used to convert the extracted data from an image file. While converting this file I was facing a lot of issues with the data because it was getting lost and some of the data which was extracted was mismatched. The data loss was rated as a nine and the data accuracy was a massive decrease and was up to 80%."

"Its UI could be made better. It should also be more flexible. Currently, it is more rigid, and a little more flexibility is required. Their technical support should also be better. We are not very happy with their technical support. Its price is also quite high as of now. They should improve its price. Its setup should also be made easier. It is quite complex to set it up. Even though we were able to set it up a little fast because we had done something similar earlier, but it has a very complex setup. It is extremely resource-hungry. If they can make it a little light on resources, that would also be useful."

More BotFarm cons

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

"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."

"The documentation is a bit weak."

"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."

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

"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

"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."

"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."

"Compared to other products, the pricing model for this solution is much more convenient, flexible, and adaptable to the Portuguese reality."

"I like the way this solution is priced because you can buy a license, or you can buy the software outright."

"It comes with a package that costs approximately $20,000 USD per year."

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

"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."

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

More Automate pricing and cost advice

"We pay approximately $15,000 USD per year."

"Its price is quite high as compared to other solutions, but it has a lot of features and good stability. They should reduce its price."

"I think payment can vary but it's a re-occurring fee that needs to be paid every year."

"The solution prices are expensive. It would be more beneficial for customers to lower the pricing."

"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."

"Our licensing costs are approximately $3,000 USD annually."

"Licenses are paid on a yearly basis and the cost is quite high."

"I am very happy with the pricing."

More BotFarm pricing and cost advice

"The price is a bit high."

"ROI is 95 percent."

"VisualCron is correctly priced because it wasn't very cheap, and it wasn't overly expensive, so the price for it was set correctly. When my previous company bought VisualCron, it was €800 per server per year. On a scale of one to five, I would rate the pricing for VisualCron a five because it was just right. The tool was affordable, and it has one of the most competitive pricing in the market."

"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 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

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

No data available

Computer Software Company

27%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	18
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	18

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

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?

My main use case for Automate is to deliver enterprise-scale script execution jobs, which means we are using Automate...

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

Until now, I have not specified any other tech products except Microsoft Power Automate, N8N, and Make.com that I've ...

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What do you like most about BotFarm?

The product has increased efficiency and reduced the time spent on tasks.

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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...

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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...

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

UiPath Platform vs Automate

Compared 21% of the time

Nintex RPA vs Automate

Compared 16% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs Automate

Compared 15% of the time

Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition vs Automate

Compared 9% of the time

Control-M vs Automate

Compared 4% of the time

More Automate Competitors

Automation Anywhere vs BotFarm

Compared 41% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs BotFarm

Compared 30% of the time

Edgeverve AssistEdge Cloud RPA vs BotFarm

Compared 30% of the time

More BotFarm Competitors

Microsoft Power Automate vs VisualCron

Compared 34% of the time

Control-M vs VisualCron

Compared 23% of the time

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs VisualCron

Compared 9% of the time

OpCon vs VisualCron

Compared 8% of the time

JAMS vs VisualCron

Compared 6% of the time

More VisualCron Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automate

October 2025

Download Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

BotFarm

October 2025

Download BotFarm product report

Buyer's Guide

VisualCron

September 2025

Download VisualCron product report

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate

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

BotFarm is an enterprise-level robotic process automation (RPA) solution. What is unique about BotFarm is that users can buy RPA processes based on demand and not be confined to a license or a strict capacity structure. BotFarm, a robust product of Automation Anywhere, is the only RPA solution that allows users to buy only the products they need when they need them. BotFarm allows users to launch all the robots they need to get tasks completed sooner and more efficiently than many other products in the marketplace today. This consumption-based business model will result in significant savings and increase an organization's overall profitability.

BotFarm Benefits

Scalable: The flexible nature of the solution makes it very easy to scale when needed.
User-friendly: The UI is simple to use and understand. Users do not have to be tech-savvy to deploy bots.
Improves efficiency: BotFarm will increase process integrity by reducing human error and the need for continuous manual human effort or interaction.
Integration: BotFarm integrates well with many third-party solutions.

BotFarm Features

No code/low code solutions: Users can easily create and deploy bots to perform undesirable, mundane tasks, freeing IT staff to work on more productive, complicated tasks.
IQ Bots: Easily extrapolate data from any document, such as resumes, invoices, and legal documents, to ensure data is correctly correlated and grouped together and that overall data integrity is never compromised.
Fast: Deployed bots can complete tasks significantly faster than any human component, and with less error.
Cost-effective: Users only pay for the bots they actually need, and create as they go. This innovative process will save your organization time and money while increasing overall productivity and profitability. BotFarm has a very good ROI and is a stable, secure, and scalable solution.

Reviews from Real Users

Akshay P., Associate Systems Analyst at NSEiT Limited, relates, “It is very easy, simple. You're working on a notepad, and you don't need to know programming to work on this. The dashboards are quite good, especially on the latest versions.”

A Digital Strategy Manager at an energy/utilities company shares, “The scalability is the solution's most valuable aspect. The reason Bot Farm is used is to have only one license available whenever you have a spike in the transactions. That is a core feature. That is something which we are using to the maximum. It's working well due to the fact that the solution use case is quite structured.”

A Senior RPA Developer at a tech services company tells us, “The solution is great to automate any repetitive tasks, which you might do on a daily basis. For example, the organization may need to be generating invoices or extracting data from PDF files daily. It is very versatile in what you can automate. This has improved my organization by cutting down on repetitive tasks that now can be automated.”

Automation Anywhere

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

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)

Buyer's Guide

BotFarm vs. VisualCron

September 2025

Free Report: BotFarm vs. VisualCron

Find out what your peers are saying about BotFarm vs. VisualCron and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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