Jiffy.ai Automate vs VisualCron comparison

JIFFY.ai and SMA Technologies are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. JIFFY.ai is ranked #32, while SMA Technologies is ranked #16 with an average rating of 9.0. JIFFY.ai holds a 0.6% mindshare in RPA, compared to SMA Technologies’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of JIFFY.ai users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of SMA Technologies users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

Jiffy.ai Automate and VisualCron are advanced solutions competing in the business process automation category. Jiffy.ai appears to have an edge in flexibility and integration, particularly with its machine learning capabilities.

Features: Jiffy.ai Automate offers a flexible workflow engine, easy configurability, and machine learning capabilities, which stand out for intelligent document processing. It integrates multiple applications and supports third-party connections, allowing comprehensive automation of complex processes. VisualCron excels in task scheduling, database connections, and plugin support, simplifying workflow management with a visual tool that enables non-programmers to automate tasks efficiently using branching logic and alert systems.

Room for Improvement: Jiffy.ai initially lacked containerization support but now includes it; however, it needs better training resources and community engagement to boost user adoption and skill development. VisualCron requires improvements in documentation and user interface, and users have expressed a need for better CI/CD support and community forums for knowledge sharing.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Jiffy.ai supports cloud and on-premise deployments, integrating into stringent cybersecurity environments with responsive customer service providing customized support. VisualCron offers diverse deployment options including hybrid cloud, with users noting its responsive customer service. Yet, Jiffy.ai's adaptability to complex environments gives it an advantage in deployment flexibility and customer service satisfaction.

Pricing and ROI: Jiffy.ai Automate has cost-effective licensing and competitive pricing, offering significant ROI through automation that reduces manual labor and errors. VisualCron also provides fair pricing with simple licensing that supports affordable task management. While both offer cost-effective solutions, Jiffy.ai's comprehensive feature set enhances ROI potential.

To learn more, read our detailed Jiffy.ai Automate vs. VisualCron Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Jiffy.ai Automate vs. VisualCron

July 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 864,155 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

Automate

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automate is 1.9%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jiffy.ai Automate is 0.6%, 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)

Featured Reviews

Anabel Marco

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

Automates processes efficiently with cost-effective scaling and robust customer support

Web scraping is quite good since it offers a lot of possibilities. Another important feature for me is its compatibility with MBI, the Power that is ISEQUADO Centers. I appreciate the ability to scale and increase the number of bots or studios without additional expense. Automate's non-reliance on additional orchestrators makes it quite cost-effective.

Read full review

Reviewer92674

Head of RPA COE at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees

You don't have to code; it is just drag and drop

They are still new in the market. Or, at least, they are still a small player. They require a lot of improvement in terms of learning material as well as the community developers. If you compare Jiffy.ai to an established solution, like UiPath, you can go to YouTube and find a lot of learning material posted by UiPath, partners, and other people in the community. However, for Jiffy.ai, you won't find that available in the market. Because of this it is very hard for us to find talent in the market. Most of the developers in the market are used to the bigger players. For Jiffy.ai, if you search a resume because you are trying to find someone who has used Jiffy.ai, you won't be able to find it. So, when we onboard a new person, we want them to learn this new system, but it is a bit hard for them to pick up because there are no external learning materials on the Internet. For training, they provide the foundation and advanced training. If you have other issues, they have a support portal, which shows a brief summary of the features. It's not very extensive, like Google Cloud Platform. Sometimes there are things that may not be available in the portal. While other products will also not have available the information in their portal, other people know it. So, you don't have in the community discussions about solutions to a problem that would not be available in the portal.

Read full review

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…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"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."

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

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

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

"I would rate the technical support as a nine out of ten because it is quite fast and courteous."

"Fortra's Automate performs the job effectively and has the capability to alert us of any issues."

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

More Automate pros

"I found the invoice data extraction very exciting. It is really good."

"The most valuable feature is the computer vision or OCR. That has a lot of use cases in real life. A lot of man hours can be saved, as we've seen in the finance processes... The feedback I have gotten from the team is that the OCR is quite powerful."

"The way Jiffy.ai integrates into existing infrastructure has been great for us. Our company is pretty stringent when it comes to cyber security and integrating with our apps... We've definitely had very strong scrutiny over this platform and this work, and even within that, it's been really successful at being able to integrate."

"Its initial setup process was quite efficient."

"It is a one stop solution for automating process. The modular way that is assigned and works together follows a certain logic, and it encompasses a wide range of processes in a very structured and logical manner."

"With the customization option, we can write custom expressions using its compatibility with Python or other programming languages."

"It removes the burden of having to do some tasks manually. However, we are just using it in production for a single project. It saves us a lot of time in terms of extracting that information. So far, it has made a big impact."

"The biggest driver was the cost savings. We wanted to improve productivity and save costs. Therefore, we gave most of the mundane tasks currently being done by a human to a bot. Some of the mundane tasks were reading invoices and keying in the data. We are talking about 15,000 documents every day. That is a huge volume that needs a lot of people. With the bot, it is just a fraction of the cost, because there is a huge savings in terms of manpower."

"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."

"'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 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."

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

"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."

"What I like about VisualCron is that like its name, it's a very visual tool. In my previous company, there were a lot of scripts for all kinds of services, and through VisualCron, you get to group all flows and get a nice visual overview. VisualCron also has an alerting feature, so you receive alerts from it. VisualCron makes everything clearer and easier to maintain. Every other solution that I was looking for almost always needed a programmer, but with VisualCron, you can do what you need to do without programming skills, so this is another valuable feature of the tool."

"The 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."

More VisualCron pros

Cons

"Error messages should be better. For error status, there should be better documentation because a lot of times, error messages that you get are quite vague. For example, you get a message saying that the workflow has run into an unknown status, which is vague. It just tells you that it failed, but you don't know how or why it failed. It makes debugging difficult."

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

"I would prefer not having to log in to update a ticket; being able to respond via email would be beneficial."

"The solution has a very weak knowledge base."

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

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

"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."

"Fortra's Automate is not as reliable as I would like it to be."

More Automate cons

"The solution's support services need improvement."

"The setup process could definitely be better."

"The solution has just not closed the gap of being accessible to non-IT users. If you are a non-IT person, then this all looks like gobbledygook. Maybe that is something that can be improved upon."

"The UI or the UX has room for improvement. The approach for designing the workflow is not that straightforward. It's quite difficult."

"Initially, in version 3, Jiffy.ai did not have support for containerization. In our environment, we are heavy users of containers and container illustrators. So, the initial deployment option was running based on individual hosts that we deployed in the cloud. That created a singularity in the way that we deployed services in our system."

"I believe this is also being addressed, but a lot of the platform work, as we were putting in new versions or making some updates, was, ironically, very manual. It's improved greatly, but I would imagine that's an area that they're probably still working on, on the backend, to help when it comes to what we need to do for platform support."

"They are still new in the market. Or, at least, they are still a small player. They require a lot of improvement in terms of learning material as well as the community developers. If you compare Jiffy.ai to an established solution, like UiPath, you can go to YouTube and find a lot of learning material posted by UiPath, partners, and other people in the community. However, for Jiffy.ai, you won't find that available in the market. Because of this it is very hard for us to find talent in the market. Most of the developers in the market are used to the bigger players. For Jiffy.ai, if you search a resume because you are trying to find someone who has used Jiffy.ai, you won't be able to find it. So, when we onboard a new person, we want them to learn this new system, but it is a bit hard for them to pick up because there are no external learning materials on the Internet."

"When using UiPath automation, we could just Google issues if we were stuck with something. In the initial days with Jiffy.ai, we could not get that type of information from Google because there wasn't much of a community."

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

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

"The 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 want to improve the UI in VisualCron, as it's not as user-friendly, particularly when setting up the task scheduler. If you're familiar with the tool, then no problem, but if not, you'll have a problem typing text because sometimes, the cursor points to other places, so there's an issue with text box alignment in VisualCron. That was painful for me when I was just a VisualCron novice, but when you become used to it, there won't be a problem."

"An area for improvement in VisualCron is its cluttered interface. It isn't always easy to find all functionalities, so what VisualCron needs is a user interface expert who can improve the interface. There's a learning curve in terms of finding what you need from the interface of VisualCron. The technical support for VisualCron also needs improvement in terms of response time. Currently, there's no live support or hotline you can call to get quick answers, so this is what I'd like to see in the next version of VisualCron. A less cluttered and more streamlined interface, where you don't need to hunt for some of the features, is also what I'd like to see in the next VisualCron update."

"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."

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

"I would like for VisualCron to expand audit log to show who changed job variables that are initialized per job run."

More VisualCron cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

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

"I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost."

"The cost is a bit high for a small business like ours, but we manage with Fortra's Automate."

"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."

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

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

More Automate pricing and cost advice

"The licensing is not expensive; it is quite cheap. The expensive part is to support and maintain it. Understandably, we engage them to do a lot of work that could have been done by our own staff, if we had an RPA team. I wouldn't hold that against them. It is just that the cost of support is on the higher side for us."

"I like that it is very cost-efficient."

"The pricing is quite competitive. As a small player in the market, they are quite aggressive in their pricing. With the features that they offer, it is quite worth the value."

"The solution's price is reasonable."

"The pricing and license make sense. They have a model based on the concurrency of the workforce, which is very suitable in our case. The savings are great on the licensing cost."

"If cost is of concern, then start with Jiffy. If cost is not your main concern there are a few premium products out there, but they come with a huge price tag."

"Its license is yearly. There are no additional costs to the standard fee. It is a standard license."

"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 95 percent."

"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 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."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

864,155 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Financial Services Firm

16%

Healthcare Company

10%

Educational Organization

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

27%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Insurance Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about HelpSystems AutoMate?

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

See all answers

What is your primary use case for HelpSystems AutoMate?

The main purpose is for automation. That has been the purpose why I have been using it so far.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

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 31% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs Automate

Compared 27% of the time

Blue Prism vs Automate

Compared 10% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Automate

Compared 7% of the time

MOVEit vs Automate

Compared 5% of the time

More Automate Competitors

UiPath Platform vs Jiffy.ai Automate

Compared 38% of the time

Nintex RPA vs Jiffy.ai Automate

Compared 36% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs Jiffy.ai Automate

Compared 27% of the time

More Jiffy.ai Automate Competitors

Microsoft Power Automate vs VisualCron

Compared 37% of the time

Control-M vs VisualCron

Compared 22% of the time

OpCon vs VisualCron

Compared 8% of the time

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

Stonebranch vs VisualCron

Compared 5% of the time

More VisualCron Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automate

July 2025

Download Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

Jiffy.ai Automate

July 2025

Download Jiffy.ai Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

VisualCron

July 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

Founded with the mission to radically change how enterprises automate complex business processes, JIFFY.ai puts the power of real-time innovation in business users’ hands. JIFFY.ai delivers an app-based, cognitive automation platform that includes capabilities ranging from intelligent document processing, natural language processing capabilities, RPA and Low Code/No Code development.

JIFFY.ai

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

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

What are the most important features?

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

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

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

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

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

Southwest Airlines

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

Buyer's Guide

Jiffy.ai Automate vs. VisualCron

July 2025

Free Report: Jiffy.ai Automate vs. VisualCron

Find out what your peers are saying about Jiffy.ai Automate vs. VisualCron and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

864,155 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Jiffy.ai Automate vs. VisualCron report.

See our list of best Robotic Process Automation (RPA) vendors.

We monitor all Robotic Process Automation (RPA) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.