Microsoft Power Automate vs VisualCron comparison

Microsoft and SMA Technologies are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. Microsoft is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.8, while SMA Technologies is ranked #28. Microsoft holds a 6.7% mindshare in RPA, compared to SMA Technologies’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Microsoft 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

VisualCron and Microsoft Power Automate both compete in the automation and integration category, with notable strengths in various areas. Based on the comparison, VisualCron seems to have the upper hand in flexibility and customization, while Microsoft Power Automate shines in integration within the Microsoft ecosystem and ease of use due to its low-code environment.

Features: VisualCron's strengths include flexibility in handling nightly sync tasks, the ability to use job variables for customized templates, and process-specific logging. It offers intuitive scheduling for complex workflows and an alerting feature for error notifications. Microsoft Power Automate features seamless integration with Microsoft tools, out-of-the-box connectors, and minimal coding requirements. It provides an easy-to-use interface, a vast array of templates, and significant AI and third-party application integration.

Room for Improvement: VisualCron could improve its error handling and audit logs while enhancing user account management, community support, and UI. It also needs to bolster its documentation and security features. Microsoft Power Automate, on the other hand, needs to advance its AI capabilities, improve error handling and Excel integration, and simplify its licensing. Users also desire better documentation and more training resources.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VisualCron supports on-premises and hybrid cloud environments, offering deployment flexibility. Its customer support is generally quick and competent, although some users experience slow responses. Microsoft Power Automate provides versatile deployment options across public, private, and hybrid clouds, benefiting from a strong Microsoft support infrastructure. However, it could improve community interaction and the availability of support.

Pricing and ROI: VisualCron is praised for its fair and competitive pricing, supporting multiple instances that boost processing capabilities, with a high ROI due to reduced manual tasks. Microsoft Power Automate is cost-effective, particularly with its integration into Microsoft Office 365. Though licensing can be complex, its pay-for-use model and bundled free features enhance affordability. Its high ROI is attributed to its efficient integration capabilities within Microsoft tools.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Power Automate vs. VisualCron Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power Automate vs. VisualCron

June 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 June 2026, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automation Anywhere is 5.5%, down from 10.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power Automate is 6.7%, down from 19.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VisualCron is 1.2%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Automation Anywhere	5.5%
Microsoft Power Automate	6.7%
VisualCron	1.2%
Other	86.6%

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.

Read full review

Ayobami Shobaloju

Customer Solution Provider at Wema Bank

Automating processes has saved time and improved communication

Something frustrates me concerning Microsoft Power Automate, and that is about the integration with Microsoft Forms and Excel. The issue now is that I don't get my responses synchronized automatically, and that frustrates me a lot. If the team could take this as feedback, the synchronization of the feedback responses from the forms and the Excel sheets should be seamless. This synchronization issue happens frequently, and it causes a lot of delays in the sense that the mails that ought to go out to the agents fail at some point. I have to reload these responses so that the agents can get their responses as when submitted. What I notice is that the responses don't go out without proper synchronization, so I reload the field responses, and this works afterwards. I would say probably a seamless walkthrough process for new users would be beneficial. For those using it for the first time, a seamless walkthrough process would be fine.

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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

"Very comprehensive with different platforms especially SAP and Oracle EBS."

"We've saved a lot of time. How much time we save depends on the process. It's likely at least 50%. Sometimes, it's up to 70%."

"The RPA automation itself is valuable."

"Automation Anywhere can grow alongside our automation needs."

"Automation Anywhere is a decent competitor and gives a better solution."

"The infrastructure that Automation Anywhere has created is really simple; compared to other tools such as Power Automate, it is more user-friendly and faster."

"For the beginners, it is an easy tool compared to other tools in market. Users can understand the line by line code and code it easily. There is no syntax or anything else. They can easily drag and drop, executing the bot directly."

"Automation Anywhere has positively impacted my organization by saving millions of dollars over the past several years since we implemented it, along with saving a lot of hours, achieving a lot of ROI, realizing a lot of value, and significantly reducing urgency and stress."

More Automation Anywhere pros

"It is a very useful solution. You don't need to create an infrastructure in your environment just for triggers or executions. You don't need to invest in the infrastructure. With Power Automate, we can call or trigger custom web services and routines. We are also using the flow for gathering data from Microsoft Dynamics."

"The solution integrates well with Microsoft Office and other Microsoft solutions."

"The ease of use is the solution's most valuable aspect."

"The most advantageous aspect of the solution is its cloud capabilities."

"We have completed a few projects, and just finished another one in which we were able to fill out 10,000 forms for a client who needed to do it as quickly as possible when a system went down, reducing a process that would have taken weeks to four hours."

"The best features of Microsoft Power Automate are its ability to switch from one app to another without user interaction, so you can automate a task, take data from one source, process it, and then output it in another format or have it as an input for another app, and also to transform data and have that done with minimal human interaction."

"It is stable and scalable."

"I like the scalability option and the simplicity, the way we can really use the interface to easily scale up."

More Microsoft Power Automate pros

"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."

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

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

"VisualCron has enabled us to efficiently automate and maintain many tasks with minimal effort from our internal IT resources."

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

"'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."

"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."

"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."

More VisualCron pros

Cons

"Setup and deployment of this product could be difficult for those without experience. These processes should be made easier."

"There are many bots available on the Bot Store. However, my developer told me that he was unhappy with the quality of the bots available."

"We want to have greater control on deciding when we want to upgrade to a newer version"

"Reliability and error handling should be improved."

"Automation Anywhere can be improved with better documentation."

"I would like to see extensive OCR capabilities in the next release."

"Additionally, the user interface is quite outdated and could be more user-friendly. The licensing cost is also too high, which means many small-scale industries may not choose this product."

"There are a lot of issues in the tool. There are a lot of breakdowns."

More Automation Anywhere cons

"The stability is not very reliable."

"I was working on it for around three days and then took a break of about two days. When I went back to it, all of the Excel, and all the Excel functions, just disappeared. Completely vanished. When I looked up the help, it said that sometimes that happens when you're not connected to the internet."

"It is challenging to scale the solution across multiple branches."

"The solution lacks maturity."

"Microsoft Power Automate could improve by offering recurring execution on the desktop."

"I haven't used it with AI language models, and I think it may be restricted to work very friendly with Copilot, which could lead to further developments with other AI models or tools, thus suggesting some work is pending to do."

"The solution is still maturing very quickly and it's going to take no time for this to be Enterprise RPA."

"The issue lies more in how you learn the solution. The information is very generalized. It could be extremely useful to have more specific information about how to use various features within the platform."

More Microsoft Power Automate cons

"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."

"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."

"An area for improvement in VisualCron is its cluttered interface."

"The documentation is a bit weak."

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

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

"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."

More VisualCron cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is somewhere in the middle. The price and value of Automation Anywhere are better than UiPath. The pricing is good globally. It could be a little bit cheaper, but it is good."

"The Community Edition is a good offering from the company."

"I really enjoy the pricing options with Automation Anywhere, as they are able to flex their ability to adapt to the needs of the customer really well."

"Our company is investing a lot of money in Automation Anywhere. They have saved money wherever humans are working. They invest a lot of money in FTEs and other logistics, so the money saving is very pretty good with Automation Anywhere. While I don't know the exact figure, the tool is saving us millions of dollars as well as saving about 40,000 hours in the last year."

"Cost is the biggest area in need of improvement for Automation Anywhere. Annually it's $250,000. That's what deterred us right away."

"As far as costs, it depends on your use. We started with a basic department pack, which is over 10K. The additional costs depend on the scale of the engagement and how it pans out. We customize to our needs on the go."

"Licensing for Automation Anywhere (AA) is paid on a yearly basis. Out of all the RPA tools, it has the most value for money, e.g. what you pay is what you get."

"We have saved customers 400% in terms of time saved by implementing this product."

More Automation Anywhere pricing and cost advice

"We have it on our system. I don't really know if we need a separate license."

"This is the cheapest option among competitors. You can choose to have the RPA with attendance at $40/month with add-on's totaling about $190. There are standalone options that require someone to run the process and there are fully automated options that are integrated within the cloud."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing two to three out of ten."

"This solution is bundled with our Office 365, so there is no additional licensing fee."

"When accompanying customers, we discuss the license requirements. Based on these requirements, we suggest whether a per-user plan or multiple platforms per-user plan would be best."

"It had by far the fairest licensing on the market. For the money, you got a very good value."

"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being expensive because there are charges for additional plug-ins."

"Microsoft Power Automate is part of our Office 365 package, there are no additional licensing costs."

More Microsoft Power Automate pricing and cost advice

"The price is a bit high."

"ROI is one month."

"ROI is 95 percent."

"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."

"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

17%

Construction Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Construction Company

Computer Software Company

25%

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	154
Midsize Enterprise	82
Large Enterprise	536

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	50
Midsize Enterprise	17
Large Enterprise	69

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.

See all answers

RPA that Bots can run without centralized control?

Yes, Attended Bots which can run without centralized control Module. RPA Tools like Automation Anywhere, uiPath ,Pow...

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How do I choose between UiPath and Microsoft Power Automate?

Microsoft‌ ‌Power‌ ‌Automate‌ ‌is‌ ‌intuitive‌ ‌and‌ ‌easy‌ ‌to‌ ‌integrate‌ ‌and‌ ‌use.‌ ‌I‌ ‌like‌ ‌that‌ ‌there‌ ‌...

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How is Automation Anywhere compared to Microsoft Power Automate?

‌Neither‌ ‌solution‌ ‌requires‌ ‌any‌ ‌coding‌ ‌experience,‌ ‌and‌ ‌both‌ ‌are‌ ‌easy‌ ‌to‌ ‌use‌ ‌and‌ ‌have‌ ‌great...

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Comparisons

UiPath Platform vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 13% of the time

Blue Prism vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 7% of the time

WorkFusion vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 2% of the time

AutomationEdge vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 2% of the time

Celonis vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 2% of the time

More Automation Anywhere Competitors

UiPath Platform vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 15% of the time

Blue Prism vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 5% of the time

Celonis vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 3% of the time

ServiceNow Automation Engine vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Power Automate Competitors

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs VisualCron

Compared 9% of the time

UiPath Platform vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

Control-M vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

JAMS vs VisualCron

Compared 5% of the time

Stonebranch vs VisualCron

Compared 4% of the time

More VisualCron Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automation Anywhere

June 2026

Download Automation Anywhere product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power Automate

June 2026

Download Microsoft Power Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

VisualCron

May 2026

Download VisualCron product report

Also Known As

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

Power Automate, Microsoft Flow, MS Power Automate, WinAutomation by Softomotive, ProcessRobot by Softomotive, Minit

No data available

Interactive Demo

Automation Anywhere

Demo not available

Microsoft

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

Microsoft Power Automate is a powerful tool that streamlines and automates tasks within an organization.

It is used for workflow automation, data integration, and creating automated notifications and approvals.

Power Automate connects different applications and services, such as SharePoint, Excel, and Outlook, to automate data transfer and synchronization.

Microsoft

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

1. Coca-Cola 2. General Electric 3. Siemens 4. Accenture 5. Deloitte 6. Johnson & Johnson 7. Ford 8. Nestle 9. Procter & Gamble 10. IBM 11. Amazon 12. Google 13. Microsoft 14. Adobe 15. Cisco 16. Oracle 17. SAP 18. Intel 19. HP 20. Dell 21. Verizon 22. AT&T 23. T-Mobile 24. Walmart 25. Target 26. Home Depot 27. McDonald's 28. Starbucks 29. Nike 30. Apple 31. Facebook 32. Twitter

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

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power Automate vs. VisualCron

June 2026

Free Report: Microsoft Power Automate vs. VisualCron

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power Automate vs. VisualCron and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.

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