NICE Robotic Automation vs VisualCron comparison

NICE and SMA Technologies are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. NICE is ranked #33, while SMA Technologies is ranked #16 with an average rating of 9.0. NICE holds a 0.9% mindshare in RPA, compared to SMA Technologies’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 62% of NICE 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

NICE Robotic Automation and VisualCron compete in the automation space. NICE Robotic Automation has an edge in enterprise-level tasks with its scalability and advanced analytics, while VisualCron excels in integration and simplicity.

Features: NICE Robotic Automation features advanced analytics capabilities, robust scalability, and process automation that supports both attended and unattended modes. VisualCron stands out for its flexible integration options, user-friendly visual scheduling, and powerful task automation with no need for extensive programming knowledge.

Room for Improvement: NICE Robotic Automation could improve in simplifying its deployment process for less technical users and enhancing API use cases. VisualCron may benefit from expanding its advanced analytics capabilities, refining its user interface for more intuitive navigation, and offering more extensive scalability features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NICE Robotic Automation offers a structured deployment process and comprehensive customer service catering to large enterprises. VisualCron is praised for its straightforward deployment and responsive, accessible customer support suitable for businesses seeking quick setups.

Pricing and ROI: NICE Robotic Automation has higher setup costs but offers significant ROI through its advanced features, suitable for long-term investments. VisualCron is cost-effective initially, providing fast ROI due to its flexibility and ease of use, making it appealing for budget-conscious businesses.

To learn more, read our detailed NICE Robotic Automation vs. VisualCron Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

NICE Robotic Automation vs. VisualCron

December 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 879,310 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

Fortra's Automate

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Fortra's Automate is 2.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NICE Robotic Automation is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VisualCron is 1.0%, 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 (%)
Fortra's Automate	2.5%
VisualCron	1.0%
NICE Robotic Automation	0.9%
Other	95.6%

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.

Read full review

Harish G V

Senior RPA Developer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

Quicker compared to other bots but not very user-friendly

There is a need for NICE to be more user-friendly. It should be designed in such a way that any developer can easily develop bots. For instance, Power Automate provides a good example of a user-friendly design that NICE can learn from. Moreover, in terms of documentation, there is very little available for NICE, making it challenging to implement the bots. So, documentation should be improved as well. There are a lot of additional features that could be included in NICE. As the NICE Robotic Automation claims, it is a low-code solution, but that is not entirely true. They need to concentrate on the prerequisites and building blocks. There should be more options available internally that are easy to use and well-developed.

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

"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."

"I like the interface; it makes managing automation easy. We can set different schedules and templates for each task."

"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."

"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 actually quite liked the no-coding functionality."

"The most valuable feature is the drag-and-drop interface, which is very Windows-like."

"Compared to other vendors, it's the scheduling tool because a lot of vendors want to charge you extra for their enterprise-level license to have a scheduling tool built in to give you the ability to set up regular schedules to run and do certain data checks."

More Fortra's Automate pros

"It is a kind of desktop automation. Its licensing model is a little bit different. It tends to be individual automation specific to a role. It excels at that."

"Through interfaces called Callout (created with HTML code) it is possible to create a strong interactivity with the user. These interfaces can be extremely dynamic in relation to the behavior of a local or remote robotic flow."

"Provides good automation features."

"It is easy to deploy. To do the automation in NICE, you really need to use your programming expertise. There are no inbuilt features in it, and you have to create all the required features, which can be very interesting for a programmer."

"NICE is one of the only vendors that does attended and unattended out-of-the-box. Using the unattended processes we've been able to build a "feature library." We break each process down into workable chunks that we can save into a big library. The next time we come to automate a task, we already have chunks of that automation built."

"What we've done with the RTI client is that we've brought it into a bit more of a 21st-century feel. Our agents have the ability to move around when they want, click into stuff. They use it according to how their conversations go with the customer."

"The deployment of NICE Robotic Automation is easy."

"We don't have to do any coding. We just plug and play and it works."

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

"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 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."

"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."

"The ability to clone jobs to shorten the time it takes to implement a process has been invaluable, but its flexibility also gives us the ability to create a job that can handle a multifaceted process with a complex workflow."

"It helped us reduce manual steps."

More VisualCron pros

Cons

"The intelligent automation feature could be improved. It's interesting because it's simple, but the automation quality isn't always good. It's easy to use, but sometimes you need to make a slight improvement to the automation, and that's not so easy."

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

"There are newer AWS services such as Lambda or Security Hub that security analysts use to detect malicious traffic or alerts, but the integration is not available for these, so we still rely on custom scripting because there are no options for drag-and-drop with these newer services."

"They do not encrypt passwords, so this is an issue with HIPAA compliance."

"Some challenges include the system being too loaded or delayed in taking instructions and responding quickly as needed."

"The solution has a very weak knowledge base."

"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."

"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."

More Fortra's Automate cons

"There is a need for NICE robotics to be more user-friendly."

"We haven't found it to be as powerful as some of the other platforms. From a true RPA perspective, it is pretty far behind some of the other solutions. It has emerged as a more desktop automation kind of tool, but it lacks a lot of enterprise features. It is not really a true RPA because of its licensing, which is kind of user-initiated. It would be nice it can be deployed at a more enterprise licensing model versus a user-based model. It didn't have autonomous automation so far, and they have just released this feature. They have kind of hodgepodged a bunch of products together to get there, but it is not as seamless as other solutions."

"The solution is not as intuitive as it could be and integrating took a lot of time."

"[During the upgrade] any issues, where it couldn't remotely connect to upgrade, I needed the floor plan so I could go to that PC and have a look at it. Often it was either that the PC was switched off or had a bug or some other application needed to be reset."

"There are a few areas for improvement in the installation phase"

"Its connectivity with other applications should be improved. In the version that I was using, it would just stop interacting with the other application. Its graphical interface should also be improved. It should have a user-friendly interface. Sometimes, people find it very difficult to understand. One of the obstacles that I faced while programming was that if I needed any kind of help, there wasn't much content on the internet. It can be very difficult to find a solution for a particular issue."

"The one thing I'd like to see, and NICE is already heavily investing in it, is improvement in the user interface itself. They call it the Designer and it's what the developers use. It is a bit clunky; that is the polite way to put it. I'd like to see it be a bit more user-friendly, a bit more intuitive, and to move to something a bit more web-based..."

"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 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."

"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."

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

"The documentation is a bit weak."

"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 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."

More VisualCron cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

More Fortra's Automate pricing and cost advice

"As per my understanding, UiPath has a much lesser cost than NICE, but I am not sure."

"The pricing is extremely fair, and because of that I recommend purchasing multiple instances to split out the processing load across multiple application servers."

"ROI is one month."

"ROI is 95 percent."

"The price is a bit high."

"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."

"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

879,310 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Performing Arts

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

15%

Computer Software Company

11%

Recreational Facilities/Services Company

Computer Software Company

28%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	24
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	1
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	4

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?

We have been using Automate for approximately one to one and a half years for the automation component. For complex a...

See all answers

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

The pricing aspect is covered by my senior, but Automate is a centralized tool, so we do not need to buy different to...

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 Fortra's Automate

Compared 13% of the time

Nintex RPA vs Fortra's Automate

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs Fortra's Automate

Compared 10% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Fortra's Automate

Compared 8% of the time

MOVEit vs Fortra's Automate

Compared 4% of the time

More Fortra's Automate Competitors

UiPath Platform vs NICE Robotic Automation

Compared 35% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs NICE Robotic Automation

Compared 23% of the time

Blue Prism vs NICE Robotic Automation

Compared 17% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs NICE Robotic Automation

Compared 14% of the time

Verint Robotic Process Automation vs NICE Robotic Automation

Compared 12% of the time

More NICE Robotic Automation Competitors

Microsoft Power Automate vs VisualCron

Compared 27% of the time

Control-M vs VisualCron

Compared 18% of the time

OpCon vs VisualCron

Compared 9% of the time

JAMS vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

More VisualCron Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortra's Automate

December 2025

Download Fortra's Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

NICE Robotic Automation

December 2025

Download NICE Robotic Automation product report

Buyer's Guide

VisualCron

December 2025

Download VisualCron product report

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate

No data available

Overview

Fortra's Automate offers a user-friendly platform for task automation, featuring a drag-and-drop interface that aids in scheduling, file management, and integrating with services like Azure and AWS.

Fortra's Automate provides substantial ease in automating complex tasks through its intuitive design. It offers seamless integration capabilities, especially with Azure and AWS, and comes equipped with strong error handling. Cost-effective and requiring minimal coding, it supports a broad range of industries by effectively automating tasks such as HR operations, invoice management, and data processing across servers.

What features stand out in Fortra's Automate?

Drag-and-Drop Interface: Simplifies task setup and automation without deep coding expertise.
Scheduling and File Management: Ensures efficient, automated handling of tasks and file transfers.
Integration Capabilities: Works with platforms like Azure and AWS for enhanced performance.
Error Handling: Offers solid solutions to manage and resolve task execution errors.
Minimal Coding: Facilitates automation with limited coding requirements, broadening accessibility.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Cost-Effectiveness: Provides affordable licensing options for diverse businesses.
Operational Efficiency: Enhances productivity by automating repetitive tasks, reducing manual errors.
Versatility: Adapts well across sectors like banking, healthcare, and transportation.
Robust Support: Offers extensive assistance with automation features.
IT Compatibility: Easily integrates into existing IT infrastructures.

In industries such as healthcare and transportation, Fortra's Automate facilitates the automation of client management, HR operations, and data processing, boosting efficiency. Banks utilize it for managing extensive invoice workflows, while distribution sectors rely on its capabilities for insurance checks and system support. Its applicability across servers makes it a valuable tool for any sector seeking to reduce manual workload and improve task accuracy.

Fortra

NICE Robotic Automation is allowing organizations to reinvent customer service in the back office and the contact center. Automation offers an immediate reduction of administrative costs for a quick return on your investment. With robots able to perform tasks four to five times faster than a human, NICE Robotic Automation enables quicker turnaround times for customer requests and improved service-level agreements (SLAs). Routine processes are completed flawlessly every time, reducing the need to allocate time for making corrections. NICE Robotic Automation is highly scalable, so a center's processing power can increase when demand does.

NICE

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

HelpLine, Telefonica Spain, Banca Popolare Di Sondrio

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

Buyer's Guide

NICE Robotic Automation vs. VisualCron

December 2025

Free Report: NICE Robotic Automation vs. VisualCron

Find out what your peers are saying about NICE Robotic Automation vs. VisualCron and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

879,310 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our NICE Robotic Automation 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.