Nintex RPA vs VisualCron comparison

Nintex and SMA Technologies are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. Nintex is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.6, while SMA Technologies is ranked #16 with an average rating of 9.0. Nintex holds a 2.0% mindshare in RPA, compared to SMA Technologies’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Nintex 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 Nintex RPA compete in the automation software category. VisualCron has an advantage in scheduling and alerting, while Nintex RPA stands out with its scalability and ease of integration across different systems.

Features: VisualCron's automation features include job variables, branching logic, extensive logging capabilities, and a visual tool layout for workflows without coding. Additionally, it supports plugins and database integration. Nintex RPA offers a visual design interface, cross-platform integration, and reusable components, focusing on seamless error handling and robust logging.

Room for Improvement: Users note VisualCron could improve its user role management, navigation for beginners, and documentation. Enhancements in its user community support are also suggested. For Nintex RPA, users desire better AI integration, document handling, and smoother integration with external platforms like Google and ServiceNow. Improved error handling for complex automation is also needed.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VisualCron supports deployment across Private, Public, and Hybrid Cloud environments. It is praised for knowledgeable support, despite some slower response experiences, with a strong user community noted as beneficial. Nintex RPA provides similar deployment flexibility and is recognized for remarkable support responsiveness and an active user community.

Pricing and ROI: VisualCron offers a straightforward licensing model valued for lack of hidden costs, perceived to bring high ROI by reducing manual tasks. Nintex RPA, while possibly more expensive, is considered affordable for its features, with flexible licensing for scalable automation. Despite higher initial costs, its ROI and efficiency gains are seen as justifying investments.

To learn more, read our detailed Nintex RPA vs. VisualCron Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Nintex RPA vs. VisualCron

July 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 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 Nintex RPA is 2.0%, up from 1.4% 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.

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JonathanNg

Global Automation Lead - Customer Operations at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

Helped us identify areas where frontline staff aren't following standard procedures or using unexpected systems, giving us better insight into our end users' workflows

To analyze and make sense of the data generated by Kryon process discovery can be a lot of effort. It's not as automatic as some might think. It really depends on how many processes you have and how actively you use them. But the scalability aspect isn't necessarily about deployment or technical maintenance. It's really about how you analyze and gain insights from the data gathering. I'd rate the scalability a seven out of ten because the solution has been scaling well for a long time. It's very easy to deploy. But getting value out of it at scale can be a challenge, just like with any deployment. We use it mainly for process discovery. We actually proceed it from different teams. So, we have 15 licenses that we rotate with different people, actually through different teams. So, we do discovery for the online team; we gather the results after about two weeks to a month. We analyze those results, and then we deploy them again on the analytics team. We regularly deploy it to different teams. So, it's in constant use. It just runs on the systems through discovery mode most of the time.

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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

"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."

"I actually quite liked the no-coding functionality."

"The product effectively handles all the tasks we require."

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

"The best feature of Automate is its ease of use, which is a major selling point."

"This tool has machine learning and voice recognition and computer vision, which are both quite useful aspects. These aren't available in other tools. It's a good addition to this tool and it gives the solution an edge on the market."

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

More Automate pros

"It's very seamless to interact with Excel files and web app pages."

"The thing that we find the most value in is the Process Discovery component and the ability to really see what users are doing on a day-to-day basis. We're starting to make sense of the processes that they're doing and getting visibility into what they're doing. Overall, the Process Discovery is very good."

"What I like most about Kryon RPA is the user experience. I also find the layout and design of the solution better for programming compared to other RPA solutions."

"We took a very complex business area, and every activity in it which can be done automatically is being replaced by the robot instead of people working on it."

"The advanced Excel functionalities are really convenient because we work a lot with spreadsheets. It’s also easy to use the HTML selectors. It’s just a click and it picks it up. There’s not a lot of no hard-coding with it."

"Attended automation has diverted 34 percent of training calls to our tech support centers."

"Nintex RPA often includes security features, including encryption and user access controls, which ensure the protection of sensitive data and compliance with security standards."

"The full-service automation aspects and the process discovery are the most valuable features of Kryon RPA."

More Nintex RPA pros

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

"It helped us reduce manual steps."

"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 most valuable feature of VisualCron is its ability to schedule interactive jobs so that you can have interdependencies within the job and interdependencies of a job on another job, and so on."

"It has improved our organization with more automation within the business departments and less administration and development in the IT department. Usually, as the IT department, we are the bottleneck for many requirements within the business. With this tool, the business departments are able to perform many task themselves."

"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."

"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."

More VisualCron pros

Cons

"The vendor is currently working on a solution that allows us to automatically create a process that is based on a document that we receive via email."

"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."

"We really need a free development environment for customers. Building and testing automation on production isn't ideal."

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

"The solution has a very weak knowledge base."

"It would be an improvement if Automate had better stability tools, whether by recommending a certain amount of memory because it can be a memory hog at times."

"The workflow for variables could be better. The input and output of task-level variables could be made a little clearer in terms of passing those around from one task to another upon success, etc. Things like that could be a little easier potentially."

More Automate cons

"Extracting meaningful data requires significant effort. You need a dedicated business analyst who can understand the output."

"Often, it's difficult to loop through a large data set unless the bot has access to the Excel file with specific settings and shortcodes."

"I would like to see a better OCR solution. That's the main thing: identifying unstructured data, like all paper documents and data from pictures."

"What needs improvement in Kryon RPA is the support. Sometimes, the solution has problems, so I contacted support, but I didn't receive immediate help from the team. You have to wait a while before the problem gets solved. This happens a few times in terms of getting cases solved. It would also be better if Kryon RPA had a cloud version because currently, from what I know, it only has an on-premise version, though I could be wrong about that. There isn't any additional feature I'd like added to Kryon RPA because it's a good service, but the support is very, very bad, so that area could be improved."

"Kryon RPA's integration with other solutions could be more seamless."

"We have found some difficulties regarding the integration with legacy systems where the screen has elements in the Hebrew language. The connection to Hebrew, right-to-left systems, is more challenging."

"I have seen some very minor occurrences where Kryon's interactions with Microsoft Office might cause the robot to hang. However, it is about one to two percent of the time where we are seeing this happen. It is such a small percentage that it's not even something that we are overly worried about. This would be where they might have some stability issues, but it could be the Microsoft Office API or how they are interacting together."

"It could be more reliable in spying HTML."

More Nintex RPA cons

"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."

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

"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 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."

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

"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."

"The documentation is a bit weak."

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

More VisualCron cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

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

"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'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 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."

More Automate pricing and cost advice

"The price is affordable."

"The product has reasonable pricing."

"We are probably saving $6000 to $8000 a month in labor costs. It's not a ton, but we're right around $60,000 to $80,000 a year with our current deployment."

"We have a yearly license. It's about $5,000 per year."

"We've more than broken even over on the license. Year to date, we are at $120,000 in savings."

"Kryon is slightly more expensive compared to UiPath."

"Licensing costs are about $100,000 a year without any additional costs."

"Compared to its competitors, Kryon RPA's pricing is very competitive."

More Nintex RPA 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."

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

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

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.

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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...

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Best RPA tools for IBM iSeries

We have found that Foxtrot (Now NintexRPA) is a very solid solution for IBM iSeries integration using the IBM ACS 525...

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What do you like most about Nintex RPA?

Nintex RPA often includes security features, including encryption and user access controls, which ensure the protecti...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nintex RPA?

Although Nintex RPA is expensive, it is somewhat affordable considering its features. I would rate the cost aspect as...

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 28% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs Automate

Compared 24% of the time

Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition vs Automate

Compared 9% of the time

Blue Prism vs Automate

Compared 8% of the time

Tungsten RPA vs Automate

Compared 4% of the time

More Automate Competitors

UiPath Platform vs Nintex RPA

Compared 22% of the time

IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) vs Nintex RPA

Compared 13% of the time

Blue Prism vs Nintex RPA

Compared 12% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Nintex RPA

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs Nintex RPA

Compared 11% of the time

More Nintex RPA Competitors

Microsoft Power Automate vs VisualCron

Compared 36% 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

JAMS vs VisualCron

Compared 6% of the time

More VisualCron Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automate

August 2025

Download Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

Nintex RPA

August 2025

Download Nintex RPA product report

Buyer's Guide

VisualCron

July 2025

Download VisualCron product report

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate

Kryon RPA

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

Using Nintex RPA, enterprises can leverage trained bots to quickly and cost-effectively automate routine tasks without the use of code in an easy-to-use drag and drop interface. Users are now equipped with a comprehensive, enterprise-grade process management and automation solution that streamlines processes fueled by both structured and unstructured data sources.

Nintex

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

Amazon, Audi, Chevron, Toyota, Uber, Walmart

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

Buyer's Guide

Nintex RPA vs. VisualCron

July 2025

Free Report: Nintex RPA vs. VisualCron

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