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Microsoft Power Automate vs VisualCron comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

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
Sponsored
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Power Automate
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
3rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
129
Ranking in other categories
Process Mining (4th)
VisualCron
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
16th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Managed File Transfer (MFT) (16th), Workload Automation (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automate is 1.8%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power Automate is 18.9%, down from 21.6% 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 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Ayobami Shobaloju - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Sourav-Dutta - PeerSpot reviewer
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The interface is simple, user-friendly, and very intuitive."
"The ability to connect to websites and pull data is the solution's most valuable feature."
"I would rate the technical support as a nine out of ten because it is quite fast and courteous."
"The most valuable features for my client are timing and scheduling."
"The product effectively handles all the tasks we require."
"Automate increases efficiency and eliminates errors during documentation and invoicing processes."
"Overall, the whole product is really nice and provides significant benefits."
"The best feature of Automate is its ease of use, which is a major selling point."
"The initial setup isn't too difficult."
"The most valuable features are that it is low-code and simple."
"The most valuable feature is that it is very easy to use."
"The solution offers a lot of documentation and tutorials for users to learn about various aspects and features."
"The most advantageous aspect of the solution is its cloud capabilities."
"AI Builder is a good add-on."
"This product is the best in terms of price and capabilities."
"The technical support is good."
"We don't have to do any coding. We just plug and play and it works."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It helped us reduce manual steps."
"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."
 

Cons

"Regarding customer support, I face challenges sometimes. They're not always available, and you may need to wait for assistance, but overall their support is acceptable."
"The documentation is not that great."
"I would like to see some better web automation, a wizard like the one in the product WinAutomation would be very nice."
"Some companies have asked for voice integration. This is likely part of the roadmap."
"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."
"I find that most important features are strong, however, there is a lack of good development for artificial intelligence, such as machine learning."
"It's possible that they could use a stronger community for seeking guidance and help."
"The OCR for Hebrew text needs to be improved."
"Tech support could be more hands-on. Right now, they simply direct users to documentation instead of directly dealing with issues."
"The technical support has room for improvement."
"Looping can be a bit tricky."
"Sometimes there are issues with security policies within the company. Some parts get blacked. There are some drawbacks when we use it connected to the cloud. We need to convince clients to open some parts. This is often an issue that originates from the company itself, not Power Automate."
"It should work better for Angular websites, as it has a lot of problems."
"On the governance side, there isn't enough documentation on how to govern Power Automate. People just build bespoke automation, which then becomes a problem point for different companies."
"Microsoft Power Automate could improve by adding more features to the free version it would be good because there are many features that you have to pay for. There are some functions that IT personnel, like myself, have a difficult time using and could be made more user-friendly."
"The solution could benefit from mirroring Oracle's use of videos and community forums to help users get acquainted with the product. It could use better online training and/or documentation."
"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."
"VisualCron's command console is a little bit difficult to understand and needs to improve."
"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 seems to operate like an efficient machine when it comes to improvements and enhancements and new features. I always appreciate the quick response I get when bringing up an issue or coming up with suggestions. I've mentioned before that it would be great to see a move away from SQLCE and XML configuration files."
"I would like for VisualCron to expand audit log to show who changed job variables that are initialized per job run."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From a distributor's side, one of the biggest selling points is its price point. Without going into any numbers, compared to UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and Blue Prism, we're significantly cheaper. The main difference is that other competitors usually charge you per process. However, in Automate's case, it's priced per bot. So, a bot can run multiple processes at the same time, but you are only priced for a single bot."
"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."
"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."
"Once you buy the software, you just pay for the support for backend help."
"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."
"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."
"It comes with a package that costs approximately $20,000 USD per year."
"I am not aware of the recent pricing model, but during the time that I was using this solution is was reasonable."
"Comparatively, WinAutomation is cheaper than the other automation tools. When we purchased the license, it was around $50 or $60 per user most probably per month."
"The pricing of this solution is very good and for me, it's the best option there is."
"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."
"I don't deal with the financial side. I know that we pay for a per-user license. It is probably less than $20 a user, but I am not sure about the exact figures."
"The cost to use Microsoft Power Automate is approximately $15 per user per month, for the basic plan. However, the solution comes free with the Microsoft 365 Suite."
"The price of the solution is reasonable. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"We are just using the free products at the moment. We are using the ones that come with the license that we have got."
"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."
"ROI is one month."
"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 price is a bit high."
"ROI is 95 percent."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
5%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
5%
Computer Software Company
28%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Insurance Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

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.
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.
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...
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...
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 ‌...
How is Automation Anywhere compared to Microsoft Power Automate?
‌Neither‌ ‌solution‌ ‌requires‌ ‌any‌ ‌coding‌ ‌experience,‌ ‌and‌ ‌both‌ ‌are‌ ‌easy‌ ‌to‌ ‌use‌ ‌and‌ ‌have‌ ‌great...
What do you like most about VisualCron?
The tool has reduced our operational costs by 40%.
What needs improvement with VisualCron?
The documentation is a bit weak. The tool must provide a better set of documentation.
 

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate
Power Automate, Microsoft Flow, MS Power Automate, WinAutomation by Softomotive, ProcessRobot by Softomotive, Minit
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
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)
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power Automate vs. VisualCron and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,490 professionals have used our research since 2012.