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VisualCron vs WorkFusion 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
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VisualCron
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
18th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Managed File Transfer (MFT) (15th), Workload Automation (16th)
WorkFusion
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (10th), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automate is 2.0%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VisualCron is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WorkFusion is 1.5%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Automate2.0%
WorkFusion1.5%
VisualCron0.9%
Other95.6%
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
 

Featured Reviews

Ibukun Shweta - PeerSpot reviewer
Automation optimizes scheduling, but improvements needed in error reporting and script execution
In my particular use case, for session management, it would be better if I could get a more granular view into connectivity issues to servers. Sometimes, although your flows or tasks are running as scheduled, connecting to the servers can hit a snag without alerts or error logs to check. Some servers might need patching or could be affected by network issues or latency. The workflow sometimes gets stuck without clarity on the errors. An explicit error report would be helpful, especially when the connection fails unexpectedly. It's complex to analyze problems that might arise from firewall issues or other anomalies that could hinder the flow from executing as expected. The depth of these connection challenges would benefit from better debugging capabilities. As for improvements, if Automate wasn't designed primarily for script execution, that's understandable. However, for Linux, I would prefer to see less complexity in workflows to achieve a natural completion of scripts. There are features, such as 'wait for terminal output,' that should more intuitively detect completion based on the shell prompt. Improving those aspects would make Automate more efficient for my needs. Regarding error reporting, I think Automate should offer better error reporting when connecting to servers. Currently, there are many instances where I see empty logs, indicating that, while tasks are scheduled, commands are not executing successfully. This is a significant concern, especially with critical workloads where visibility into errors is essential.
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…
Arijit-Ghosh - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud platform orchestrates business processes with AI capabilities
I find the capabilities that a normal orchestrator should have to be valuable in WorkFusion. The WorkFusion 10 cloud-based platform is different from the earlier on-prem version, WorkFusion 9. The platform now includes auto machine learning and AI capabilities. We haven't used these extensively, but they are a nice feature they are working on. The platform remains stable with well-designed processes, despite being a complex and technical tool.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The peace of mind I have using Automate for scheduling tasks allows me to focus on other responsibilities without worrying about operational issues."
"The ability to connect to websites and pull data is the solution's most valuable feature."
"We use it for specific cases, mainly secure file transfers, which are vital for us. And it works for us."
"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."
"A great feature that you seldom see in these kind of systems is the ability to use a database as trigger to launch a task. This is something I asked for a few years ago and that was added."
"Fortra's Automate has effectively replaced the workload of an entire employee, saving us significant time and money."
"We are still in the process of rolling it to production and tweaking it (our AD groups are a mess), but the improvements are priceless. Having users ID's created the same way every time without human error is the best part. We don't need to worry about why groups were not added, user rights not set to folders or missing a private folder being created, typos or just even knowing when things are done and logged."
"I like the interface; it makes managing automation easy. We can set different schedules and templates for each task."
"We don't have to do any coding. We just plug and play and it works."
"It helped us reduce manual steps."
"'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."
"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."
"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 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 most valuable features are the Excel activities. It has a number of Excel activities that are quite reliable."
"The tool itself is easy. I started using it without really having any coding experience... After just a few clicks, it was doing reconciliations for me."
"The document processing engine is good. We're extracting around 70 data points from a given document, and we have an automated extraction rate of 80 percent for those fields."
"The most valuable features are the recorder because it's user-friendly and the integration with other tools Excel."
"In our opinion this group are the leaders in providing RPA solutions."
"It takes care of simple tasks so users can focus more on exceptions than on regular use cases. They only focus on orders where they need to handle an exception, some information was not given, or there is an issue that they had to focus on. The rest of it goes straight through without human touch. We want to see our employees as engineers, wherein they think and solve problems, not necessarily have to do repetitive tasks. I think WorkFusion helps with avoiding repetitive tasks."
"The solution is stable, we have not had any glitches or problems."
"WorkFusion's SAP integrations are really good."
 

Cons

"The interface could be more user-friendly and easier to navigate."
"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."
"It's possible that they could use a stronger community for seeking guidance and help."
"They do not encrypt passwords, so this is an issue with HIPAA compliance."
"I currently have three bugs open with them that I don't know if they are addressed in the new release."
"Some companies have asked for voice integration. This is likely part of the roadmap."
"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 solution has a very weak knowledge base."
"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."
"I want to improve the UI in VisualCron, as it's not as user-friendly, particularly when setting up the task scheduler. If you're familiar with the tool, then no problem, but if not, you'll have a problem typing text because sometimes, the cursor points to other places, so there's an issue with text box alignment in VisualCron. That was painful for me when I was just a VisualCron novice, but when you become used to it, there won't be a problem."
"An area for improvement in VisualCron is its cluttered interface. It isn't always easy to find all functionalities, so what VisualCron needs is a user interface expert who can improve the interface. There's a learning curve in terms of finding what you need from the interface of VisualCron. The technical support for VisualCron also needs improvement in terms of response time. Currently, there's no live support or hotline you can call to get quick answers, so this is what I'd like to see in the next version of VisualCron. A less cluttered and more streamlined interface, where you don't need to hunt for some of the features, is also what I'd like to see in the next VisualCron update."
"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 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."
"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."
"VisualCron's command console is a little bit difficult to understand and needs to improve."
"The user experience could be better both from an RPA perspective and from a business perspective."
"This is a Java-based application that takes up a lot of space and when it runs, consumes a lot of memory. This affects the reliability because it gets to a point where it hangs."
"I would like it if they provided a more detailed roadmap in terms of where they are going with the product. As we are trying to make decisions about the things that we are going to do to try to augment our capabilities, we could know whether they are thinking about the same things or not."
"We have executed our robots thousands of times in our enterprise environment. However, in an enterprise environment, WorkFusion has performance problems. It is slow in production."
"I frequently face issues with infrastructure and some WorkFusion-related problems, such as login issues."
"There is enhanced functionality I would like to see, things that would further enhance the user experience, deliver greater efficiencies, and further mitigate risk."
"One of the issues that we are facing here in China, is that we cannot access the material for training because it is on YouTube. In China, we do not have access to YouTube."
"Where it can be improved is the speed. I built two bots, one with WorkFusion and the same thing with Python. My feeling was that the speed at which Python did things, how fast it did them, was quite cool. It was faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is a bit high for a small business like ours, but we manage with Fortra's Automate."
"I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost."
"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."
"Compared to other products, the pricing model for this solution is much more convenient, flexible, and adaptable to the Portuguese reality."
"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."
"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."
"It comes with a package that costs approximately $20,000 USD per year."
"From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point."
"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."
"ROI is 95 percent."
"The price is a bit high."
"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."
"As a first-time customer who wants to engage with WorkFusion, not working for my company, then I would want to do a PoC. The cost is prohibitive because they will ask me to get infrastructure with six or seven servers. Then, you must buy a WorkFusion license to do a PoC, which is expensive. I would then have to set up a team to build the PoC and see the benefits. That is very prohibitive."
"The pricing is fair because WorkFusion's out-of-the-box solution is appealing."
"The overall cost could come down a bit in terms of maintaining the servers. Because it can handle complicated things in big use cases, the infrastructure is also correspondingly big. It would be nice to bring that cost down."
"One upgrade took a year to do, from the first server being built to the last bot being migrated. This was because we had to migrate all our existing bots. This is the same process and time frame that we are expecting towards the upcoming upgrade. I will end up spending half a million dollars to do an upgrade."
"We are on an annual contract to use the solution."
"Find it online."
"My client is using RPA Express, which is available for them to use free of charge."
"It is not the most expensive solution, but it is also not the cheapest."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Performing Arts
6%
Computer Software Company
27%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Insurance Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Non Profit
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Large Enterprise23
 

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?
My main use case for Automate is to deliver enterprise-scale script execution jobs, which means we are using Automate...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?
Until now, I have not specified any other tech products except Microsoft Power Automate, N8N, and Make.com that I've ...
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.
What do you like most about WorkFusion?
If you compare it to its competitors in the market, it is more Java-native.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WorkFusion?
WorkFusion is cheaper than Kofax, but I cannot compare it to UiPath ( /products/uipath-reviews ) without exact pricin...
What needs improvement with WorkFusion?
In low-code automation, most parts are not customizable, particularly when Excel is involved, which increases complex...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate
No data available
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
7 Eleven, ABB Sécheron SA, Adobe Systems Incorporated, Amazon Europe Core, Apple, Assa Abloy, Aston Martin, Banco Santander, BMW (Australia)
Deutsche Bank, Amerant Bank, Bank of Asia, Scotiabank, Bank of Montreal, LPL Financial, Carter Bank & Trust, Selective Insurance, HPE, Canadian Tire, Standard Bank, Humana, New York-Presbyterian, Houston Methodist, Six Financial, State Street
Find out what your peers are saying about VisualCron vs. WorkFusion and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.