VisualCron vs WorkFusion comparison

SMA Technologies and WorkFusion are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. SMA Technologies is ranked #16 with an average rating of 9.0, while WorkFusion is ranked #9 with an average rating of 7.5. SMA Technologies holds a 1.0% mindshare in RPA, compared to WorkFusion’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of SMA Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 84% of WorkFusion users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

WorkFusion and VisualCron are two automation solutions competing in business process automation. WorkFusion appears to have the upper hand in handling complex workflows and document processing through machine learning and OCR, making it a leader in large enterprises seeking intelligent automation. VisualCron holds an advantage in ease of use and integration without the need for programming skills, making it a preferred choice for businesses with straightforward automation needs.

Features: WorkFusion offers advanced features such as scalable SAP integrations, AutoML, and sophisticated document processing capabilities using machine learning, making it suitable for enterprises seeking intelligent solutions. VisualCron is recognized for its strong schedule management, ease of integration, and user-friendly approach that allows automation without programmer-level skills.

Room for Improvement: WorkFusion users suggest enhancing its user interface for non-technical users, improving NLP processing, and expanding ERP integrations, specifically with SAP. VisualCron users recommend simplifying the interface, enhancing documentation, and expanding community support, to improve its ease of use.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: WorkFusion provides flexible deployment options, including public cloud and on-premises solutions, but receives mixed reviews on issue handling speed. VisualCron focuses on efficient deployment in on-premises and hybrid cloud environments and benefits from strong technical support noted for quick and effective customer service.

Pricing and ROI: WorkFusion's pricing is on the higher end, justified by its comprehensive automation and efficiency gains with reports of significant ROI from error reduction. In contrast, VisualCron offers competitive and transparent pricing, providing good value without complex structures, and is seen as more affordable with reasonable ROI for managing automation tasks.

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

Buyer's Guide

VisualCron vs. WorkFusion

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 VisualCron is 1.0%, up from 0.5% 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)

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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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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Arijit-Ghosh

Intelligent Automation SME at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

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.

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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

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

"The most valuable features of Fortra's Automate include its FTP functionality and file manipulation capabilities."

"Web scraping is quite good since it offers a lot of possibilities."

"I would recommend Automate because it has made my work much easier."

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

"The most valuable features for my client are timing and scheduling."

"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."

"The interface is simple, user-friendly, and very intuitive."

More Automate pros

"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."

"'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."

"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."

"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."

"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

"We have seen Workfusion improve on accuracy and compliance... With the Workfusion model, we reduce human error and the need for further QC. We switch more to a QA process where we're testing whether the model is effective."

"A helpful feature is the analytics capability within WorkFusion. The analytics dashboards, i.e., their Tableau dashboards, are really helpful for building a business activity monitoring layer. These are very visible to senior management and stakeholders, who can see and know what is happening within processes. They can see what benefits are getting delivered as processes, either ;daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. It is easy for stakeholders or senior management to understand the value for the money that they are spending."

"We have been very pleased with the speed and decisiveness of WorkFusion, which is able to quickly provide a disposition note or escalate to a human for additional review."

"This solution has great document recognition capabilities."

"WorkFusion's SAP integrations are really good."

"The cognitive features of this solution are good."

"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 Control Tower enables us to create and use workflows. It helps us run processes. There are a lot of small features, but the Control Tower is a very good feature, wherein we can create bots and schedule them as well as create different instances of them to run in different regions."

More WorkFusion pros

Cons

"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."

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

"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."

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

"The technical support could be better. We suffer from language barriers, as we are in Argentina."

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

"The interface could be more user-friendly and easier to navigate."

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

More Automate cons

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

"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."

"The documentation is a bit weak."

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

"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 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."

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

More VisualCron cons

"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."

"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."

"The solution is not user-friendly, this is something they should improve."

"We have had some problems in the past with the Inspector tool that looks at the elements on the screen. Replacing it or improving it is needed."

"On a scale of 1 - 10 I would rate them a 6. That's not low - that 60%. But as I said, it needs to be upgraded and modified."

"The product needs to be "simple and easy" to use. A good example of this is the use of Python code to perform automations. It is free and the skills transfer is able to happen quickly and the operation and initiation of the completed automation is easy to execute."

"WorkFusion comes packed with certain libraries and .jars. At times, you understand that you're using a system in which a library or .jar is outdated and you need to upgrade it... They need to better manage quickly making changes in WorkFusion to accommodate a situation where other technologies are not supporting the platform."

"We had some issues in the past, but it is fairly stable now. From what I hear, it is more stable in the later versions. With version 10.1.4, there were some issues relating to load distribution. However, it is good now."

More WorkFusion 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."

"Once you buy the software, you just pay for the support for backend help."

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

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

"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."

"From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point."

"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."

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

More Automate pricing and cost advice

"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."

"ROI is 95 percent."

"The price is a bit high."

"ROI is one month."

"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."

"I can't speak to pricing. It's a contract signed by upper management."

"We have a good deal from WorkFusion. We have an unlimited global licensing deal with WorkFusion. For us, it is a no-worry solution. We can go ahead and use it as much as possible anywhere we need it. If WorkFusion has a different kind of a deal for licensing with others, then their business decisions need to be evaluated based on that."

"It is not the most expensive solution, but it is also not the cheapest."

"We are on an annual contract to use the solution."

"My client is using RPA Express, which is available for them to use free of charge."

"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."

"The solution was not the cheapest, but it was also not the most expensive. Workfusion was very open to negotiating pricing and to working within the objectives of our firm."

"They have a very expensive license compared to any other automation tool. For instance, at $50,000 - $60,000, you can bring in an Automation Anywhere solution. For this solution, you need at least $250,000 to get something going."

More WorkFusion pricing and cost advice

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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

27%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Insurance Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

28%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Insurance 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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What do you like most about VisualCron?

The tool has reduced our operational costs by 40%.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VisualCron?

The price is a bit high. However, it is okay.

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What needs improvement with VisualCron?

The documentation is a bit weak. The tool must provide a better set of documentation.

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What do you like most about WorkFusion?

If you compare it to its competitors in the market, it is more Java-native.

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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...

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What needs improvement with WorkFusion?

In low-code automation, most parts are not customizable, particularly when Excel is involved, which increases complex...

See all answers

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Blue Prism vs Automate

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Control-M vs VisualCron

Compared 22% of the time

OpCon vs VisualCron

Compared 9% of the time

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

Stonebranch vs VisualCron

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 32% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs WorkFusion

Compared 16% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs WorkFusion

Compared 12% of the time

Tungsten RPA vs WorkFusion

Compared 8% of the time

ELMA 365 vs WorkFusion

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automate

August 2025

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Buyer's Guide

VisualCron

July 2025

Download VisualCron product report

Buyer's Guide

WorkFusion

July 2025

Download WorkFusion product report

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate

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

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

WorkFusion, Inc. is the creator of AI-enabled Digital Workers designed specifically for banking and financial services organizations. Its Digital Workers are true knowledge workers that effectively augment existing teams in functions like anti-money laundering (AML), sanctions, customer onboarding, Know Your Customer (KYC), and customer service. WorkFusion’s digital workforce solutions help solve talent shortages, increase workforce capacity, save money, enhance employee and customer satisfaction, and ensure ongoing compliance. For more information visit workfusion.com.

WorkFusion

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

Buyer's Guide

VisualCron vs. WorkFusion

July 2025

Free Report: VisualCron vs. WorkFusion

Find out what your peers are saying about VisualCron vs. WorkFusion and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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