BotFarm vs VisualCron comparison

Automation Anywhere and SMA Technologies are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. Automation Anywhere is ranked #22 with an average rating of 8.0, while SMA Technologies is ranked #18 with an average rating of 9.0. Automation Anywhere holds a 0.5% mindshare in RPA, compared to SMA Technologies’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Automation Anywhere users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of SMA Technologies users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

BotFarm and VisualCron are competitive automation solutions in the realm of streamlining operations. BotFarm is seen as having an advantage in pricing and support, while VisualCron is considered superior due to its advanced features.

Features: BotFarm offers scalable RPA capabilities, extensive bot management tools, and portability across tasks, making it ideal for diverse enterprise needs. VisualCron excels in task scheduling, workflow automation, and database integration, providing a comprehensive and customizable solution adaptable to various systems.

Room for Improvement: BotFarm could enhance its user interface and expand features beyond basic automation to improve overall functionality. It may also benefit from better integration capabilities with third-party tools and improved reporting features. VisualCron could strengthen its alerting system, offer better documentation, and expand its range of plugins to increase versatility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: BotFarm is recognized for its straightforward deployment process and efficient onboarding, supported by responsive customer service. VisualCron provides a flexible deployment model complemented by comprehensive support solutions, catering to businesses requiring personalized setup and detailed guidance.

Pricing and ROI: BotFarm offers a cost-effective structure with a rapid ROI, appealing to budget-conscious businesses. In contrast, VisualCron, with higher initial costs, justifies its investment through enhanced productivity and long-term gains, offering a compelling ROI for companies seeking feature depth over initial spend.

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

Buyer's Guide

BotFarm vs. VisualCron

September 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 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 BotFarm is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VisualCron is 0.9%, 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 (%)
Automate	2.0%
VisualCron	0.9%
BotFarm	0.5%
Other	96.6%

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.

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Ganesh-Subramanian

Digital Transformation Lead at Expleogroup

Offers enhancement in data accuracy with low-code requirements and easy onboarding

It's a scalable product. In our organization, we sometimes write a script once and reuse it several times, which improves workflow efficiency. Our team inputs the datasets one by one or in a batch mode into BotFarm and schedules them or calls individually as needed. For instance, if one individual has 15 or 20 forms that need to be scanned and logged immediately, it's possible to implement with BotFarm and its scheduling operations. The solution is ideal for small and medium-sized enterprises and can fit in for large enterprises as well, depending upon the use case. For instance, if 100 agents are working across different locations through a mobile app, all the data from the agents can be stored in a common repository and scheduled. BotFarm can be configured based on the architecture and business operations.

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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

"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."

"It gives us a central place to schedule tasks and run them distributed."

"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 pricing is excellent. I would give them perfect marks in that regard."

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

"Fortra's Automate performs the job effectively and has the capability to alert us of any issues."

"I find the ease of use from a programming perspective very valuable."

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

More Automate pros

"The system is stable and very little maintenance is required, assuming the bots process is perfectly designed."

"BotFarm is an easy solution to use and the interface is better than older versions."

"It is easy to use and very stable. It is a rugged product, and it doesn't break so easily."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"The main features of the solution are the IQ Bot and web-based automation."

"They recently released the newest version that has a good program flow, quality, and blueprints that are all good improvements to the automation. They also have good integration with SAP."

"The most valuable features of this solution are the Excel automation and support for SharePoint."

"Automation Anywhere has good document extraction features where it can learn patterns."

More BotFarm pros

"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."

"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."

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

"'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 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."

"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%."

More VisualCron pros

Cons

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

"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."

"Fortra's Automate is not as reliable as I would like it to be."

"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."

"There is a lack of good development for artificial intelligence, such as machine learning."

"The user interface could be slightly enhanced to make it more modern."

"I believe we need to test various OCR tools that assist in evaluating, let's say, six different customer resyncs. We analyze their spending patterns and documentations, but current OCR support has limitations, requiring highly standardized documents, which isn't always the case. With a more advanced OCR system, we could improve processes related to credit risk management and legal matters. We're exploring how to integrate Fortra's Automate with our CRM platform, taking cues from instances where Salesforce seamlessly merged with Automate. However, we use a different CRM, Insight for New Enterprise, and we're seeking ways to connect the automation process within our CRM. We aim for the automation to continue smoothly, even in instances where traditional automation methods might face hurdles."

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

More Automate cons

"We do have some troubles with the internal software commands, but we have been troubleshooting this bug to fix it."

"It would be ideal if the solution offered more language options, such as Arabic."

"The solution can improve the accuracy of hand-written data reading"

"The pricing of this product could be better."

"The machine learning needs to be improved so that they perform better in terms of predictive analysis and sentiment analysis."

"Although I like the OCR technology, it could still be further improved."

"The discovery suite that they just acquired could be included."

"I have called customer service three times and the experience has not been good. They do not offer 24/7 support, which forces us to wait till the next working day to solve a problem."

More BotFarm cons

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

More VisualCron cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost."

"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."

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

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

"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."

More Automate pricing and cost advice

"The licensing is on a monthly basis."

"Its price is quite high as compared to other solutions, but it has a lot of features and good stability. They should reduce its price."

"Licenses are paid on a yearly basis and the cost is quite high."

"The license of this solution is on an annual basis. The price is fair. However, what we did initially was a POC, but now we are looking at moving from a POC to expanding it out further. I would appreciate some kind of discount."

"We pay approximately $15,000 USD per year."

"Automation Anywhere is more reasonable than Blue Prism and UiPath in terms of cost."

"Our licensing costs are approximately $3,000 USD annually."

"The product is slightly expensive"

More BotFarm pricing and cost advice

"ROI is one month."

"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."

"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."

"ROI is 95 percent."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

No data available

Computer Software Company

28%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	18

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?

My main use case for Automate is automating my everyday tasks, such as reporting, task assignment, and updating proje...

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

The pricing for Automate is affordable, even for a small organization, and it's well-packed and affordable.

See all answers

What do you like most about BotFarm?

The product has increased efficiency and reduced the time spent on tasks.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BotFarm?

The product is slightly expensive. In comparison to competitor tools like UiPath, BotFarm's cost is greater. Our orga...

See all answers

What needs improvement with BotFarm?

The solution can improve the accuracy of hand-written data reading. In some situations, the data needs to be hand-wri...

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

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Nintex RPA vs Automate

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Microsoft Power Automate vs Automate

Compared 15% of the time

Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition vs Automate

Compared 9% of the time

Control-M vs Automate

Compared 4% of the time

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Automation Anywhere vs BotFarm

Compared 40% of the time

Edgeverve AssistEdge Cloud RPA vs BotFarm

Compared 31% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs BotFarm

Compared 29% of the time

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Microsoft Power Automate vs VisualCron

Compared 33% 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 8% of the time

JAMS vs VisualCron

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automate

October 2025

Download Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

BotFarm

October 2025

Download BotFarm product report

Buyer's Guide

VisualCron

October 2025

Download VisualCron 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

BotFarm is an enterprise-level robotic process automation (RPA) solution. What is unique about BotFarm is that users can buy RPA processes based on demand and not be confined to a license or a strict capacity structure. BotFarm, a robust product of Automation Anywhere, is the only RPA solution that allows users to buy only the products they need when they need them. BotFarm allows users to launch all the robots they need to get tasks completed sooner and more efficiently than many other products in the marketplace today. This consumption-based business model will result in significant savings and increase an organization's overall profitability.

BotFarm Benefits

Scalable: The flexible nature of the solution makes it very easy to scale when needed.
User-friendly: The UI is simple to use and understand. Users do not have to be tech-savvy to deploy bots.
Improves efficiency: BotFarm will increase process integrity by reducing human error and the need for continuous manual human effort or interaction.
Integration: BotFarm integrates well with many third-party solutions.

BotFarm Features

No code/low code solutions: Users can easily create and deploy bots to perform undesirable, mundane tasks, freeing IT staff to work on more productive, complicated tasks.
IQ Bots: Easily extrapolate data from any document, such as resumes, invoices, and legal documents, to ensure data is correctly correlated and grouped together and that overall data integrity is never compromised.
Fast: Deployed bots can complete tasks significantly faster than any human component, and with less error.
Cost-effective: Users only pay for the bots they actually need, and create as they go. This innovative process will save your organization time and money while increasing overall productivity and profitability. BotFarm has a very good ROI and is a stable, secure, and scalable solution.

Reviews from Real Users

Akshay P., Associate Systems Analyst at NSEiT Limited, relates, “It is very easy, simple. You're working on a notepad, and you don't need to know programming to work on this. The dashboards are quite good, especially on the latest versions.”

A Digital Strategy Manager at an energy/utilities company shares, “The scalability is the solution's most valuable aspect. The reason Bot Farm is used is to have only one license available whenever you have a spike in the transactions. That is a core feature. That is something which we are using to the maximum. It's working well due to the fact that the solution use case is quite structured.”

A Senior RPA Developer at a tech services company tells us, “The solution is great to automate any repetitive tasks, which you might do on a daily basis. For example, the organization may need to be generating invoices or extracting data from PDF files daily. It is very versatile in what you can automate. This has improved my organization by cutting down on repetitive tasks that now can be automated.”

Automation Anywhere

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

Cisco, CocaCola Bottlers Japan, Macy's, Whirlpool, Unilever

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

Buyer's Guide

BotFarm vs. VisualCron

September 2025

Free Report: BotFarm vs. VisualCron

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

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