GoAnywhere MFT vs VisualCron comparison

Fortra and SMA Technologies are both solutions in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category. Fortra is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.7, while SMA Technologies is ranked #16 with an average rating of 9.0. Fortra holds a 9.8% mindshare in MFT, compared to SMA Technologies’s 1.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Fortra users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of SMA Technologies users who would recommend it.

GoAnywhere MFT

Read 56 GoAnywhere MFT reviews

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2,561 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

VisualCron

Read 11 VisualCron reviews

1,627 Views
488 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

GoAnywhere MFT

VisualCron

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 8, 2025

GoAnywhere MFT and VisualCron are both strong contenders in file transfer and automation, but they address different user needs. GoAnywhere MFT leads with advanced security, while VisualCron promises ease of use without deep programming knowledge.

Features: GoAnywhere MFT excels with advanced security mechanisms, comprehensive audit logs, and integration capabilities in complex environments. VisualCron provides a user-friendly visual interface, supports various plugins, and facilitates job scheduling without requiring programming skills.

Room for Improvement: GoAnywhere MFT could enhance its interface intuitiveness, improve cloud connectors, and address technical support delays. VisualCron users suggest a more streamlined interface, better documentation, and a structured support community.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GoAnywhere MFT offers flexibility with on-premises, private, and hybrid cloud deployments, but its customer service can be slow at times. VisualCron is praised for simple deployment and reliable support, yet lacks comprehensive resources for users.

Pricing and ROI: GoAnywhere MFT is viewed as an affordable option given its extensive features, typically justifying cost through improved efficiency. VisualCron's pricing is straightforward and valued for boosting productivity and managing workloads efficiently.

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

Buyer's Guide

GoAnywhere MFT vs. VisualCron

July 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

GoAnywhere MFT

Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)

2nd

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VisualCron

Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)

16th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Workload Automation (16th), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (16th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category, the mindshare of GoAnywhere MFT is 9.8%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VisualCron is 1.8%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Managed File Transfer (MFT)

Featured Reviews

Vidyasagar Gupta

File Transfer Analyst at IG Group

Enables secure and efficient file transfers with customizable automations

The biggest improvement I've seen since using GoAnywhere MFT for three to four years is in security; control over our network security is the biggest factor to consider, and the solution automatically identifies and blocks attempts to attack our system. Additionally, the transfer speed is impressive; even if files are in GBs, it doesn't take much time to transfer, increasing our organization's efficiency significantly. In my opinion, the best feature of GoAnywhere MFT is its user-friendly UI; it's very simple to use compared to other managed file transfer tools such as MOVEit and Axway, which are a bit more complicated. While we don't use any connectors for services such as Salesforce, SharePoint Online, or MS365, GoAnywhere MFT does have the capability of connecting to these systems either through SFTP, HTTPS protocols, or API-based connections. The way it works here is different; we set up a resource-based connection to connect to various services such as SAP or Salesforce. The range of connectors that GoAnywhere MFT provides out of the box is quite extensive; it covers everything from legacy tools that support AS2 connections to the latest services such as AWS and Azure Blobs. I'm very satisfied with the connectivity options available in GoAnywhere MFT; they include everything you can think of, and as long as the system you want to connect to accepts connections, we can connect using AS2, AS4, and other cloud connectors. In relation to the agents, they are crucial for extending MFT automation to remote systems. I've noticed that in my previous organization, agents were not used as we connected via network shares, which led to occasional connectivity issues. Now, using agents increases the file transfer speed by about 20 to 30%, and they provide a more stable connection compared to legacy network shares.

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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

"I appreciate how files are being transferred. Before a file is shared with anyone, there is a scanning process that takes place, and the file is securely shared without any problem or malware existing in the file."

"GoAnywhere centralizes data exchanges, helping to facilitate file transfers between our critical systems."

"The SFTP and encryption functionality works well, and SFTP is the bulk of what we use."

"The user interface is simple."

"GoAnywhere makes it easy to move files around. We have quite a bit of information we have to transfer to around 300 different companies that require us to send data on a regular basis. If we did this manually, it would require several employees."

"The module of GoAnywhere MFT that was given to us was very simple and easy to learn."

"I would highly recommend the use of GoAnywhere MFT to any individual or organization because it enhances managed and secure file transfer processes between systems and with partners."

"The solution is easy to use, easy to set up, and the support is good."

More GoAnywhere MFT pros

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

More VisualCron pros

Cons

"API functionality wasn't part of our initial unit testing because it wasn't necessary then. However, shortly after implementing GoAnywhere, two different vendors approached us to do API transactions. We checked to see if GoAnywhere could do this and found that it was supposed to have that capability, but it broke down."

"The support desk has room for improvement. I keep opening tickets and they keep telling me that they're closed, but they're not resolved."

"A drawback is that it is not as feature-rich compared to its competitor Sterling, which we used before."

"In terms of the integration mechanism that we use for the API, it has limitations regarding network congestion, causing logs to drop whenever the API throws an error."

"Improvement in support or product relies on being ingenious, supportive, and listening to its customer base."

"There are a number of built-in tasks in GoAnywhere. One, in particular, the write to CSV task, is slow. If you have, say, 100,000 records in your row set and you want to write them to a CSV file, it takes a long time. That definitely requires performance improvement."

"There's one persnickety issue about NAS permissions. That is a problem we have run into with GoAnywhere. I would like to see more focus on compatibility with/enforcement of user roles and access permissions across NAS, among other things. We have filed a couple of tickets on that in the past."

"We did have some issues a couple of months back where we were having some unscheduled outages, and the support team worked with me closely and provided a solution that appears to have fixed the problem."

More GoAnywhere MFT cons

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

"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 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."

"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 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."

"The documentation is a bit weak."

"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."

More VisualCron cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I find it to be very fair. It is very good."

"The product's pricing is reasonable."

"The cost was definitely within reason and it has definitely been worth the cost, based on how much we can automate. It has exceeded my expectations."

"HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT is very reasonably priced for the value it brings."

"Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT pricing is competitive."

"For what we pay to GoAnywhere every year, we are getting a fantastic deal. From a dollar perspective, it provides very good value."

"Licensing can be expensive and it depends upon which features you want to buy."

"Compared to other tools it's less expensive."

More GoAnywhere MFT pricing and cost advice

"ROI is 95 percent."

"We are fine with a rather cheap setup. Licensing with VisualCron is fair. You have a simple one-year licence in different sizes. There isn't a licensing jungle with hundreds of options and opt-ins."

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

"VisualCron is correctly priced because it wasn't very cheap, and it wasn't overly expensive, so the price for it was set correctly. When my previous company bought VisualCron, it was €800 per server per year. On a scale of one to five, I would rate the pricing for VisualCron a five because it was just right. The tool was affordable, and it has one of the most competitive pricing in the market."

"The price is a bit high."

"ROI is one month."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

28%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Insurance Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT?

GoDrive eliminates the need to use the exchange server for file sharing.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT?

After evaluating other solutions, we found the pricing they offered to be genuinely competitive. Compared to other competitors, they are highly recommended and have provided good pricing. I would r...

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What needs improvement with Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT?

The speed could be better, and the user interface could be more user-friendly. In some areas, it's a bit complex and the learning trajectory is steep, so they can definitely improve on these aspects.

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

JSCAPE by Redwood vs GoAnywhere MFT

Compared 14% of the time

IBM Sterling File Gateway vs GoAnywhere MFT

Compared 14% of the time

MOVEit vs GoAnywhere MFT

Compared 11% of the time

Control-M vs GoAnywhere MFT

Compared 6% of the time

More GoAnywhere MFT Competitors

Microsoft Power Automate vs VisualCron

Compared 40% of the time

Control-M vs VisualCron

Compared 19% of the time

OpCon vs VisualCron

Compared 8% of the time

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs VisualCron

Compared 6% of the time

More VisualCron Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

GoAnywhere MFT

July 2025

Download GoAnywhere MFT product report

Buyer's Guide

VisualCron

June 2025

Download VisualCron product report

Also Known As

HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT, GoAnywhere MFT, GoAnywhere Managed File Transfer,

No data available

Overview

GoAnywhere MFT offers user-friendly workflow features, advanced security, and seamless integrations. Its intuitive interface supports streamlined operations and rapid project creation, making it suitable for managing secure file transfers.

GoAnywhere MFT provides sophisticated automation through Advanced Workflows, enabling reduced manual tasks and improved efficiency. With centralized data exchange, file monitoring, and comprehensive security protocols, it supports scalability, encryption, and IP filtering for enhanced protection. Users appreciate its adaptability with systems including IBM and Epic, contributing to improved process management and significant time savings. While beneficial, enhancements in DNS support, user interface intuitiveness, and customer service responsiveness are potential growth areas. License costs are noted as high, with demands for better documentation, cloud service integrations, and improved scalability and load-balancing functionalities.

What are the key features of GoAnywhere MFT?

User-Friendly Workflows: Intuitive interface streamlines operations.
Advanced Security: Includes encryption, IP filters, and monitoring.
Seamless Integrations: Adapts to systems like IBM and Epic.
Automation: Simplifies processes with reduced manual tasks.
Scalability: Grows with business needs.

What are the benefits and ROI of using GoAnywhere MFT?

Improved Efficiency: Reduces workload through automation.
Time Savings: Accelerates project delivery.
Enhanced Security: Protects data with advanced protocols.
Adaptability: Supports multiple platforms and integrations.
Process Management: Simplifies and streamlines data exchange.

GoAnywhere MFT is deployed by organizations for secure file transfers across systems like financial, healthcare, and corporate sectors. It supports SFTP, FTP, and HTTPS for data exchanges and is highly effective in automating processes and managing large file movements efficiently. It integrates well with cloud platforms like Azure and accommodates environments such as Windows, Linux, and IBM iSeries.

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

Sample Customers

McKesson City of Modesto, California Kwik Trip Northwestern University Charter Communications

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

Buyer's Guide

GoAnywhere MFT vs. VisualCron

July 2025

Free Report: GoAnywhere MFT vs. VisualCron

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