Automate vs OpCon comparison

The compared Fortra and SMA Technologies solutions aren't in the same category. Fortra is ranked #5 in RPA , with an average rating of 8.9, and holds a 1.9% mindshare in the category. SMA Technologies is ranked #8 in WA , with an average rating of 9.1, and holds a 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Fortra users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of SMA Technologies users who would recommend it.

Automate

Read 28 Automate reviews

2,300 Views
1,518 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

OpCon

Read 59 OpCon reviews

1,912 Views
1,721 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Automate

OpCon

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Automate and OpCon based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Microsoft and others in Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

To learn more, read our detailed Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

July 2025

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Helped 865,295 peers since 2012

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

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (5th)

OpCon

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Workload Automation (8th)

Mindshare comparison

Automate and OpCon aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Automate is designed for Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and holds a mindshare of 1.9%, up 1.0% compared to last year.
OpCon, on the other hand, focuses on Workload Automation, holds 1.7% mindshare, down 2.3% since last year.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Workload Automation

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.

Read full review

Jose Rivera Hernandez

Senior VP of Technology at Triangle Credit Union

Helps automate all kinds of jobs and it's worth the price because it saves a lot of time and money

One problem that I had with them when we got SMA Technologies is that sometimes the jobs fail, but they automatically restart. SMA Technologies automatically gets a notification that the job has failed, and they restart it on their end, so now, we have the job restarting twice. There were times when we came into the office in the morning, and we had two files because the job ran twice. I do not know if the system can prevent a job from running the second time. If a job has run successfully, or it is running, it should not run again.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"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."

"We have found the pricing to be very reasonable."

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

"The solution is continuously adding more integrations to help with workflows and bot and task creation."

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

"The most valuable feature is the drag-and-drop interface, which is very Windows-like."

"Automate increases efficiency and eliminates errors during documentation and invoicing processes."

More Automate pros

"Last year, we added a second environment and the OpCon Deploy product. This has allowed us to build a testing environment. This has been a great addition for us as we can work through our workflows without disrupting our production environment."

"The most valuable feature is being able to schedule tasks so that they reliably occur each day, each week, each month, or sometimes several times a day... The scheduler works as it should."

"The most valuable feature is the automation in general."

"The core system is the most valuable part: being able to view the processes that we've never really been able to view as a whole before. That is super-helpful, as is being alerted when issues arise."

"OpCon has also reduced our data processing times because of the way you can build out workflows. It can run things in sequence. It's not restricted to a linear process, so you can run multiple jobs at once, allowing for multi-threaded jobs."

"It can run scripted tasks automatically over and over without intervention. That is what it does and the part that I really like because repetitive tasks need to be done over and over, day after day, no matter what day of the week it is. It is difficult to have staff do these manually and consistently, especially over weekends or through the night. Instead, you can have OpCon do them."

"It allows us to have more information and more control than we previously had over the processes that are running in host systems."

"The most valuable feature is the self-service because it has made it possible to provide simple and quick solutions in the handling of certain tasks."

More OpCon pros

Cons

"Sometimes when we communicate with the ERP system and there is an issue, we are not always aware of the specifics of Automate and the source of the problem."

"The product also has a limited use case in some respects."

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

"The solution has a very weak knowledge base."

"I find that most important features are strong, however, there is a lack of good development for artificial intelligence, such as machine learning."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More Automate cons

"I would like to see them improve the Solution Manager for the web application. It's the future for us. Our customers need a lot of functionality, but there isn't that functionality within Solution Manager. So they have to develop and improve it."

"Stability is an area for improvement. There are FTP agents that run on the MCP and they are there so that we can transfer a file from the MCP to the Windows environment or vice versa. Sometimes, and nobody has been able to figure out why, it just goes down, and all of my jobs that need it are hanging or failing... It would be very helpful if they could figure out what in the world is happening with that FTP client that's on the MCP."

"There is room for improvement needed around setting up the calendars and frequencies. I would like more flexibility in what jobs run. Sometimes, with frequencies, I can't find what I want to without putting a little more labor into it."

"There are some limitations in the actual jobs that are created and how you're able to rename files. Suppose you're bringing in, say, 10, 15, or 20 reports from a core system, and you're using an "asterisk character" to identify files. For example, if you're grabbing files that start with this, end with this, but the characters in between could be different, it has to retain that same name in the destination. It won't allow you to rename them with a date stamp or the like."

"It would be great if you could create physically separate "clients," as I call them. I wish I could have a production client and a testing client and that they would be separate."

"There is one feature that has been a difficult problem, and right now, OpCon can't do it. I'm not sure if it should be expected to, but we have tried to get it to where it could start a process on an external database."

"We are still in the early stages of our implementation, so at this point, I cannot see any needed improvements or features."

"Of course they have a RESTful API within OpCon, but they have that new web services agent that we installed because we have some SOAP APIs and we had to interact with SMA to get things running. Our developers did do some tweaks, but we have now been able to get some test jobs running, and understand how the workflow goes back and forth."

More OpCon cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From a distributor's side, one of the biggest selling points is its price point. Without going into any numbers, compared to UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and Blue Prism, we're significantly cheaper. The main difference is that other competitors usually charge you per process. However, in Automate's case, it's priced per bot. So, a bot can run multiple processes at the same time, but you are only priced for a single bot."

"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."

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

"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 like the way this solution is priced because you can buy a license, or you can buy the software outright."

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

"While solutions like UiPath and Blue Prism cost around $11,000-$12,000 for each license, this product costs around $7,000 and you can keep it forever."

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

More Automate pricing and cost advice

"Yearly, it's around $30,000."

"It used to be per machine, so we had X number of devices licensed. Now it's not. If we had a lot of machines, the new license might've decreased the cost. Unfortunately, we didn't see the same gains."

"On a yearly basis our cost is between $25,000 and $30,000."

"Annually, we pay $29,000. This is for a blanket policy that covers everything, like licensing and support."

"I believe our cost is about $150,000 annually."

"Scaling is pricey."

"I am the one who signs the contract. In the beginning, when I started working here, it seemed very expensive, but after I learned everything that it does, I found it worth the price."

"I have seen some contracts, and it seems that Control-M is a lot more expensive than OpCon, but I do not know the pricing of OpCon. Control-M seems to be four or five times more expensive than OpCon."

More OpCon 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

45%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Non Profit

Manufacturing 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.

See all answers

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 our budget.

See all answers

What do you like most about OpCon?

My favorite feature is the dashboard feature, which shows jobs that are running, and completed, any failures, and provides dashboard reporting.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpCon?

I am the one who signs the contract. In the beginning, when I started working here, it seemed very expensive, but after I learned everything that it does, I found it worth the price. I would recomm...

See all answers

What needs improvement with OpCon?

See all answers

Comparisons

UiPath Platform vs Automate

Compared 28% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs Automate

Compared 24% of the time

Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition vs Automate

Compared 9% of the time

Blue Prism vs Automate

Compared 8% of the time

More Automate Competitors

Control-M vs OpCon

Compared 29% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs OpCon

Compared 11% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs OpCon

Compared 11% of the time

VisualCron vs OpCon

Compared 10% of the time

Stonebranch vs OpCon

Compared 4% of the time

More OpCon Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automate

August 2025

Download Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

OpCon

August 2025

Download OpCon 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

OpCon enhances automation with features like auto-scheduling and Corelation KeyStone integration, empowering users with self-service capabilities. Its intuitive interface and flexibility boost productivity, providing reliable automation and efficient file transfers.

OpCon is a powerful automation platform known for streamlining operations through features like auto-scheduling and robust integration capabilities. It facilitates seamless automation, allowing users to execute tasks without direct environment access and simplifies job dependencies. Users benefit from self-service capabilities, which enable easy task execution by non-IT staff, reducing errors and human intervention. With its modern interface, OpCon supports efficient file transfers and integrates effectively with multiple systems, enhancing productivity. While offering significant scalability, OpCon users suggest improvements in web functionality, script-writing, and graphical displays, along with enhancements in user authorization and notification systems. There is also a need for better template management, clearer logging, improved mobile accessibility, and expanded training resources.

What are OpCon's Key Features?

Auto-scheduling: Efficiently automates task scheduling.
Corelation KeyStone Integration: Allows for automation without direct environment access.
Self-service Capabilities: Enables non-IT users to execute tasks with ease.
Modern Interface: Simplifies job dependencies and task management.
File Transfers: Supports secure and efficient file management.
Flexibility: Integrates with diverse systems to boost productivity.

What ROI Can Users Expect?

Increased Productivity: Automation reduces manual task dependency.
Error Reduction: Streamlined processes minimize human intervention.
Scalability: Supports growing business needs effectively.
Time Savings: Frees up resources for strategic initiatives.

OpCon is widely used in industries like financial services, where automation and scheduling tasks are critical. Financial institutions rely on OpCon for core processing tasks, including reporting, automated workflows, and vendor file exchanges. The platform handles high volumes of jobs across platforms, ensuring efficient operations and reducing reliance on manual processes.

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

LOHR, Carnival Cruise Lines, Herbalife, Digital Federal Credit Union, Synergent, Frandsen Bank & Trust

Buyer's Guide

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

July 2025

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