Blue Prism vs VisualCron comparison

SS&C Blue Prism and SMA Technologies are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. SS&C Blue Prism is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.8, while SMA Technologies is ranked #30. SS&C Blue Prism holds a 3.9% mindshare in RPA, compared to SMA Technologies’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of SS&C Blue Prism users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of SMA Technologies users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

Blue Prism and VisualCron are competing solutions in the field of process automation and scheduling tools. Blue Prism appears to have an advantage in automation capabilities with robust work queues, whereas VisualCron stands out in job scheduling efficiencies.

Features: Blue Prism provides advanced automation options with reusable processes, a robust work queue, and easy integration with existing systems. VisualCron specializes in job scheduling, job dependencies, and seamless connections with varied databases.

Room for Improvement: Blue Prism needs enhanced AI capabilities, wider integration options, and improved customer support. Its interface, especially in attended automation and OCR, could be modernized. VisualCron could benefit from a more streamlined user interface, better technical documentation, and faster customer support, possibly through a community forum.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Blue Prism offers multiple deployment options but faces criticism for slow customer support, impacting users' experience. VisualCron, available on similar platforms, is noted for straightforward licensing but relies heavily on community interactions for customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Blue Prism is often criticized for high costs, though some justify this with significant ROI. VisualCron provides a more competitive and simple licensing model, enhancing cost-efficiency for simpler job scheduling needs.

To learn more, read our detailed Blue Prism vs. VisualCron Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Blue Prism vs. VisualCron

June 2026

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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

Automation Anywhere

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automation Anywhere is 5.4%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Blue Prism is 3.9%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VisualCron is 1.2%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Automation Anywhere	5.4%
Blue Prism	3.9%
VisualCron	1.2%
Other	89.5%

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash

Management Consultant at Accenture

Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions

Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.

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Pavan-Sharma

Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

Impressive flexibility and support enhance integration and performance

The best feature of Blue Prism that I value the most is the simplicity of their pricing and licensing model, which is easy to understand. The tool is very robust and, being a pioneer in the sector, it is also very stable, particularly in finance where many companies rely on Blue Prism for its reliability and security standards. From a developer perspective, I find developing on Blue Prism simple, clean, and intuitive, making maintenance considerably easier compared to other tools. These AI features have helped in developing scalable and flexible solutions for my customers, as I worked on use cases that involved natural language processing to turn free text into structured data, enabling automation of previously unautomatable tasks. Additionally, I processed voice feedback for sentiment analysis and information extraction, making interactions more intuitive and voice-driven for customers.

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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

"The ease of use is its key novel feature, as I have actually trained people in finance who have not written a piece of code in their lives and they are able to pick it up."

"This solution has decreased the time that our employees spend on manual processes."

"Automation Anywhere is very simple to use; the features are very simple, the application is light, and overall I love it."

"One thing that I want to highlight AA for is their security standards."

"Automation Anywhere has improved our organization by allowing us to reduce the number of new hires, enable us to keep the same workforce, and increase productivity."

"Now, we can have the bot check all of them."

"I have been using Automation Anywhere for the past five years and it is one of the best tools to automate manual tasks."

"It helps increase productivity by 20% to 30%."

More Automation Anywhere pros

"The automation on offer is great."

"It helps us reduce the number of people involved in mundane tasks, and in the case of Absa it has really impacted them, the way the customer interacts with the organization when it comes to certain processes."

"The solution's most valuable aspect is the fact that it is systematic."

"From technical perspective, Blue Prism is pretty good. Overall, it's a stable and scalable solution. Installation is straightforward as well."

"Blue Prism supports the multi-bot architecture, which is really good. It is also really good at OCR. Blue Prism is integrated with Abbey OCR, and it provides at least 90% right information on period documents. This is something that is really good in Blue Prism. Blue Prism can deal with huge amounts of data. We can track each and every record, and then we can see the data. If you don't have much coding experience, it makes it easy to build automations and deploy them. It is also easy to learn and easy to work with. It has a lot of features, which makes it reliable for any sort of automation."

"Blue Prism takes good security measures and is user friendly."

"By automating repetitive tasks, we are able to save a lot of time and there are also fewer human errors."

"Blue Prism has a lot of flexibility to integrate with other enterprise applications"

More Blue Prism pros

"Using the Windows Task Scheduler means you have to do some coding while using VisualCron means the tool takes care of the coding from the backend; you're just using the visual interface of VisualCron, creating the logic, and telling the tool what actions need to be performed, so VisualCron would take care of everything on the backend for you, which helps you manage time better."

"What I found most beneficial from VisualCron is that you can directly connect it with different databases, user accounts, and credentials. You can run queries from one machine to another using the credentials, unlike PowerShell, that's run by the machine itself. With VisualCron, you can directly ask other machines and run requests through user credentials. Suppose you have an AWS or Azure environment. In that case, you can maintain the connection between on-premises and cloud-based machines, which is the type of setup in the organization I'm working for. You can directly call some of the services via VisualCron on your local on-premises machine, and I found that an excellent feature of the tool."

"The 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."

"VisualCron makes everything clearer and easier to maintain."

"It helped us reduce manual steps."

"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."

"VisualCronv is currently handling so many different critical processes for our company, it's become a key factor in our livelihood and success."

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

More VisualCron pros

Cons

"The bot creation process is tedious. The solution has a lot of features, but since you have to drag down a lot of the commands, it can get tedious to use it. You end up having to use the mouse a lot more."

"I never use Automation Anywhere in the attended space because they are bad at that, at least compared to other players like us or UiPath."

"The Image Recognition functionality should be enhanced to improve the accuracy of checkboxes."

"These guys need to build a good team."

"We have had some difficulty with ease of use. In addition, we have had some difficulties getting it to interact in predictable ways with our in-house software."

"I believe there is room for improvement in Automation Anywhere, particularly in their training programs, which need more development."

"I would like more integration into the entire Microsoft Suite of products, not just Excel."

"Using Automation Anywhere is neither easy nor hard, but against IBM Robotic Process Automation, IBM Robotic Process Automation wins."

More Automation Anywhere cons

"Optical character recognition has room for improvement."

"The only issue I have found in Blue Prism is an archiving issue once you have a huge database size, so the archiving is quite slow on Blue Prism's side."

"With Blue Prism user cannot automate processes on virtual machines or citrix, for that, user need to use surface automation."

"The solution is pretty high priced. The tool's support also needs to be better."

"The UI is more complicated than other tools."

"The domain in regards to cognitive abilities and the use of processing activity needs improvement. They have added this capability, but that's not really big in the public. It is more also available for gold partners. So they should improve the user activity for the public or even the regular customer."

"We would like to see some desktop automation, although we have been told that the product is not going to be taken in that direction."

"Blue Prism could improve by having better integration with Computer Vision."

More Blue Prism 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 seems to operate like an efficient machine when it comes to improvements and enhancements and new features. I always appreciate the quick response I get when bringing up an issue or coming up with suggestions. I've mentioned before that it would be great to see a move away from SQLCE and XML configuration files."

"The documentation is a bit weak."

"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."

"I've mentioned before that it would be great to see a move away from SQLCE and XML configuration files."

"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."

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

"Some preferences and permissions are not quite self-explanatory, but those are rather advanced features."

More VisualCron cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In terms of pricing, this is a good product."

"Time and monetary savings can range from 20 to 90 percent."

"Approximately, for a developer, it is around $750 for a license a year. For Bot Runners, it is about $550."

"Annual licensing costs would be about $100,000."

"The licensing cost could be improved. It costs a lot. At the very least, the developer licenses and the control panels should be made free to enterprises, and the production environment licensed."

"Because it reduced the time duration of our processes, our costs went down."

"We brought onshore a lot of what we were doing offshore, saving our company close to $20 million."

"It is not too expensive, but there are many tools available in the market that can provide the same functionality at a cheaper price."

More Automation Anywhere pricing and cost advice

"Blue Prism is an expensive solution, especially in Southeast Asia, while in Europe and the UK, it can be considered moderate in terms of cost."

"Blue Prism is quite costly."

"Blue Prism is a bit higher priced compared to other payment-related or investment-related solutions. At the same time, it also provides more security than those solutions, specifically for the banking and insurance sectors."

"To use Blue Prism, there is a need to pay INR 15,000 per customer."

"The billing is on a yearly basis. They send us the bill every year. My business unit is billed by the technology team, so I don't know exactly how much they pay. In my business unit, we have our first-year license costs, and then we have our ongoing costs. Our bots cost projected per license is $8,600. Our projected support cost for every year is about $38,000. Our operation agent costs anywhere between $50,000 to $55,000, so the saving is there, but it is still kind of expensive for us, but I'm looking at it from the technology kind of billing us for it. This is the cost that we have for our technology team, which is different from the licensing of Blue Prism."

"My clients tend to feel that the overall implementation cost is a little high."

"There is a one-time purchase fee for this solution."

"The license for Blue Prism is very straightforward, we only need one license."

More Blue Prism 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."

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

"ROI is 95 percent."

"ROI is one month."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Construction Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Outsourcing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

Outsourcing Company

Construction Company

Computer Software Company

25%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	157
Midsize Enterprise	81
Large Enterprise	558

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	18
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	77

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	5

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...

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How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...

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How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.

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Should I choose Blue Prism or Microsoft Power Automate?

Hello Netanya, it depends on your needs and your expertise. In my humble opinion you can start a big RPA project imp...

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I am evaluating Blue Prism and UiPath for RPA for my company. Which one do you recommend?

I'm very familiar with UiPath and the RPA industry: was hired by Daniel Dines in 2015 when there were 35 employees an...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Blue Prism?

If I rate the satisfaction with Blue Prism licensing cost from one to ten, I can mention eight to nine for satisfacti...

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Comparisons

UiPath Platform vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 9% of the time

AutomationEdge vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 2% of the time

WorkFusion vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 2% of the time

Appian vs Automation Anywhere

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UiPath Platform vs Blue Prism

Compared 15% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs Blue Prism

Compared 13% of the time

Pega Robotic Process Automation vs Blue Prism

Compared 5% of the time

WorkFusion vs Blue Prism

Compared 4% of the time

Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition vs Blue Prism

Compared 3% of the time

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ActiveBatch by Redwood vs VisualCron

Compared 10% of the time

UiPath Platform vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

Control-M vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

Stonebranch vs VisualCron

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automation Anywhere

August 2026

Download Automation Anywhere product report

Buyer's Guide

Blue Prism

August 2026

Download Blue Prism product report

Buyer's Guide

VisualCron

July 2026

Download VisualCron product report

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)

No data available

Interactive Demo

Automation Anywhere

Demo not available

SS&C Blue Prism

Demo not available

SMA Technologies

Overview

Automation Anywhere offers ease of use, robust system connectivity, and GenAI-driven document automation through a cloud-native platform, significantly enhancing productivity across multiple industries with advanced AI features.

Delivering a comprehensive suite of tools designed for easy integration and rapid deployment, Automation Anywhere drives efficiency by reducing costs and automating repetitive tasks. Its cloud-native platform supports broad industry adoption, including advanced AI features like process automation and Co-Pilot, streamlining complex workflows with minimal technical skills required. Users benefit from robust integration capabilities, which facilitate seamless interaction with multiple systems. However, there is room for improvement in areas such as user-friendliness for beginners, stability, flexible licensing, and enhanced OCR functionality. Organizations in sectors such as banking, finance, manufacturing, and healthcare gain from the improved operational efficiency and ROI Automation Anywhere offers.

What are the important features of Automation Anywhere?

Ease of Use: Simplifies automation tasks with a user-centric interface.
Robust Connectivity: Provides seamless integration with multiple systems.
GenAI-Driven Document Automation: Leverages AI to automate document management.
Process Automation & Co-Pilot: Enhances workflow automation with advanced AI.
Cloud-Native Platform: Enables rapid deployment and integration.

What benefits should be evaluated in reviews?

Time Savings: Automation drastically reduces manual processing time.
Cost Efficiency: Decreases overall operational costs by automating tasks.
Productivity Enhancement: Streamlines workflows with AI-driven tools.
Improved Integration: Enhances ability to work with multiple systems.
Scalability: Supports growth with a flexible cloud-native architecture.

In the insurance industry, Automation Anywhere is utilized for automating processes such as enrollment management and compliance checks. Its applications extend to supply chain management, financial transactions, and business performance monitoring across sectors like banking, finance, manufacturing, and healthcare, helping organizations to automate routine tasks, improve efficiency, and reduce costs.

Automation Anywhere

Blue Prism offers advanced automation features with integration capabilities and robust exception handling. Its scalability and reliability make it ideal for automating complex and repetitive tasks across industries like banking and manufacturing.

Providing a user-friendly design studio, Blue Prism stands out with enhanced automation features such as unassisted bots, strong security measures, and Visual Basic Objects. Its integration capabilities with analytics tools like Tableau and a simplified licensing model contribute to its appeal. Despite its complexities in UI design and training resource limitations, it remains stable and reliable. Blue Prism addresses tasks such as invoice processing and data entry, but improvements in AI, cognitive capabilities, and customer support are needed. Enhancements in OCR technology, unstructured data handling, and web-based interfaces could significantly boost its accessibility.

What are Blue Prism's most important features?

Enhanced Automation: Streamlines complex tasks with a robust interface.
Security Measures: Provides strong security protocols to safeguard processes.
Integration: Seamlessly interacts with analytics tools for data insights.
Exception Management: Facilitates easy handling of process exceptions.

What benefits or ROI should be evaluated?

Scalability: Ensures stable performance for varying organizational needs.
Licensing: Offers a straightforward model for simplified deployment.
Operational Efficiency: Reduces manual labor in complex tasks.
Cost-Effectiveness: Despite higher costs, delivers high value in automation efficiency.

Organizations in industries like finance and manufacturing harness Blue Prism to automate repetitive tasks, boosting efficiency in back-end operations. In banking and insurance, it's used for auditing, compliance, and report generation, enhancing accuracy and reducing manual efforts.

SS&C Blue Prism

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

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics

Coca-Cola, Walgreens, American Express, Royal Bank of Canada, Pfizer, Shop Direct, O2, Siemens, Ascension Healthcare, Jaguar Land Rover

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

Buyer's Guide

Blue Prism vs. VisualCron

June 2026

Free Report: Blue Prism vs. VisualCron

Find out what your peers are saying about Blue Prism vs. VisualCron and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.

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