GoAnywhere MFT vs VisualCron comparison

Fortra and SMA Technologies are both solutions in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category. Fortra is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.5, while SMA Technologies is ranked #18. Fortra holds a 8.5% mindshare in MFT, compared to SMA Technologies’s 2.1% mindshare. Additionally, 99% of Fortra users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of SMA Technologies users who would recommend it.

GoAnywhere MFT

Read 123 GoAnywhere MFT reviews

7,935 Views
7,538 Comparison Views

99% willing to recommend

VisualCron

Read 11 VisualCron reviews

3,353 Views
905 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

GoAnywhere MFT

VisualCron

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 2026

GoAnywhere MFT and VisualCron both operate in the file transfer and automation space. GoAnywhere MFT edges out with its robust security features and encryption standards, excelling particularly in secure file transfer capabilities.

Features: GoAnywhere MFT offers advanced encryption for both data in transit and at rest, automation capabilities that streamline complex processes, and centralized control with efficient project-based workflows. It supports various secure protocols such as SFTP and HTTPS, aiming for reliability and easy integration. VisualCron shines in visual task management and efficient scheduling, reducing the coding effort while simplifying task automation for users without an extensive technical background.

Room for Improvement: GoAnywhere MFT could improve user experience by simplifying its UI design and reducing the learning curve for new users. The response time for customer support is another area highlighted for enhancement. VisualCron might benefit from better interface usability and more comprehensive documentation. The absence of real-time support and limited CI/CD integration are noted as potential growth areas.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GoAnywhere MFT offers deployment versatility across Public Cloud, Private Cloud, and On-premises environments, demonstrating its flexibility. Its customer service is generally praised for being quick and effective, though delays in support have been noted by some users. VisualCron's deployment capabilities are less clear, with some users suggesting the setup process could be improved with better documentation and support accuracy.

Pricing and ROI: The pricing for GoAnywhere MFT is considered substantial but justified due to its comprehensive feature set, contributing significantly to ROI through enhanced security and automation. While its licensing options are viewed as complex, they offer value through effective workload management and significant time savings. VisualCron, on the other hand, is seen as cost-effective and straightforward, targeting small to medium-sized companies by avoiding complex pricing structures. Its straightforward licensing and functionality provide a budget-friendly solution without sacrificing essential automation capabilities.

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

Buyer's Guide

GoAnywhere MFT vs. VisualCron

June 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 900,644 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

GoAnywhere MFT

Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

123

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VisualCron

Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)

18th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Workload Automation (24th), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (28th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category, the mindshare of GoAnywhere MFT is 8.5%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VisualCron is 2.1%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Managed File Transfer (MFT) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
GoAnywhere MFT	8.5%
VisualCron	2.1%
Other	89.4%

Managed File Transfer (MFT)

Featured Reviews

Anuj Bhagwat

Dev Ops Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Has enabled secure, centralized file sharing while saving significant time and resources

The best features in GoAnywhere MFT are that it's fast, reliable, and secure. First, the improvement is that we have resolved one of our security points with compliance. So that compliance point we resolved. And also it's a centralized file sharing system. All the users are able to access the file. There is no one-to-one sharing. It's improved about 80 to 85%. It saves about 80 to 90% resources. In terms of time, we can say 90 to 95% time is also saved because it avoids the one-to-one sharing and simply a user can put one centralized directory and all the users are able to access this solution and access the file. So it's 95%.

Read full review

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…

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

"Because every new development request requires a certain amount of effort, new development in GoAnywhere is really fast thanks to the template workflow and being able to call another workflow."

"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 MFT meets all these needs, which is why we decided to use it."

"Using the automated features helps me save time, and Secure Forms enable end-users to fill out and submit information through a secure platform that keeps our data protected."

"GoAnywhere MFT has positively impacted my organization by improving transfer reliability, reducing manual file handling, and helping to standardize secure data exchange processes across different teams and external partners."

"If I have a job that I need to run on the system and I want the data transferred, I can use GoAnywhere and schedule it on a daily basis, a weekly basis, or whatever, and it does the job for me to transfer the files over to the other systems, or back and forth."

"Transactions transfer in close to real time. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time because of the volume that we have, but the transactions transfer in seconds to the external platform."

"GoAnywhere pays for itself easily; it has saved us work and enables us to sleep through the night."

More GoAnywhere MFT pros

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

"VisualCron is a very powerful program to automate different steps in your business processes. We use it to automate replacing files and inform departments about the replacement."

"VisualCron makes everything clearer and easier to maintain."

More VisualCron pros

Cons

"At present, HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT integrates with an antivirus solution, but it's a bit kludgy."

"I want to be able to use GoAnywhere to create customizable reports that I can share with the MSP containing any information related to file transfers."

"I like that you can tweak the interface so much, but it would be nice to be able to tweak it some more. The ability to further tweak the interface would be advantageous, as our end users had some questions about modifications that we could not address."

"We had a few activities or events in the past where threat actors or hackers targeted MFT solutions or systems or software by exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities."

"I'd improve the UI and the file-sharing aspect because the UI needs lots of improvement because it's very confusing and it's good for the technical person, but any non-tech person who is going to use that, they get confused."

"Initially, the setup was kind of hard for me. I had to take a long time to adapt to the system."

"The UI of GoAnywhere MFT could be a bit crisper because sometimes it gets tricky to find where to look for information."

"To improve GoAnywhere MFT, the UI could be more modern and some advanced workflow configurations and troubleshooting steps could be made easier for administrators."

More GoAnywhere MFT cons

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

"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 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."

"I want to improve the UI in VisualCron, as it's not as user-friendly, particularly when setting up the task scheduler."

"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."

"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."

"There are some conditions in the mail trigger, but you can only use them as an "AND" condition, not as an "OR" condition."

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

More VisualCron cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"I get the invoices, and its price is fine and appropriate. It is well priced. Even if it was double the price, we'd use it. For us, it is indispensable. We're not going to go anywhere else. There are no additional costs. Its licensing is good. There is just one charge that we get. That's it."

"To have a solution like this for the price we're paying makes it cheap. Considering the time that it has saved us, and considering the development that we don't need to do, such as connectors and handling servers, the price is really affordable."

"The pricing for GoAnywhere MFT seems reasonable when compared to other similar services, especially cloud services. Azure is significantly more expensive."

"It is very attractive. In terms of the capacity of the product and functionality, it is a good price."

"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."

"It has flexible and affordable pricing because of custom quotes. The prices depend on the modules one needs and the volume of data being transferred. Overall, they offer custom and flexible pricing with an annual subscription, where you pay for specific features and functionality required."

"Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT is an inexpensive solution."

More GoAnywhere MFT pricing and cost advice

"ROI is 95 percent."

"ROI is one month."

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

"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."

"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."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Managed File Transfer (MFT) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Outsourcing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing 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	116
Midsize Enterprise	32
Large Enterprise	57

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

Questions from the Community

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

Our experience with GoAnywhere MFT's pricing, setup cost, and licensing structure has been highly positive because it is completely module-based. Instead of hitting us with a rigid, monolithic ente...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT?

I think GoAnywhere MFT is already strong from the stability and security standpoint, but it can improve more in UI modernization and advanced analytics. Features including smart monitoring and AI-b...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT?

I use GoAnywhere MFT for secure file transfers between internal teams such as vendors. As my domain is in banking-related services, I use it for banking systems and cloud platforms. GoAnywhere MFT'...

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

MOVEit vs GoAnywhere MFT

Compared 8% of the time

JSCAPE by Redwood vs GoAnywhere MFT

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Sterling File Gateway vs GoAnywhere MFT

Compared 7% of the time

Kiteworks vs GoAnywhere MFT

Compared 7% of the time

Control-M vs GoAnywhere MFT

Compared 6% of the time

More GoAnywhere MFT Competitors

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs VisualCron

Compared 9% of the time

UiPath Platform vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

Control-M vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

JAMS vs VisualCron

Compared 5% of the time

More VisualCron Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

GoAnywhere MFT

June 2026

Download GoAnywhere MFT product report

Buyer's Guide

VisualCron

May 2026

Download VisualCron product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

Overview

GoAnywhere MFT offers an intuitive interface with advanced workflows, robust security, and seamless integration across platforms. It automates file transfers, supports multiple protocols, and ensures strong encryption and centralized management for secure and efficient data exchange.

GoAnywhere MFT provides automation for secure file transfers using SFTP, FTPS, and HTTPS protocols. It supports comprehensive logging, auditing, and threat protection. The platform's encryption and scalability enhance data exchange and operational efficiency in sectors like finance and healthcare. Users appreciate its integration capabilities with AWS, Azure, and Salesforce, reducing manual tasks and maintaining security with robust encryption through connectors.

What are GoAnywhere MFT's most important features?

Intuitive Interface: Easy navigation, facilitating better user experience
Advanced Workflows: Streamlines processes to save time
Robust Security: Strong encryption and threat protection
Seamless Integration: Connects with platforms like AWS, Azure, and Salesforce
Automation Capabilities: Reduces manual tasks, improving efficiency
Multiple Protocol Support: Utilizes SFTP, HTTPS, and FTPS for secure transfers

What benefits should users expect in reviews?

Enhanced Efficiency: Automation reduces manual processes
Data Security: Features strong encryption and comprehensive threat protection
Scalability: Supports large data volumes efficiently
Compliance Support: Meets industry-specific data regulations

GoAnywhere MFT is widely implemented in industries like finance and healthcare for secure data transfers and workflow management. It simplifies internal processes and enhances communication between systems, integrating seamlessly with platforms such as AWS and Salesforce, thus ensuring speed and security.

Fortra

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

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

June 2026

Free Report: GoAnywhere MFT vs. VisualCron

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

DOWNLOAD NOW

900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our GoAnywhere MFT vs. VisualCron report.

See our list of best Managed File Transfer (MFT) vendors.

We monitor all Managed File Transfer (MFT) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.