JAMS vs. VisualCron

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
JAMS
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
JAMS is a centralized workload automation and job scheduling solution that runs, monitors, and manages jobs and workflows. Reliably orchestrate the critical IT processes that run your business from a single pane of glass.N/A
VisualCron
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
VisualCron is an automation, Integration and Task Scheduler tool. VisualCron combines many features into one product. VisualCron was founded in 2004. Through scheduling users can set Jobs to run on a specific time or event with the help of Triggers. The Tasks in each Job automate scripts to eliminate human errors. Through various Tasks users can integrate different systems through file transfer, encryption, compression and…N/A
Pricing
JAMSVisualCron
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
JAMSVisualCron
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup fee$1,499 per Server
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
JAMSVisualCron
Considered Both Products
JAMS
Chose JAMS
VisualCron was unreliable and buggy no matter what version we used, plus did not have DR functionality
Chose JAMS
While VisualCron provided more guardrails and user centric GUI, JAMS had a better resiliency functions with their clustering and service polling and failovers. We tested this and were able to maintain a large library of jobs and data the seamlessly switches between data …
Chose JAMS
JAMS is easier to use, provides more features and was easier to manage form a central location. simple features in JAMS were missing from VisualCron such as a projected daily schedule. The install setup with a client and agents was better suited for us too
VisualCron

No answer on this topic

Features
JAMSVisualCron
Workload Automation
Comparison of Workload Automation features of Product A and Product B
JAMS
8.0
45 Ratings
3% below category average
VisualCron
-
Ratings
Multi-platform scheduling8.838 Ratings00 Ratings
Central monitoring8.543 Ratings00 Ratings
Logging8.343 Ratings00 Ratings
Alerts and notifications8.143 Ratings00 Ratings
Analysis and visualization6.941 Ratings00 Ratings
Application integration7.642 Ratings00 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
JAMS
-
Ratings
VisualCron
3.5
1 Ratings
54% below category average
API for custom integration00 Ratings4.01 Ratings
Plug-ins00 Ratings3.01 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
JAMS
-
Ratings
VisualCron
7.7
1 Ratings
5% below category average
Dashboards00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Standard reports00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Custom reports00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Process Engine
Comparison of Process Engine features of Product A and Product B
JAMS
-
Ratings
VisualCron
4.2
1 Ratings
52% below category average
Process designer00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Process simulation00 Ratings3.01 Ratings
Business rules engine00 Ratings2.01 Ratings
Process player00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Form builder00 Ratings4.01 Ratings
Model execution00 Ratings1.01 Ratings
Business Process Automation
Comparison of Business Process Automation features of Product A and Product B
JAMS
-
Ratings
VisualCron
4.3
1 Ratings
34% below category average
Business Process Modeling00 Ratings1.01 Ratings
Decision Modeling00 Ratings3.01 Ratings
Code-Based Automation00 Ratings6.01 Ratings
No-Code Automation00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Best Alternatives
JAMSVisualCron
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

CMW Platform
CMW Platform
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Apache Airflow
Apache Airflow
Score 8.6 out of 10
Quixy
Quixy
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Redwood RunMyJobs
Redwood RunMyJobs
Score 9.6 out of 10
Redwood RunMyJobs
Redwood RunMyJobs
Score 9.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
JAMSVisualCron
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(45 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(9 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(8 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(45 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.2
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.1
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
6.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.7
(43 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
9.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
JAMSVisualCron
Likelihood to Recommend
JAMS Software
It's currently one of the best of the lower entry cost options out there, as it currently is a set license cost, not based on the number of jobs executed. In the hands of a good script writer and users with workflow experience, it's a powerful tool to accomplish just about any process that you have a need to complete.
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NetCart DBA VisualCron
VisualCron does accommodate continuous file processing. Like packing and unpacking compressed files, splitting or merging files, sending E-mail's and executing queries on databases. VisualCron in less suitable for performing very complex operations on files like, arithmetic with numbers, dates or amounts. Very complex job scripts become cluttered. Debugging Job scripts is not easy.
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Pros
JAMS Software
  • The Activity Monitor clearly shows the Running Jobs, and Jobs that are to run soon. Successful Jobs can be viewed as well. The Refresh of this monitor is completely customizable to your liking.
  • Job Definitions are very well organized by use of Folders. This simplifies the structure of how to best Implement JAMS Jobs, including the ability to provide specific properties on each folder - whereby Jobs will inherit these properties.
  • Connectivity to servers is well thought out by having Shortcuts to include Credentials and Connection Store for server information.
  • JAMS Jobs can be controlled via System Resources. This is very powerful and is a very useful configuration found in JAMS.
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NetCart DBA VisualCron
  • VisualCron can pack and unpack files from many types of packing methods.
  • Clear job scripts with complex constructions can be written in VisualCron
  • VisualCron provides a clear graphical overview of the situation of all jobs.
  • VisualCron clearly indicates when a job has run into an error.
Read full review
Cons
JAMS Software
  • Would love to see JAMS become a SaaS type of product instead of needing to be hosted by ourselves
  • having lots of jobs in the monitor area can lead to performance issues when running the client locally
  • dashboard and reporting tools could be more user friendly and provide more functionality to help monitoring teams spot recurring issues easily
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NetCart DBA VisualCron
  • VisualCron should more specifically indicate the root cause of an error.
  • If copying a file goes wrong, VisualCron reports 'can't copy file'. I expect 'no read permissions from original' or 'no write permissions from destination'.
  • VisualCron offers no way to execute a Job script line by line
  • In VisualCron, nested loops cannot be created.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
JAMS Software
JAMS is a critical resource free up people to do other things and ensuring that processes and tasks are run consistently. We are also confident that procedures are run consistently and on time or as soon as the necessary data is available. With automated job failure notification, we are not required to check that jobs are running correctly.
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NetCart DBA VisualCron
No answers on this topic
Usability
JAMS Software
JAMS is very user friendly; you hardly need to do coding. The only thing that I would say a challenge is setting it up, but that's because you barely know the product yet and, in every processing, setting up is the difficult part. But once you've set it up and you are going to use it, you will really feel that it is worth to invest in this kind of software solution, it really does it job very well.
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NetCart DBA VisualCron
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
JAMS Software
We didnt really encounter any downtime, no issues encountered during 2 years of use of JAMs also our client barely raise an issue with JAMS, mostly the issues is on the batch jobs that jams executes. So I would gave it a perfect 10, very reliable hardly encounters any error and bug
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NetCart DBA VisualCron
No answers on this topic
Performance
JAMS Software
JAMS performance is very great, there are no issues raised with the performance, it just like nothing happens on the job after integration it gives you this monitoring capability, no reports and bugs raised on the performance, we didnt do integration with other software only database and with use of JAMS agent to different servers
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NetCart DBA VisualCron
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
JAMS Software
I've never had to wait more than a day for a response to any email queries submitted. We had a very positive experience using support hours during out migration process from v6 to v7. We've also recently had a weeklong group training course where all attendees were positive about the learning outcomes, a shoutout to Jose who did both the migration and the weeklong course!
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NetCart DBA VisualCron
Questions and problems can be addressed to VisualCron 's support department via E-mail. I usually get a good answer from them fairly quickly. There is also a VisualCron forum where you can ask questions that will be answered by other VisualCron users.
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In-Person Training
JAMS Software
People that were involved in the POC found the training a lot easier to follow. I think most people would have preferred to just get the training material and run through themselves.
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NetCart DBA VisualCron
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
JAMS Software
I Was not part of the original Implementation, and the persons did that are no longer with the Organization. But I was part of the recent Upgrade process a year ago and I am the JAMS admin and was very pleased
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NetCart DBA VisualCron
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
JAMS Software
I had evaluated 2 others in 2010/2011, but I do not remember their names. This was the easier one to work with and had a better looking, sometimes more professional looking UI than what I was evaluating. JAMS was more scaleable and had the ability to make custom interfaces to more systems through Execution Methods that could be tailored.
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NetCart DBA VisualCron
For simple processes, VisualCron is easier to use and maintain. For complicated processes, Quadient Inspire offers more options. The graphical representations of waiting, running or completed jobs is adequate for both products. The logging of job actions is better in Quadient Inpire as in VisualCron.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
JAMS Software
i didnt have any involvement in the sales process, however we purchased the product so it had to be decent.
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NetCart DBA VisualCron
No answers on this topic
Scalability
JAMS Software
The product is quite flexible. There are a number of features and functions that we use on a daily basis, and there are many features that are available that we have not yet needed or explored (like setting up jobs with the ability to do FTP or Sftp file transfers).
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NetCart DBA VisualCron
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
JAMS Software
i didnt have any involvement in the sales process, however we purchased the product so it had to be decent.
Read full review
NetCart DBA VisualCron
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
JAMS Software
  • Using JAMS when working from home (initially COVID, and now permanent) gives me tremendous visibility into the running operations of our business without any loss in productivity for not being in the office.
  • With JAMS I can more tightly schedule evening batch jobs by running one job after the successful completion of predecessor, as opposed to the CRON like guessing at safe start times.
  • Central control on a monitored server in a datacenter for all job scheduling tasks has given us 99.9% uptime reliability, instead of herding cats on multiple machines.
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NetCart DBA VisualCron
  • With VisualCron, I need 3 times less time to get file processing right.
  • If a VisualCron job goes wrong I need twice as much time to find the problem.
  • Visualcron does not run on Linux but on Windows which can make an upgrade and reboot take up to 6 times as long.
Read full review
ScreenShots

JAMS Screenshots

Screenshot of the Visual Job Editor - a drag and drop editor for tasks is used to build multistep workflows that include dependencies, user input, parallel processes, and triggers.Screenshot of the Centralized Job Repository - here users store job definitions, schedules, and parameters in one central database.Screenshot of the Job Monitor - this displays the status of jobs and workloads from one central monitoring console. Viewers can drill down on individual jobs to diagnose failures, dependencies, and expected completion times.Screenshot of a Dashboard - Here, users can create data-rich visuals to monitor critical batch jobs and workflows running on various agents and on different business applications.Screenshot of the Centralized Job Repository - Stores job definitions, schedules, and parameters in a central database.

VisualCron Screenshots

Screenshot of Job - CPU usageScreenshot of Job - execution timeScreenshot of Job - ROI resultScreenshot of Main windowScreenshot of Main window - right clickScreenshot of Output - as table