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AWS Transfer for SFTP [EOL] vs ActiveBatch by Redwood comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

ActiveBatch by Redwood
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (9th), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (10th), Workload Automation (9th)
AWS Transfer for SFTP [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Shubham Bharti - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexible, easy to use, and offers good automation
Occasionally, I find myself contemplating if there is room for improvement in the user interface (UI), and envisioning that with certain enhancements. The UI could potentially offer a more refined and user-friendly experience, fostering smoother interactions and facilitating easier navigation for users engaging with the application. New users might encounter a minor setback due to the absence of readily accessible training videos, which could have otherwise proven to be an invaluable resource in aiding their initial familiarization with the platform, potentially hindering their seamless onboarding process and delaying their ability to harness the software's full range of capabilities to its utmost potential.
Kyle Titus - PeerSpot reviewer
Always works, handles all types of load, and allows us to have S3 files as storage
Its cost needs improvement. In addition, there could be a universal client that works on all desktops. There could be client software that you use to connect to the server. Generally, AWS doesn't provide one for you, so you have to use either your CLI, maybe your SSH CLI, or use some kind of desktop solution. I had to find a desktop app from a third party to run this. Our clients also do the same everywhere else, so it would be nice if the SFTP Gateway solution came with a client that anyone could download on their Mac, Windows, or any other machine.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use the main job-scheduling feature. It's the only thing we use in the tool. That's the reason we are using the tool: to reduce costs by replacing manual tasks with automated tasks and to perform regular, repetitive tasks in a more reliable way."
"Error Handling is one of the best standout features of ActiveBatch."
"The REST API adapters and native integrations for integrating and orchestrating the software stack are very flexible."
"ActiveBatch's Self-Service Portal allows our business units to run and monitor their own workloads. They can simply run and review the logs, but they can't modify them. It increases their productivity because they are able to take care of things on their own. It saves us time from having to rerun the scripts, because the business units can just go ahead and log in and and rerun it themselves."
"The nice thing about ActiveBatch is once we have created a specific job that can be easily be replicated to another job, then minimal changes will have to be made. This makes things nice. Reduction of coding is substantial in a lot of cases. The replication of one job to another is just doing a few minor tweaks and rolling it into production. This decreases our development costs substantially."
"The user interface is really incredible."
"There are hundreds of pre-built steps."
"The automation feature is a very valuable feature as the associates do not have to worry about performing repetitive tasks (i.e. endpoint security scans on a daily basis) that would take several hours to complete on a daily basis."
"Being able to have the S3 files as storage is most valuable. We can use S3 as storage instead of an SFTP server or a machine."
"The solution offers good data recovery."
"The solution has helped with collaboration in our organization."
 

Cons

"ActiveBatch is a little complex."
"The help center and documentation are not that helpful."
"The user interface can be improved so that it is more appealing and accessible to new users."
"The product should be improved by providing a customization option."
"The thing I've noticed the most is the Help function. It's very difficult, at times, to find examples of how to do something. The Help function will explain what the tool does, but we're not a Windows shop at the data warehouse. Our data warehouse jobs actually run on Linux servers. Finding things for Linux-based solutions is not as easy as it is for Windows-based solutions. I would like to see more examples, and more non-Windows examples as well, in the Help."
"Except for the GUI, everything looks good."
"The monitoring dashboard could have been more user-friendly so that in the monitoring dashboard itself we can see the total number of jobs created in the system and how many were currently active/scheduled/chained."
"They have some crucial design flaws within the console that still need to be worked out because it is not working exactly how we hoped to see it, e.g., just some minor things where when you hit the save button, then all of a sudden all your job's library items collapse. Then, in order to continue on with your testing, you have to open those back up. I have taken that to them, and they are like, "Yep. We know about it. We know we have some enhancements that need to be taken care of. We have more developers now." They are working towards taking the minor things that annoy us, resolving them, and getting them fixed."
"The tool's UI should be pretty easy and straightforward. I would also like to see a simple audit report of the SFTP guest account that shows the amount of data transfers and security kind enabled."
"Its cost needs improvement. In addition, there could be a universal client that works on all desktops."
"Could be more automated, particularly for file transfers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ActiveBatch is currently redesigning themselves. In the past, they were a low cost solution for automation. They had a nice tool that was very inexpensive. With their five-year plan, they will be more enhancement-driven, so they're trying to improve their software, customer service, and the way that their customers get information from them. In doing that, they're raising the price of their base system. They changed from one pricing model to another, which has caused some friction between ActiveBatch and us. We're working through that right now with them. That's one of the reasons why we're why we were evaluating other software packages."
"The price was fairly in line with other automation tools. I don't think it's exorbitantly expensive, relatively speaking."
"I like ActiveBatch Workload Automation's licensing model because they're not holding you down on an agentless model or agent model, where every server needs to have an agent. That's the main selling point of the solution and I hope they stay that way."
"It allows for lower operational overhead."
"The pricing was fair. There are additional costs for the plugins. We have the standard licensing fees for different pieces, then we have the plugins which were add-ons. However, we expected that."
"If you compare ActiveBatch licensing to Control-M, you're looking at $50,000 as opposed to millions."
"Currently, we are paying approximately $7,000 yearly, which includes support."
"I don't think we've ever had a problem with the pricing or licensing. Even the maintenance fees are very much in line. They are not excessive. I think for the support that you get, you get a good value for your money. It's the best value on the market."
"It's $249 per month per instance. It's not great; it's pretty pricey. We've got multiple users on that one instance. If we had to build it by hand, we would win on cost there, but obviously, there is effort and time. In terms of the additional costs, they do have some specific pricing, but for our use case, we don't end up going over $249. They do specify in their pricing what they're charging for."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
12%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ActiveBatch Workload Automation?
Managing the workload and monitoring the tasks were very difficult with manual interventions. Now, by using ActiveBatch, the process is automated and it runs tasks on a scheduled basis.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ActiveBatch Workload Automation?
I'd advise users to start by knowing what the actual requirement is and thoroughly assess the automation needs. New users should take advantage of the demos and trial versions so they get an idea o...
What needs improvement with ActiveBatch Workload Automation?
After upgrades we are facing a few issues and errors triggered, so focusing on this would be appreciated. Some of the advanced features in the user interface are a bit confusing even after referrin...
What do you like most about AWS Transfer for SFTP?
The solution has helped with collaboration in our organization.
What needs improvement with AWS Transfer for SFTP?
The tool's UI should be pretty easy and straightforward. I would also like to see a simple audit report of the SFTP guest account that shows the amount of data transfers and security kind enabled.
What advice do you have for others considering AWS Transfer for SFTP?
I would rate AWS Transfer for SFTP a six out of ten. I would recommend the solution but there are other tools in the market with better UI.
 

Also Known As

ActiveBatch
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Informatica, D&H, ACES, PrimeSource, Sub-Zero Group, SThree, Lamar Advertising, Subway, Xcel Energy, Ignite Technologies, Whataburger, Jyske Bank, Omaha Children's Hospital
Myriota, FINRA, Celgene, Kontor New Media, Belong, ThinkCX, BluTV
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, Fortra, BMC and others in Managed File Transfer (MFT). Updated: June 2025.
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