ActiveBatch by Redwood vs Tidal by Redwood comparison

ActiveBatch by Redwood and Tidal Software by Redwood are both solutions in the Workload Automation category. ActiveBatch by Redwood is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.5, while Tidal Software by Redwood is ranked #19. ActiveBatch by Redwood holds a 3.1% mindshare in WA, compared to Tidal Software by Redwood’s 4.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of ActiveBatch by Redwood users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Tidal Software by Redwood users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

Tidal by Redwood and ActiveBatch by Redwood are leading competitors in the automation software market. Each product excels in its way, but Tidal’s integration abilities give it a slight edge in complex use cases.

Features: Tidal is known for its event-driven, dependency-focused scheduling, easy integration with systems like JD Edwards, and support for various environments. It is dependable, versatile, and user-friendly, making complex job setup straightforward. ActiveBatch is valued for its extensive library of pre-built job steps, seamless integration capabilities, and flexible platform, allowing quick automation without scripting.

Room for Improvement: Tidal requires enhancements in user experience, customization options, and cloud integration. Users suggest focusing on security and reporting improvements. ActiveBatch could improve by providing better documentation, intuitive UI enhancements, and comprehensive training resources, along with enhancing integration capabilities, especially with cloud platforms and reporting features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Tidal offers an on-premises deployment model and some private cloud usage, with highly praised customer support emerging from its transition from Cisco to STA Group. Conversely, ActiveBatch offers hybrid and public cloud deployments, but ease of setup is a common issue. The customer service is positively viewed, though improvements in support methods are desired.

Pricing and ROI: Tidal is cost-effective with competitive pricing and flexible, transparent licensing models, supporting diverse needs without extra upgrade costs. ActiveBatch's pricing is reasonable but has caused concern due to shifts toward subscription models. Both generate good ROI by reducing manual effort and enhancing productivity.

To learn more, read our detailed ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. Tidal by Redwood Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. Tidal by Redwood

April 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

JAMS

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of JAMS is 3.0%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ActiveBatch by Redwood is 3.1%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tidal by Redwood is 4.1%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Workload Automation Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
JAMS	3.0%
ActiveBatch by Redwood	3.1%
Tidal by Redwood	4.1%
Other	89.8%

Workload Automation

Featured Reviews

Latha Viswanathan

Principal Data Base And Infrastructure Engineer at a outsourcing company with 501-1,000 employees

Automation has replaced nightly monitoring and delivers reliable, unified job scheduling

We have really enjoyed working with JAMS in terms of notifications, alerts, and streamlining. There used to be a process with Automate, which is another product from Fortra, but even before that, the other division of the company that we were merging with had a tool that was built in-house called a file handler or file distributor. It was an in-house developed tool, but it was not as streamlined or as efficient as JAMS is. We literally had to have a dedicated nighttime person monitoring. Although we are 24/7, the divisions of the company that we were using JAMS for have been small scale. While we have automated it, we have streamlined it in such a way that notifications go out and alerts go out, but if there is anything, then we get paged and alerted, and if anything needs to happen at midnight, we can wake up. On the other hand, with the tool I mentioned, the file handler and distributor, we used to have a dedicated nighttime person that had to be sitting and monitoring it to see when a file arrived, whether it met the conditions, and then execute the next particular job. By using JAMS, we have gained a lot more efficiencies in terms of all of those to streamline it, and there is no necessary need for having an overnight engineer just keeping an eye on all of this.

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Abdul_Samad

Application Administrator Lead at Bluestem

Manages thousands of jobs daily and reduces downtime through secondary node support

The current feedback I receive from my end users regarding ActiveBatch by Redwood highlights issues with the tabs or panes during job modification. When the next user monitors it, they need to close the pane or job and reopen it to see the changes reflected. If the end user makes an update, it will not be visible unless they start from the beginning again. Implementing a refresh button would be helpful for real-time updates when the end user needs to see changes immediately. We currently face issues with the web console of ActiveBatch by Redwood. When users operate through an RDP session, every user has their own ActiveBatch by Redwood application. However, on the web console, users encounter daily activity issues where the job instances do not appear or update correctly, and they cannot view the latest logs. This issue is only present on the web console, as the application itself works without any problems. ActiveBatch by Redwood can be improved by adding more features, as we are not currently handling cloud-based applications like S3 buckets and Azure. Connecting to these cloud platforms would be a helpful enhancement.

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Jim Gillingham

Batch Production Manager at a consultancy with 201-500 employees

Its versatility, ease of use, scalability, and cost-effectiveness make it a 10/10 and the best of the breed

The company is not really big. One of the areas that they are working on is improving the process of migrating jobs from the lower environment to the upper environment. They had used a tool called Transporter, which was a little difficult to use, but they've now released a new tool in August, which I've not yet used, to do that. It's probably called Repository or something like that, but it's a tool for migrating jobs from the lower environment to the upper environment. That's where they needed to improve, and it looks like they may have, but I haven't tried the tool yet. They can do better reporting in terms of production statistics reporting.

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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

"JAMS has improved our productivity immensely because everything flows. I don't think we could operate at our current staffing levels without it."

"The dashboard is intuitive."

"JAMS is easier to use and cheaper than our previous solution. The installation is more straightforward, and JAMS has a graphical user interface, so it's more accessible."

"Our company is based on data. Everything we do is data-driven, so it has been very valuable having one place where we can process all of the data and do batch schedules with chunks of data."

"Getting JAMS in place was a game changer for us back then."

"I didn't know about JAMS because I don't have a person with any challenges with the purchase administration. The feature or the user interface is user-friendly because of the readable icons or very descriptive icons. Though I'm a beginning user of JAMS, I had no issues using it."

"It's a full-featured job scheduling tool. The part that I liked the best was the support team. This tool was new, and we were all learning it and setting up the different jobs that were complex in nature. Their support team was very responsive in helping us out through the setup and resolving the issues. They have been incredibly awesome."

"What my team needs are tools to reliably execute all the jobs, minimize the risks, and support high-availability, and JAMS does the job."

More JAMS pros

"The best feature that ActiveBatch by Redwood offers is the user interface."

"We are able to integrate it into multiple third-party tools like email, backup, tracking systems, SharePoint, Slack alerts, etc."

"ActiveBatch by Redwood has positively impacted our organization because we are able to process files very effectively."

"We see ActiveBatch as the Center of Excellence for all things related to automation for our business."

"One of the most valuable features is the job templates. If we need to create an FTP job, we just drag over the FTP template and fill out the requirements using the variables that ActiveBatch uses. And that makes it reusable. We can create a job once but use it for many different clients."

"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 Jobs Library has been a tremendous asset. For the most, that's what we use. There are some outliers, but we pretty much integrate those Jobs Library steps throughout the process, whether it's REST calls, FTP processes, or file copies and moves... That has helped us to build end-to-end workflows."

"We save thousands of man-hours annually."

More ActiveBatch by Redwood pros

"With the varied features in the varied adapters provided, we use Tidal Enterprise Scheduler because we want everything to be scheduled in one place."

"We wouldn't be able to do many of the complex scheduling that we do today without it. For us, it is a mission-critical app. Because if it doesn't work or has a problem, then SAP doesn't function. It is that critical. So, it's an essential tool for us to manage and run SAP jobs."

"It has been super stable. There are no complaints on stability. We would not be using it if Tidal wasn't stable."

"Thinking of all the people involved in checking jobs on a daily basis, manually running jobs or auditing them through standalone tools, and trying to connect them. We have saved hundreds of hours weekly, which is substantial."

"I've used it at six different companies, and to me, it's the most versatile, easy to use, and dependable."

"We have to run about 12,000 jobs every day and the majority of them need to be launched from our ERP, JD Edwards. The native compatibility of the Tidal platform with JD Edwards dovetails with our greatest need. It's directly connected to the heart of our IT system. We couldn't work without it."

"Tidal Workload Automation Software provides the ability to quickly adapt to changing business requirements."

"For our MRP job stream, if Tidal can just once prevent an MRP issue from happening or let us recover from an MRP issue quickly, it has paid for itself."

More Tidal by Redwood pros

Cons

"The cost has definitely gone up tremendously. That is where I do know, as much as the feature sets are there, and if the newly acquired company is going to be doing a pushback, they might just say, 'Do we still need to pay this much? Or at that point, should we look into an alternative?'"

"It is important to receive notifications if a charged job fails and SQL is halted. JAMS does not provide halted notifications by default, which is a critical feature that needs to be added."

"JAMS doesn't allow us to implement SOC controls. We are a company that trades stocks on the New York Stock Exchange, so all our transactions are audited. It has a feature that saves the file for only a month but doesn't segregate the data between finance and SOC-related compliance."

"Sometimes the UI is not the most responsive I've ever used. But because it does its job, I don't complain."

"The error messages from JAMS often need clarification, hindering our ability to resolve issues swiftly."

"JAMS handles exceptions fairly well but there are some areas where it might improve a little bit. It has to do with being able to automatically handle exceptions, out-of-the-box, rather than having to code them."

"The only thing that they could improve on is the fact that they don't have a browser version of JAMS. They've got all the bits and pieces there if you want to build your own web version of it. It does come with a web client, but it's pretty clunky. They could improve on that."

More JAMS cons

"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."

"I can't get the cleaning up of logs to work consistently. Right now, we are not setup correctly, and maybe it is something that I have not effectively communicated to them."

"There are very few documents that provide us with detailed information on the troubleshooting of errors that occur during integration with the existing environment."

"The reporting needs improvement. There is a real need for the ability to generate audit reports on the fly."

"There are some issues with this version and finding the jobs that it ran. If you're looking at 1,000 different jobs, it shows based on the execution time, not necessarily the run time. So, if there was a constraint waiting, you may be looking for it in the wrong time frame. Plus, with thousands of jobs showing up and the way it pages output jobs, sometimes you end up with multiple pages on the screen, then you have to go through to find the specific job you're looking for. On the opposite side, you can limit the daily activity screen to show only jobs that failed or jobs currently running, which will shrink that back down. However, we have operators who are looking at the whole nightly cycle to make sure everything is there and make sure nothing got blocked or was waiting. Sometimes, they have a hard time finding every item within the list."

"The technical support was difficult if you wanted to escalate the issue, it takes a little bit longer to escalate."

"A cloud option is not provided as a free feature, making it a costly solution for smaller organizations."

"I have faced struggles to understand, set up the tool, and implement it in my early days as a new user."

More ActiveBatch by Redwood cons

"Tidal Software interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly."

"We've had some quirky stuff happen on an occasional basis where a job does not take off. For example, a job we expected to be finished by 3:00 a.m. is sitting there and not executing when we come in in the morning. We have to go all the way back to the dependencies and then we can see that one of the dependencies has become unscheduled, for some reason. No changes were made to the schedule but this prerequisite job has, all of a sudden, become unscheduled. I have brought this up with Tidal's support but they have never had an answer for it."

"The reporting is kind of lacking and not super awesome."

"When we patch to the next version, there is often a little thing that breaks. It would help if they had some better QA testing of their patches."

"Understanding and using Tidal Automation could be overwhelming for someone with minimal programming language."

"I know they are working on improving this already, but there needs to be better reporting."

"There is, unfortunately, no way to extract that into an actual output email or failure email."

"The user interface is the place that needs the most work. It's a little sluggish at times and there are some bugs in it."

More Tidal by Redwood cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Fortra's JAMS pricing structure has deteriorated significantly since its acquisition by Fortra."

"The pricing of JAMS has not been an issue for us, as it has allowed us to save time."

"For what it does, the product is priced very well."

"It's expensive, to be honest, but it does the job."

"The licensing model for JAMS is straightforward and based on the number of agents, not the number of jobs you run. It's cheap and fairly simple."

"The product is reasonably priced, and we don't have any add-ons."

"In the end, you'll find that it's really worth the price. There is some sticker shock, but it's worth every dime."

"I haven't been involved in the financial side for several years, but we buy one host and unlimited agents, and we get a reasonable price for that. We're happy with the amount we pay and the scalability it provides."

More JAMS pricing and cost advice

"The price was fairly in line with other automation tools. I don't think it's exorbitantly expensive, relatively speaking."

"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."

"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."

"It allows for lower operational overhead."

"Currently, we are paying approximately $7,000 yearly, which includes support."

"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."

"If you compare ActiveBatch licensing to Control-M, you're looking at $50,000 as opposed to millions."

"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."

"They work with you on licensing. So, it has been great. Everybody has different licensing, but I've had good luck with the licensing. They've been very accommodating. You basically need to buy a license for each physical server, but then you're allowed an unlimited number of virtual servers."

"The licensing model's flexibility is awesome. The way it's licensed for us is that it's licensed per master and then per agent. We have an enterprise agreement, so we have unlimited agents, and we have it on 500 devices."

"There have been pricing increases, but with the reduction that our company obtained from Tidal this year, the pricing has become very acceptable for this type of product."

"Tidal is a low-cost tool and not expensive in comparison to other tools."

"The price is reasonable in terms of the product’s functionality."

"The solution’s licensing model in terms of its flexibility and transparency regarding costs is pretty good. A person can buy the license, and if you decide to stop support, you can do that but still have the product. So, it's not like you're paying constantly to keep that license alive. Certainly, you want to keep support going too. Once you buy it, you own it. It's not like I have to keep paying somebody to keep using it."

"This solution is a bit expensive in the current world where everybody is trying to cut down on certain things."

"Our yearly licensing costs are between $10,000 to $20,000. They have always been reasonable with us. I like that non-production licensing is about half the cost of production licensing. Licensing is by adapter typically. We have had scenarios where we have had to take an adapter from one environment to another, and they've allowed us to do that. They have made it a very reasonable process. There's definitely a feeling that they will work with you."

More Tidal by Redwood pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Construction Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Performing Arts

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	13
Large Enterprise	19

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	13
Large Enterprise	47

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	38

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JAMS?

I believe the pricing and licensing were fair. I was not here when that process took place and do not know exactly, b...

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What needs improvement with JAMS?

When it comes to improvements for JAMS, I think upgrading and migrating some of the current processes could benefit f...

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What is your primary use case for JAMS?

Our main use case for JAMS is to automate our data pump backups for our PeopleSoft Oracle system, as well as run a my...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ActiveBatch Workload Automation?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for ActiveBatch by Redwood has been great; we recently renewed ...

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What needs improvement with ActiveBatch Workload Automation?

I believe ActiveBatch by Redwood could be improved because the UI could be modernized.

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What is your primary use case for ActiveBatch Workload Automation?

My main use case for ActiveBatch by Redwood is file processing. I use ActiveBatch by Redwood for file processing for ...

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Comparisons

Control-M vs JAMS

Compared 12% of the time

Stonebranch vs JAMS

Compared 8% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs JAMS

Compared 8% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs JAMS

Compared 7% of the time

OpCon vs JAMS

Compared 4% of the time

More JAMS Competitors

Control-M vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 11% of the time

Stonebranch vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 7% of the time

VisualCron vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 6% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 6% of the time

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 3% of the time

More ActiveBatch by Redwood Competitors

Control-M vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 12% of the time

Automic Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 7% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 6% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 6% of the time

OpCon vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 3% of the time

More Tidal by Redwood Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

JAMS

May 2026

Download JAMS product report

Buyer's Guide

ActiveBatch by Redwood

May 2026

Download ActiveBatch by Redwood product report

Buyer's Guide

Tidal by Redwood

April 2026

Download Tidal by Redwood product report

Also Known As

No data available

ActiveBatch

Tidal Workload Automation, Cisco Workload Automation, Tidal Enterprise Scheduler

Interactive Demo

JAMS Software

Demo not available

ActiveBatch by Redwood

Demo not available

Tidal Software by Redwood

Overview

JAMS is an automation and job scheduling solution designed for workflow optimization, catering to businesses large and small with flexible licensing and integration options.

Offering both Core and Advanced packages, JAMS supports a range of environments from small teams to large-scale operations. Its standout features include integration with platforms like PowerShell, SQL, and SAP, coupled with capabilities such as dependency management and natural language scheduling. JAMS simplifies job management, centralizes workflows, and boosts productivity with its robust automation features. Customizable workflows and insightful logging make it adaptable for diverse needs, supported by responsive customer service ensuring seamless operations.

What are JAMS's key features?

Automation & Scheduling: Flexible automation helps manage complex job schedules efficiently.
Integration: Connects seamlessly with platforms like SQL Server, SAP, and Python for diverse applications.
Centralized Job Management: A unified interface for handling thousands of jobs daily.
Dependency Management: Supports complex workflows with efficient dependency tracking.
Insightful Logging: Provides detailed logs and notifications for precise task execution.

What benefits should users look for in JAMS reviews?

Enhanced Productivity: Automates repetitive tasks, freeing up resources for strategic initiatives.
Scalability: Flexible licensing models grow with business size and needs.
Efficient Workflow Automation: Streamlines job orchestration across environments.
Responsive Support: Helps ensure smooth operations with quick troubleshooting.

In industries, JAMS is employed for automating workflows and managing batch jobs. Organizations utilize it for SSIS, SQL Server tasks, file transfers, and integrating with vendor systems, achieving efficient file automation and data management. Scheduler enables precise execution of thousands of tasks daily, enhancing operational efficiency.

JAMS Software

ActiveBatch by Redwood enhances efficiency with features like job scheduling, integration, and real-time monitoring. It supports diverse platforms, automates tasks, and offers a single-pane view with robust security.

ActiveBatch streamlines automation by offering drag-and-drop functionality, pre-built job steps, and native integrations. Its customizable workflows and alert system aid in managing complex workloads like data processing and server monitoring across hybrid environments. While it effectively reduces manual errors and enhances productivity, areas like navigation and support for cloud platforms need enhancement. New users may face challenges due to its complexity and steep learning curve, and further improvements in reporting, mobile access, and training could provide additional support to users.

What important features does ActiveBatch offer?

Comprehensive Job Scheduling: Manages and automates complex workloads efficiently.
Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly connects with different platforms and applications.
Real-time Monitoring: Offers a single-pane view for quick issue identification.
Customizable Workflows: Tailors processes to specific organizational tasks.
Robust Alert System: Ensures timely notifications for critical events.
Data Protection: Incorporates strong security measures for secure operations.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating ActiveBatch?

Enhanced Efficiency: Automates repetitive tasks, reducing manual intervention.
Improved Productivity: Streamlines processes across hybrid environments.
Error Reduction: Decreases likelihood of manual errors.
Platform Support: Provides integration with diverse systems.

In finance, ActiveBatch is implemented for orchestrating batch processes and data management. The healthcare industry utilizes it for automating patient data updates and server monitoring, while the retail sector benefits from file transfers and inventory management automation.

ActiveBatch by Redwood

Tidal Software is a leading provider of enterprise workload automation solutions that orchestrate the execution of complex workflows across systems, applications and IT environments. With a comprehensive portfolio of products and services, Tidal optimizes mission-critical business processes, increases IT cost efficiencies and satisfies legal and regulatory compliance requirements. Hundreds of customers around the world count on Tidal for modernizing their workload automation and driving their digital transformation. Tidal Software is headquartered in Chicago with offices in Houston, London, Minsk, Belarus and Chennai, India. For more information, visit tidalsoftware.com.

Tidal Software by Redwood

Sample Customers

Teradata, Arconic, General Dynamics, Yum!, CVS Health, Comcast, Ghiradelli, & Boston’s Children’s Hospital

Informatica, D&H, ACES, PrimeSource, Sub-Zero Group, SThree, Lamar Advertising, Subway, Xcel Energy, Ignite Technologies, Whataburger, Jyske Bank, Omaha Children's Hospital

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. Tidal by Redwood

April 2026

Free Report: ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. Tidal by Redwood

Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. Tidal by Redwood and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.

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