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AWS Step Functions vs Tidal by Redwood comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

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

AWS Step Functions
Ranking in Workload Automation
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (11th)
Tidal by Redwood
Ranking in Workload Automation
11th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of AWS Step Functions is 1.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tidal by Redwood is 4.6%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alberto Marangon - PeerSpot reviewer
Automate complex workflows with seamless AWS integration
Step Functions provide seamless integration with AWS services, which enhances the speed of application development. The JSON app launched recently allows us to define data execution more easily. The Standard Workflows feature includes error replay capabilities, which are crucial for efficient error management. The Amazon State Language (ASL) in JSON format facilitates workflow automation and accelerates the deployment of Step Functions.
Steve Mikula - PeerSpot reviewer
Very reliable processing engine, and scheduling is flawless—crucial elements in our financial transaction processing
Because we've been on it for 20 years, it's pretty easy for us to automate jobs with Tidal at this point. It has become second nature. It's pretty simplistic to set up and get going, although there are different levels of complexity you can have within the product. It depends on how simple you want to keep it. If you just keep it: Job A, Job B, Job C, Job D, that becomes pretty simple. But when you start integrating some complex calendars that use sub-calendars—and you can go three, four, or five deep to set up schedules—it becomes more complicated. The beauty of it is you can go as deep as you need to. We can get really complex or we can keep it simple. We have some use cases for both scenarios. The thing that I like the most is the reliability of the engine. The actual scheduling part of the product is pretty much flawless, but the stability of the product is what I find to be reassuring. We are a financial company, we move billions of dollars a day, and if we don't have our transactions processed in a timely manner we can be penalized and our clients can be penalized. It can have a serious financial impact.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's a general solution that you can adapt to your own needs and is simple to use. We like that it can be integrated with everything in the AWS suite, and that the creation of the pipeline can be done using the graphical user interface."
"The integration capability is easy, whereas building state machines is tricky."
"The JSON app launched recently allows us to define data execution more easily."
"What I like the most about Amazon Step Functions is how easy it is to use."
"AWS Step Functions acts as a high-level layer, allowing us to seamlessly integrate with microservices."
"AWS Step Functions was stable, and there were no problems that I can recall."
"It is a scalable solution."
"It's Amazon, it's scalable."
"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."
"We use the solution for cross-platform, cross-application workloads. That's the biggest use for us and that's the biggest advantage."
"Tidal helps administrators and users to see the information that is relevant to them in that single pane of glass. They can see jobs running, they can see job history, and they can see job progression. If you look at alternatives like Airflow and clouds, you'd have to design your own UI to monitor the progress of the different jobs that you've created in Airflow. So Tidal is huge for us."
"Tidal Automation software provides real-time monitoring and alerts, allowing users to track job progress and identify potential issues before they cause delays or errors."
"Tidal integrates with other third-party systems, which makes it easy to connect and exchange data."
"We use the solution for cross-platform and cross-application workloads. That's one of the core reasons we chose it. It's one of a few things in the industry that can be used for cross-platform integration."
"One of the most useful features is being able to set up a schedule and create dependencies. The calendar can kick off processes at certain times, based on dependencies that you specify, like time, or whether another process has finished. Dependencies are the most useful thing."
"It saves times due to automation. With some files, we do hundreds a day for a particular vendor. This would be hard to do manually. Also, the speed at which we can do this is excellent."
 

Cons

"I would like to see more data transformation features in Amazon Step Functions like additional operators and logic."
"If AWS Step Functions keeps adding more integrations, it would be even better."
"The solution's pricing could be cheaper. It is cheaper than Airflow."
"It is difficult to suggest improvements at the moment."
"There is room for improvement in terms of integration with other products. It would benefit from more integration with different applications or services."
"It wasn't easy to understand the licensing model. It's like if you use just a little, it's cheap, but it becomes more expensive as you use more. It's like a hook that ties you inside the Amazon ecosystem. So, it creates a dependency."
"One area for improvement is the payload size. Currently, I sometimes have to save data as a file since I cannot pass it within Step Functions, necessitating caching in processes."
"The interface can sometimes feel limited, as we're unable to see what AWS is running behind the scenes."
"With the client, we have had certain issues. The user interface for Tidal is a little slow. A lot of people would love this tool if they had a faster user interface. The drill-down functionality should be much quicker than what it is pulling out now. If I fill out some data, then it takes awhile to get that data back onto the screen. It's not as fast as we were expecting."
"The user interface is the place that needs the most work. If and when we find issues with the product, they are usually in that area. If I had to choose, that's where I'd want issues, as opposed to in the engine. But the UI is average. It's a little sluggish at times and there are some bugs in it."
"Understanding and using Tidal Automation could be overwhelming for someone with minimal programming language."
"The job failure alerts can be updated with more details for better troubleshooting."
"Their software installation and update process could use some improvements. I'm pretty sure they're working on that, but that's definitely an area where it could be streamlined a lot. There's still a lot of manual work that you have to do with the schedule when you deploy masters or do the agents."
"The solution needs more advanced reporting and data visualization capabilities to enable deeper analysis of job performance and trends."
"To better fit their unique needs, the solution should give more customization options."
"I don't know if Tidal wants to get into the business of monitoring long-running jobs, but that could be a feature for the future: a job launching and monitoring tool. Using Tidal for monitoring doesn't seem like a good fit, but if they could offer something that did that as an add-on or include it, it might be helpful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's price is reasonable."
"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"...it is a pretty affordable scheduler tool that lets us do a lot. You get a lot of bang for the buck... The licensing model is hugely flexible."
"The pricing is pretty reasonable. That seems to help a lot versus other companies. There are no other fees aside from the standard licensing fees. There are other products out there where you pay based on how many jobs you run and so on, and I know that's very frustrating for users."
"We are satisfied with the pricing of Tidal. It's in the moderate range and it feels very achievable for us."
"The price is reasonable in terms of the product’s functionality."
"I have had no issues with the licensing."
"We think the pricing is very fair. We have been happy with the pricing compared to some of the other solutions in the space."
"Our annual maintenance cost is competitive for what we have and what they do."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Insurance Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon Step Functions?
The integration capability is easy, whereas building state machines is tricky.
What is your primary use case for Amazon Step Functions?
The primary use case was the execution of scripts and data migration related to data lakes. We were using Python and other AWS Step Functions ( /products/aws-step-functions-reviews ).
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon Step Functions?
I would recommend AWS Step Functions to others. Overall, I rate AWS Step Functions an eight out of ten.
What do you like most about Tidal Automation?
Tidal Automation by Redwood is a user-friendly solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tidal Automation?
The price is reasonable in terms of the product’s functionality.
What needs improvement with Tidal Automation?
Initially, it is complicated to understand the functionalities as there is limited product documentation. The setup and configuration of the software is a bit complicated. Providing the training vi...
 

Also Known As

Amazon Step Functions, Step Functions
Tidal Workload Automation, Cisco Workload Automation, Tidal Enterprise Scheduler
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Alpha Apps, The Guardian, SGK, Bigfinite
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