AWS Step Functions vs Tidal by Redwood comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Tidal Software by Redwood are both solutions in the Workload Automation category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.3, while Tidal Software by Redwood is ranked #12 with an average rating of 9.2. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 1.6% mindshare in WA, compared to Tidal Software by Redwood’s 4.2% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Tidal Software by Redwood users who would recommend it.

AWS Step Functions

Read 13 AWS Step Functions reviews

463 Views
175 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Tidal by Redwood

Read 37 Tidal by Redwood reviews

2,380 Views
691 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

AWS Step Functions

Tidal by Redwood

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

Tidal by Redwood and AWS Step Functions both offer strong capabilities in job orchestration and automation. Tidal is more suited for on-premises versatile job management, whereas AWS Step Functions offers a competitive edge due to its seamless integration with AWS services, enhancing its usability for cloud-native applications.

Features: Tidal by Redwood supports robust user customization, complex dependency management, and cross-platform scheduling, making it ideal for organizations with diverse requirements. It provides an array of advanced calendaring options, integration across various platforms, and event-driven job execution. AWS Step Functions excels with seamless AWS service integration, an intuitive graphical design interface, and JSON configuration capabilities, which streamline cloud-native application workflows.

Room for Improvement: Tidal by Redwood could improve its user interface, provide more detailed documentation and training resources, and enhance cloud integration options. Meanwhile, AWS Step Functions could broaden its integration options with third-party applications, increase data payload limits, and simplify its pricing model to reduce dependence on the AWS ecosystem.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Tidal by Redwood is primarily deployed on-premises with flexibility and positive customer service feedback, especially since its management shift from Cisco to STA Group. AWS Step Functions is optimized for public cloud deployment, providing responsive support, although mixed reviews often cite its pricing model as a downside.

Pricing and ROI: Tidal by Redwood offers enterprise licensing models with transparent costs, resulting in a favorable ROI through time savings and efficiency. AWS Step Functions provides usage-based pricing, which can be cost-effective for AWS-centric tasks but may turn complex without careful management, affecting financial transparency and ROI perception among wider audiences.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Step Functions vs. Tidal by Redwood Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Step Functions vs. Tidal by Redwood

June 2025

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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

AWS Step Functions

Ranking in Workload Automation

10th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Management (BPM) (9th)

Tidal by Redwood

Ranking in Workload Automation

12th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of AWS Step Functions is 1.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tidal by Redwood is 4.2%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Workload Automation

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alberto Marangon

Senior AWS Tech Lead at Nextios

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.

Read full review

Steve Mikula

IT Scheduling Manager at Paychex, Inc.

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.

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

"The number of historical events is great."

"The integration capability is easy, whereas building state machines is tricky."

"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."

"AWS Step Functions offers advanced workflows that save time and enhance efficiency by reducing delays and ensuring consistent orchestration among various services."

"One can rate all the calls and that is a good feature."

"The JSON app launched recently allows us to define data execution more easily."

"It's Amazon, it's scalable."

More AWS Step Functions pros

"It is intended to enable large-scale automation environments, making it appropriate for companies with complicated processes and big data volumes."

"The job dependency is something that you cannot have in a regular, simple cron job or simple scheduler dependency. The event-driven jobs are core for us, as we really need that. Therefore, we really need Tidal with its ability to run thousands of jobs per day."

"From a management standpoint, when using the solution for cross-platform, cross-application workloads, I've never had a problem with the application. It's very interactive, especially with the different security levels that they offer."

"The data management on offer was valuable."

"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."

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

"It's easy to use and easy to administer, and it's very flexible."

"With the varied features in the varied adapters provided, we use Tidal Enterprise Scheduler because we want everything to be scheduled in one place. Tidal provides that for us with its tools and varying platforms in our organization. Tidal provides all the connectors to the platforms. This is very useful because we don't want to look for another scheduler for scheduling certain jobs. We don't want to look at those schedules manually between platforms."

More Tidal by Redwood pros

Cons

"Increasing the payload size would be beneficial."

"I would like to see more data transformation features in Amazon Step Functions like additional operators and logic."

"The pricing of the solution can be improved."

"The solution's pricing could be cheaper. It is cheaper than Airflow."

"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."

"It is hard to coordinate the declaratory language."

More AWS Step Functions cons

"From an administrative point of view, I wouldn't give really high marks to the solution. I actually entertained getting the JAWS application at one point. One of the shortcomings with the scheduler is the reporting capabilities. At least at the time, JAWS was the best that they had for a third-party integration. I think they've got things in the pipeline to help alleviate that gap."

"I know they are working on it, but there needs to be better reporting. Currently, there are only three or four reports that we can get off of the system. That needs to be improved. They already have a solution to this in the new version. I.e., a schedule of all the jobs running for one day, specifically calling out what dependencies that job relies on. It would be like a flow chart of how the day's jobs would run."

"The current user interface of Tidal Software is functional. However, it can be improved to make it more intuitive and user-friendly."

"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."

"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."

"They can do better reporting in terms of production statistics reporting."

"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 drill-down into details using the Graphical Views feature is a bit difficult and not that helpful. If you want to go into the details, you have to go to the Job Activity. Graphical Views is not that easy for getting that kind of information."

More Tidal by Redwood cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."

"The solution's price is reasonable."

"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 licensing model for Tidal is on an annual basis. It is very good and works well for us. Tidal's licensing is very transparent and simple. It lets you know, for the amount you use, that's the price that you pay. So, we buy X number of licenses, and we know that this is where we are. I'm very happy with that. I saw the licensing modules on other platforms, and I didn't like them. Other companies and solutions would calculate the connections, adapters, and instances. I think that's the reason that BMC was pretty expensive: They just didn't understand what our needs are."

"Right now, we are in a good position with the licensing model that we have with the Tidal vendor. So, we won't have any issues. even if we double in our current production. Initially, Tidal provided us some specs where if you have these number of jobs, then you come under this category. They usually provide a range of jobs from 2,000 to 10,000. You can use these specs for your infrastructure. Whether you have 2,000 or 8,000 jobs, Tidal should support it."

"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."

"Our annual maintenance cost is competitive for what we have and what they do."

"We pay maintenance annually through Blue House of about $9,000. That's for our two environments: production and test."

"If you are willing to shop around to other vendors, you can possibly get a good price on your support license."

More Tidal by Redwood pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

31%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

20%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Insurance Company

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.

See all answers

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 ).

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about Tidal Automation?

Tidal Automation by Redwood is a user-friendly solution.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tidal Automation?

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

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS Step Functions

June 2025

Download AWS Step Functions product report

Buyer's Guide

Tidal by Redwood

June 2025

Download Tidal by Redwood product report

Also Known As

Amazon Step Functions, Step Functions

Tidal Workload Automation, Cisco Workload Automation, Tidal Enterprise Scheduler

Overview

AWS Step Functions enables orchestration of complex workflows, parallel task execution, and seamless integration with AWS services, simplifying ETL automation and data pipeline management.

With AWS Step Functions, developers streamline task automation and ensure smooth microservices orchestration. It simplifies development and manages interdependencies, validates data, and integrates AWS services for cost-effective workflows. It offers a user-friendly graphical interface for creating pipelines, scalable parallelization via the "map" state, control over historical events, and visualization with JSON. Enhanced by a dashboard-like view, it aids in visual workflows and debugging.

What are the most valuable features?

Seamless AWS Integration: Easily integrates with the entire AWS suite for efficient workflow creation.
User-Friendly Graphical Interface: Simplifies creating and managing workflows with visual tools.
Scalable Parallelization: Utilizes the "map" state for efficient parallel processing tasks.
Control Historical Events: Manages and controls historical data and events effectively.
Visualization and Debugging: Provides a dashboard-like view to enhance understanding and debugging.

What are the benefits and ROI to look for?

Streamlined Development: Simplifies orchestration and automates task management.
Cost-Effective Workflows: Creates efficient, cost-saving workflows by integrating with AWS services.
Enhanced Data Validation: Ensures data correctness by managing interdependencies.
Automation of ETL Jobs: Automates data extraction, transformation, and loading processes seamlessly.

In specific industries such as finance, healthcare, and e-commerce, enterprises implement AWS Step Functions to manage data pipelines, orchestrate microservices, and automate complex ETL jobs. They benefit from seamless integration with AWS services, enhanced data validation, and streamlined development, resulting in efficient and cost-effective workflows tailored to their operational needs.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

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

Alpha Apps, The Guardian, SGK, Bigfinite

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

AWS Step Functions vs. Tidal by Redwood

June 2025

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