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 #11 with an average rating of 8.9, while Tidal Software by Redwood is ranked #19. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 1.6% mindshare in WA, compared to Tidal Software by Redwood’s 4.5% mindshare. Additionally, 84% 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.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

Tidal by Redwood and AWS Step Functions compete in the automation tools category. AWS Step Functions has the upper hand due to its strong integration with AWS services and a user-friendly graphical interface.

Features: Tidal is known for its advanced scheduling capabilities, a robust calendaring system, and user permission segmentation, facilitating cross-platform scheduling flexibility. AWS Step Functions excels with seamless AWS services integration, strong orchestration functionality, and a graphical design interface for simplified workflow execution.

Room for Improvement: Tidal needs improvements in reporting tools, user training, and cloud integration. Its interface presents challenges, and though recent updates to the Transporter tool show promise, historical effectiveness has been lacking. AWS Step Functions would benefit from enhanced pricing models, improved fault tolerance, and better third-party tool integration. It faces challenges related to data limit constraints and pricing complexity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Tidal operates primarily on-premises with limited cloud integration, hindering scalability. Since leaving Cisco, its customer service is responsive and knowledgeable. AWS Step Functions, a cloud service, offers better scalability and is complemented by highly responsive technical support.

Pricing and ROI: Tidal's pricing offers flexibility, predictability, and noted cost-effectiveness, providing significant productivity and operational efficiency gains. Despite AWS Step Functions' complex pricing linked to usage volumes leading to unexpected costs, its integration and reliability are seen as justifying the expense in AWS-centric setups.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Step Functions vs. Tidal by Redwood Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Step Functions vs. Tidal by Redwood

January 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 February 2026, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of JAMS is 2.8%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Step Functions is 1.6%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tidal by Redwood is 4.5%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
JAMS	2.8%
AWS Step Functions	1.6%
Tidal by Redwood	4.5%
Other	91.1%

Workload Automation

Featured Reviews

reviewer2770605

Cloud Engineer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees

Has streamlined complex job scheduling across scripting languages while reducing manual effort

JAMS could be improved with a web client that is accessible and as fast as a normal website, eliminating the need to RDP to the servers to access the JAMS client. A functionality running on the JAMS server to continuously check the JAMS agents would ensure they are working properly. If an agent is not responding, a feature to restart the service from the job server machine would be beneficial. The upgrade process, particularly when switching from V6 to V7, could be clearer in terms of documentation, ideally with screenshots showing exactly what needs to be done on each screen.

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reviewer2706945

Assistant Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Orchestration and integration simplify processes with seamless stability and reliability

I use the Visual Workflow Editor feature of AWS Step Functions. I mainly work through code and then improve it through the visual aspect. There are two ways to do orchestration: through code and through visual. My main task is to develop flows. I have only implemented AWS Step Functions with AWS services, not with any third-party tools. The integration between AWS Step Functions and other AWS services is excellent, working seamlessly with EventBridge, Glue jobs, and databases. I have not encountered any challenges with customers regarding AWS Step Functions that needed me to find a workaround. The pricing of AWS Step Functions is moderate and not particularly costly. AWS Step Functions is affordable for small, medium, and enterprise businesses as an orchestration tool. I have not used any documentation, manuals, or guides for AWS Step Functions as it's very simple to implement. When help is needed, I consult Stack Overflow or AI for commands. Overall rating for AWS Step Functions: 9 out of 10.

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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

"The overall product is fantastic. I love it. It has been a fantastic, solid product. If I have one tiny bit of a problem with it, the support team gets in touch with me right away. I don't know if I've had another service that has been as fantastic as the JAMS support team."

"The most valuable feature of JAMS is its user-friendly interface, especially after upgrading from version six to seven."

"While I appreciate the other features, the agent stands out for its ease of installation and configuration for JAMS monitoring."

"I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events."

"I like how you can add new execution methods on the fly. It isn't overly complex to add Python script support to an execution method in the JAMS system. The scheduling is excellent. You can schedule a maintenance window and take that resource unit out of everything. It halts all of the jobs."

"The most valuable aspect of JAMS is its robustness."

"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."

"The user-friendly and adaptable scheduler allows us to manage various scheduling scenarios."

More JAMS pros

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

"Overall, I would rate AWS Step Functions at least nine out of ten."

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

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

"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."

"If you want to create a workflow to call one Lambda function after another, and other serverless features, it could save you a ton of money. That's for sure."

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

"The number of historical events is great."

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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"We use the solution for cross-platform, cross-application workloads. That's the biggest use for us and that's the biggest advantage."

"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."

"The best feature of Tidal Workload Automation Software is its ease of integration with other systems, including ERP, CRM, and BI tools."

More Tidal by Redwood pros

Cons

"Fortra is getting much better with documentation and examples, but there is still room for improvement."

"JAMS lacks source control features. Our previous solution had job control language, but JAMS doesn't. When migrating between versions, JAMS doesn't migrate all the data, like job change history, etc. Also, the scheduler doesn't have a way to make jobs invisible, so you can temporarily turn a job off if you decide not to run it today."

"If there were a softcover book on how to really take advantage of all of JAMS' tools, I would buy it. I do better with training books than online searching, so a book would be helpful."

"The client is horrible. Every time JAMS puts out a survey on what they can improve, I always say, "The client: When you are setting up jobs, it is quite horrible." The response has been, "Well, we are just using the Windows foundation," and I am like, "Why isn't it only your product?" We can get around it now that we know its quirks, but it is not the most user-friendly of tools out there. The UI is completely unintuitive. We had to go and open up a support ticket with JAMS just to get something back. It is not user-friendly at all."

"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."

"I want JAMS to implement a global search function."

"JAMS has built-in reporting. I've never really used it. I tried using it a few years ago and I couldn't figure it out. It was wonky. It could be improved upon."

"I would like a simple web interface that I could give to my team to go in and kill jobs or see why jobs died so that we don't have to drill down deeper into the application and know everything about it. It would be good to have a really clean web engine that would say here are the jobs running. We can then click to see the time running and whether any of them fails and other similar things. I know they have one, but it's not very simplistic."

More JAMS cons

"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."

"It is hard to coordinate the declaratory language."

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

"The pricing of the solution can be improved."

"The solution's data size limit can be improved."

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

"Increasing the payload size would be beneficial."

"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."

More AWS Step Functions cons

"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."

"I would like more involvement with the cloud."

"To better fit their unique needs, the solution should give more customization options."

"Tidal's adaptability and user-friendliness could be increased by integrating it with additional programmes and platforms."

"Tidal Automation could be further integrated with other systems used in the operation of tidal energy systems, such as weather forecasting tools, energy management systems, or asset management software."

"The product’s UI is outdated. They should work on this particular area."

"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."

"One area for improvement is the command-line interface and the API to bulk-load jobs. It's a little bit kludgy, but we still manage without it. They're working on it and it's getting better all the time. In addition, the documentation for their API for creating jobs needs to be updated. It's a bit of a learning curve."

More Tidal by Redwood cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"JAMS is close to the lower end of the pricing models for enterprise scheduling solutions. They are much cheaper than Control-M, as well as some other products that I've used. I also don't know of another solution where you can actually get true, unlimited licensing, where you can have as many instances and as many agents as you want."

"Our licensing is pretty cheap because we have a state solution. So, we pay only $1,000 a year."

"This is a good product at a fair price."

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

"JAMS is relatively inexpensive, with additional costs only incurred for tags, other services, and optional support renewals."

"There are no additional costs other than the license for Fortra's JAMS which is affordable."

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

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

More JAMS pricing and cost advice

"The solution is expensive."

"The solution's price is reasonable."

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

"I have had no issues with the licensing."

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

"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."

"BMC is really expensive. The other solutions are about the same price. I think Tidal is even cheaper than the others, such as CA, Stonebranch, and JAMS."

"We are satisfied with the pricing of Tidal. It's in the moderate range and it feels very achievable for us."

"...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 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."

More Tidal by Redwood pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

27%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Performing Arts

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	18

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	5

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

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about JAMS?

I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JAMS?

They recently switched to subscription-based pricing, which increased. The price is fair considering the functionalit...

See all answers

What needs improvement with JAMS?

As far as we are using JAMS version 6, it looks good and there is nothing major to add about it. Everything is functi...

See all answers

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?

My customer's usual use cases for AWS Step Functions that I've been working with include orchestration, flows, diagra...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Amazon Step Functions?

I use the Visual Workflow Editor feature of AWS Step Functions. I mainly work through code and then improve it throug...

See all answers

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Comparisons

Control-M vs JAMS

Compared 17% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs JAMS

Compared 9% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs JAMS

Compared 8% of the time

Stonebranch vs JAMS

Compared 8% of the time

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs JAMS

Compared 5% of the time

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Camunda vs AWS Step Functions

Compared 27% of the time

Control-M vs AWS Step Functions

Compared 10% of the time

Apache Airflow vs AWS Step Functions

Compared 7% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs AWS Step Functions

Compared 6% of the time

Pega Platform vs AWS Step Functions

Compared 6% of the time

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MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 22% of the time

Control-M vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 12% of the time

Automic Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 8% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 6% of the time

ESP Workload Automation Intelligence vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

JAMS

January 2026

Download JAMS product report

Buyer's Guide

AWS Step Functions

February 2026

Download AWS Step Functions product report

Buyer's Guide

Tidal by Redwood

January 2026

Download Tidal by Redwood product report

Also Known As

No data available

Amazon Step Functions, Step Functions

Tidal Workload Automation, Cisco Workload Automation, Tidal Enterprise Scheduler

Interactive Demo

JAMS Software

Demo not available

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

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

AWS Step Functions integrate seamlessly with other AWS services to offer efficient pipeline and workflow management. Its intuitive design allows for streamlined orchestration, easily handling complex tasks.

AWS Step Functions provide robust orchestration and automation capabilities, simplifying the creation of workflows with graphical and JSON-based designs. It excels in managing tasks through advanced parallelization and error handling features. Automatic scaling further enhances performance, ensuring reliability in varied environments. However, improvements are needed in IDE integration, larger data handling, and fault tolerance. Users find value in its capacity for microservice orchestration and data integration, although dependency on the Amazon ecosystem and limited third-party integrations pose challenges.

What are the key features of AWS Step Functions?

Integration with AWS Services: Facilitates seamless coordination with AWS offerings like Lambda and Glue.
Graphical and JSON-Based Design: User-friendly interfaces simplify workflow design and management.
Advanced Orchestration: Efficiently manages task execution with parallelization and error handling.
Automatic Scaling: Ensures optimal performance by adjusting resources as needed.
Microservice Integration: Supports smooth microservice communication and operation.

What benefits should organizations assess when considering AWS Step Functions?

Enhanced Efficiency: Automates and streamlines task execution across platforms.
Scalability: Adapts to workloads, providing flexibility in resource management.
Improved Workflow Management: Facilitates reliable and error-free operations.
Visualization and Automation: Simplifies complex processes with visual tools.
Data Validation and Script Execution: Integrates data operations smoothly within data lakes.

In industries managing data pipelines, AWS Step Functions orchestrate workflows, execute parallel ETL jobs, and integrate various AWS services, enabling smoother operations and efficient data migration. Companies benefit from streamlined processes and robust handling of interdependent tasks.

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

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

Alpha Apps, The Guardian, SGK, Bigfinite

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

AWS Step Functions vs. Tidal by Redwood

January 2026

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