Control-M vs Tidal by Redwood comparison

BMC and Tidal Software by Redwood are both solutions in the Workload Automation category. BMC is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7, while Tidal Software by Redwood is ranked #6 with an average rating of 9.6. BMC holds a 23.1% mindshare in WA, compared to Tidal Software by Redwood’s 2.9% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of BMC users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Tidal Software by Redwood users who would recommend it.

Control-M

Read 120 Control-M reviews

18,934 Views
7,626 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Tidal by Redwood

Read 37 Tidal by Redwood reviews

2,585 Views
1,090 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Control-M

Tidal by Redwood

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Control-M and Tidal by Redwood are competitors in the enterprise workload automation category. Control-M has an advantage in broad integration capabilities and comprehensive automation features, while Tidal by Redwood stands out for its flexible permissions and segmentation of user roles.

Features: Control-M provides extensive integration options such as BPI, DB integrator, and AFT file transfer, enabling automation across various workflows. Its automation and troubleshooting capabilities make it valuable in industries like banking. Tidal by Redwood offers flexible user permissions, intuitive role segmentation, and comprehensive enterprise features, preventing unauthorized access efficiently.

Room for Improvement: Control-M could boost its analytical capabilities by incorporating arithmetic operations and enhance reporting features for better user customization. Tidal by Redwood needs improvement in reporting and UI intuitiveness to simplify integration and navigation. Enhancing drill-down functionality and simplifying initial setup would optimize its efficiency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Control-M is praised for supporting various environments, including on-premises and cloud, with strong technical support. Tidal by Redwood boasts a streamlined licensing model favored by users for clarity and transparency, focused on on-premises deployments.

Pricing and ROI: Control-M is perceived as costly due to its extensive capabilities, with pricing based on task counts, offering significant ROI through reduced error rates. Tidal by Redwood provides a more predictable, transparent cost structure, often more affordable, with the ability to grow scalability through enterprise contract benefits like unrestricted agent additions.

To learn more, read our detailed Control-M vs. Tidal by Redwood Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Control-M vs. Tidal by Redwood

March 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

Control-M

Ranking in Workload Automation

1st

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

120

Ranking in other categories

Process Automation (3rd), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (4th)

Tidal by Redwood

Ranking in Workload Automation

6th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of Control-M is 23.1%, down from 26.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tidal by Redwood is 2.9%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Workload Automation

Featured Reviews

Pedro Fuentes

System Engineer at Community Loans of America, Inc.

Cost-effective, excellent support, and centralized access and control

They have a department that handles requests for enhancements. I talked to Control-M guys back in October or November when they had a gathering here in Atlanta. We talked about not being able to go back in history in Helix Control-M for more than two weeks. We submitted a request for enhancement. They told us that they are working on it, and they are thinking of expanding that to 30 days. We would like to see it expand to 90 days, but they are working on it. In Control-M, we were able to go back 180 days, but that was on-prem. The storage of that data was on our own servers. We know that storage is money, and we do not expect them to store that much of the data, but at least 30 to 60 days seem proper.

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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.

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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

"BIM is helpful because we do not miss any SLAs, as we get to know the issue well in advance. It is the topmost service that has helped us provide better solutions for the business."

"If they have ad hoc requirements, then they can theoretically schedule their own file transfers with the Self Service. We are trying to push as much work back to the customers or developers that have that requirement, because they prefer to help themselves, if possible. We try empowering them and enabling them through Control-M, especially for file transfers, because it is a much broader base of the business then just with batch scheduling. Typically, with SAP batch scheduling, it would work with dedicated teams. With file transfers, the entire business is involved. There are business users, end users, etc. It definitely needs to be as simple as possible and as managed as well as possible. They need to manage it themselves, if possible, because our team is not growing but the number of customers, applications, and jobs are growing. We need to hand back some of the responsibility to the customer for them to resolve and action it."

"I think the administration part is much more valuable than any other feature."

"The Control-M interface is good for creating, monitoring, and ensuring the delivery of files as part of our data pipeline. There's a wealth of information in both the full client, as well as the web interface that they have. Both are very easy to use and provide all the necessary material to understand how to do various tasks. The help feature is very useful and informative and everything is very easy to understand."

"I find it very helpful to be able to keep track of all our help desk tickets."

"We can set up automated email notifications to the programmers or the whole team for a particular job. It helps save time because we're not consistently looking at the job to see if it has ended or failed."

"Control-M is useful to automate all critical and non-critical processes. Using Control-M, we can automate application workflows as well as file transfers involved in application workflows. We can also use it to run batches related to applications. Automating these processes reduces the RTO and RPO, which helps in the case of failures. It also helps us to identify bottlenecks and take corrective measures."

"Our data transfers have improved using Control-M processes, e.g., our monthly batches. When we used to do things manually, like copying files and reports, we used to take three to four days to complete a batch. However, with the automated file transfers and report sharing, we have been able to complete a batch within two and a half days and our reports are on time to users. So, 30% to 40% of the execution time has been saved."

More Control-M pros

"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."

"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."

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

"The Graphical Views feature is also very good for helping us to understand a job stream. It's great for providing a visual overview of the status of a workflow, especially the Critical Path view. That is one of our favorites."

"We use the solution for cross-platform, cross-application workloads. The solution’s ability to manage and monitor these workloads is very easy and accurate. We have file dependencies for running jobs. The job does not start until a file exists on a completely different server, then where the job will run. So, it is cross systems."

"With other tools, you do not have the ability to schedule jobs on their own. You need to create a group and then assign everything to that group. Only then will the job be able to execute. In Tidal, you can schedule a single job and there is no need to create a group. That's what I like the most."

"The feature that I find to be valuable, as I'm working with other folks, is the ability to cross-schedule across platforms, and the flexibility that comes with that."

"The best feature is that it allows task scheduling based on particular occurrences, like the receipt of files, database updates, or system notifications."

More Tidal by Redwood pros

Cons

"Whenever I pull an S4HANA job to the Helix Control-M tool, it pulls it naturally with all the steps. A job can have several steps, and in this case, it is very easy to control the steps taken. However, in the case of the SaaS IBP tool, it can pull the job but cannot identify the steps. So, when I want to take an action in a step, I have to split the job."

"I would like to see them adopt more cloud. Most companies don't have a single cloud, meaning we have data sources that come from different cloud providers. That may have been solved already, but supporting Azure would be an improvement because companies tend not to have only AWS and GCP."

"There should be an expansion in storing more data as it currently provides data storage for only up to 60 days."

"Right now, Control-M is the leader in EMA analysis, which is similar to Gartner. However, clients want to invest in a strong technology, and therefore this product needs to keep up with the high expectations set for it."

"After we complete FTP jobs, those FTP jobs will be cleared from the Control-M schedule after the noon refresh. So, I struggle to find out where those jobs are saved. Then, we need to request execution of the FTP jobs again. If there could be an option to show the logs, which have been previously completed, that would help us. I can find all other job logs from the server side, but FTP job logs. Maybe I am missing the feature, or if it is not there, it could be added."

"We did encounter a few scalability issues. Sometimes, there are too many jobs in our environment on different servers, but that’s not the tool issue, we can simply increase the FS size. However, that requires bank cost; hence the scalability issue."

"I would like to see more auditing capabilities. Right now, it has the basics and I've been trying to set those up to work with what our auditors are looking for."

"We would recommend modernizing the look and feel of Control-M. They also need to move towards more self-service and development in their environment. It's very antiquated."

More Control-M cons

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

"There are several improvement points that our team has provided to the vendor."

"My complaint about their pricing model is that every year or every time technology changes or somebody has a new requirement, it usually means that I can schedule that with Tidal, but I would need another adapter. So, every time there is a change, I need a different adapter that I don't have. That's why it is harder to plan for Tidal growth because you have to buy a new adapter every time."

"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."

"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."

"Some users have complained that the initial setup process is complicated and time-consuming, while others have suggested that the software could offer more freedom in customizing processes."

"I would like more involvement with the cloud."

"The software's performance and scalability could be improved, particularly when dealing with large-scale workloads or complex business processes."

More Tidal by Redwood cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its cost is a little bit higher than other solutions such as AutoSys or DAC. For the demo, there were some plans, such as start plan, scale plan, etc. Pricing was based on the plan."

"BMC does NOT have a great licensing model from my perspective."

"The cost of the hardware is high. Because you need to license each job, it is costly."

"we are more looking for a better cost/license/performance model because BMC, while we could say it's the best, is also the most expensive. That is what we are probably most annoyed with. We are paying something like €1,000,000 over three years for having 4,000 jobs running. That's expensive."

"The pricing and licensing could be better. However, when I compare Control-M pricing with JAMS, Control-M is still better priced than JAMS enterprise."

"One of the restrictions that we had was with some of the licensing, and not having any insight on the financials part of the product. I don't know what the licensing on the product is, but we don't have an unlimited enterprise license. So, there might be a limitation on either the cost of the licensing or the number of seats."

"There are two different types of licenses available. The first is based on the number of jobs that we run per day, and the other is based on the number of agents that we install. My current project has a contract for five years."

"It is not bad. The company can afford it, and it pays for itself. We have those jobs running automatically."

More Control-M pricing and cost advice

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

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

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

"I have had no issues with the licensing."

"Their pricing seems very fair. It is more than the other solutions, but the functionality and the support are very much there. You pay for the job scheduler, and then they have certain things that are built into it, such as the FTP processes. If you then want to do JD Edwards jobs, you need an adapter. If you want to do SQL jobs, there is another adapter. Similarly, if you want to do Oracle jobs, there is an adapter. It is like there is the base and then there are the adapters for the jobs that you want to do, but it seems that's also how they pay for each of those adapters and keep them up to date."

"The solution enables admins and users to see the information relevant to them, but this is bundled as an add-on that we would have to pay for."

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

"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."

More Tidal by Redwood pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

28%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

22%

Manufacturing Company

15%

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

How does Control-M compare with AutoSys Workload Automation?

Control-M acts as a single, centralized interface for monitoring and managing all batch processes, which is helpful because nothing gets left unattended since it is all visible in one place, and th...

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What do you like most about Control-M?

First of all, the shift from manual to automation has been valuable. We have a tool that can automate.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Control-M?

It is a little bit expensive.

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

Comparisons

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Control-M

Compared 16% of the time

Automic Automation vs Control-M

Compared 9% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs Control-M

Compared 8% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Control-M

Compared 6% of the time

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Control-M

Compared 3% of the time

More Control-M Competitors

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 40% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 6% of the time

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 6% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 6% of the time

More Tidal by Redwood Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Control-M

March 2025

Download Control-M product report

Buyer's Guide

Tidal by Redwood

March 2025

Download Tidal by Redwood product report

Also Known As

Control M

Tidal Workload Automation, Cisco Workload Automation, Tidal Enterprise Scheduler

Overview

Control-M is used for enterprise workload automation, orchestrating finance, retail, healthcare, and supply chain processes. It handles batch job scheduling, managed file transfers, cloud integrations, and compliance auditing across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments.

Organizations leverage Control-M to efficiently monitor and manage business-critical processes like payroll, HR, SAP, Informatica, and database tasks. It enhances visibility, security, and error resolution. Automating and optimizing workflows in data centers, AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, Control-M supports diverse technological environments. The platform's robust capabilities make it suitable for effective centralized management of applications and data pipelines, ensuring enhanced collaboration and scalability.

What are Control-M's most important features?

Integration capabilities: Seamlessly integrates with various systems
Automation API: Facilitates automation through APIs
Managed File Transfer: Simplifies secure file transfers
GUI console: Intuitive graphical user interface
Role-based administration: Provides access control
Single-pane view: Centralized monitoring dashboard
Scheduling options: Flexible job scheduling
Workflow orchestration: Coordinates complex workflows
Reporting: Generates insightful reports
Monitoring: Tracks and manages tasks
Forecasting: Predicts future workloads
Self-service portal: Empowers users with self-service tools
Plugins: Extends functionality through additional plugins

What are the benefits or ROI of using Control-M?

Enhanced visibility: Centralized view of all processes
Ease of use: User-friendly interface
Error reduction: Minimizes manual errors
Improved collaboration: Facilitates teamwork
Scalability: Supports growth and scale
Support: Comprehensive customer support

Control-M is implemented in industries like finance to handle payroll and HR tasks, in retail for inventory management and supply chain processes, and in healthcare for compliance auditing and patient data processing. Organizations benefit from streamlined workflows and automated processes across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, ensuring efficient and secure operations.

BMC

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

CARFAX, Tampa General Hospital, Navistar, Amadeus, Raymond James, Railinc

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Control-M vs. Tidal by Redwood

March 2025

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