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Fortra's Automate vs Tidal by Redwood comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Fortra's Automate
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (4th), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (5th)
Tidal by Redwood
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
Workload Automation (19th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Fortra's Automate and Tidal by Redwood aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Fortra's Automate is designed for Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and holds a mindshare of 2.9%, up 1.3% compared to last year.
Tidal by Redwood, on the other hand, focuses on Workload Automation, holds 4.5% mindshare, up 2.9% since last year.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortra's Automate2.9%
UiPath Platform12.9%
Microsoft Power Automate11.5%
Other72.7%
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Tidal by Redwood4.5%
Control-M14.4%
AutoSys Workload Automation8.0%
Other73.1%
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Jane Rachma Kiniti - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Project Manager at Labo des histoires
Automate has streamlined workflows and increased efficiency with powerful automation
The best features of the solution are the flexible automation features, it is rich with beautiful connectors, and it is easy to use with little to no coding knowledge required to get started, so anybody can use the tool. The intuitive interface of Automate has an intuitive design, which makes it easy to learn and use even without a strong technical background, and it has a drag-and-drop interface, which makes everything so easy and straightforward. The error handling capabilities in complex automation tasks are powerful, as it handles all types of tasks, whether complex or simple. I've never faced any problems even when dealing with complex tasks, so everything is super smooth and highly reliable, even when dealing with big tasks, as it has never slowed down. Automate's compatibility with existing IT infrastructure has impacted our business operations positively by providing smooth integration with other software that we use, such as Gmail, Jira, and Microsoft 365 apps, which gives us a unified platform instead of having to keep switching from one software to another, saving a lot of time and streamlining the whole workflows. The automated analytics have helped improve our business processes since it has increased our efficiency by automating our everyday tasks, freeing up time for us to focus more on strategic activities such as analyzing data and developing new business strategies. It is also cost-saving. By minimizing manual labor, it decreases human errors that can lead to costly mistakes. By automating the tasks, it helps to save costs, and it also improves our accuracy by reducing these errors to ensure that tasks are done almost perfectly.
JG
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature I prefer most about Fortra's Automate is that it offers no-code or low-code automation, which is essential for me as a cybersecurity analyst because we do not have time to code and automate everything."
"Overall, the whole product is really nice and provides significant benefits."
"The most valuable features of Fortra's Automate include its FTP functionality and file manipulation capabilities."
"Compared to other vendors, it's the scheduling tool because a lot of vendors want to charge you extra for their enterprise-level license to have a scheduling tool built in to give you the ability to set up regular schedules to run and do certain data checks."
"I like the interface; it makes managing automation easy. We can set different schedules and templates for each task."
"The intuitive interface of Automate has an intuitive design which makes it easy to learn and use even without a strong technical background, and it has a drag and drop interface which makes everything so easy and straightforward."
"The return on investment I have seen with Fortra's Automate is greater than sixty percent, as it significantly improves our workflow and our team's capabilities."
"A great feature that you seldom see in these kind of systems is the ability to use a database as trigger to launch a task. This is something I asked for a few years ago and that was added."
"Tidal Automation allows organizations to automate complex workflows and processes, reducing the need for manual intervention and improving operational efficiency."
"The first, big thing that we got out of using Tidal Workload Automation was having a centralized view of the status of all of our batch processes across all these systems... We can look into the schedule at any given time and see if things are running on track or if they are falling behind. We can also see if something failed."
"The best feature is that it allows task scheduling based on particular occurrences, like the receipt of files, database updates, or system notifications."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"I would like the updates to be easier to deploy. Integration with Amazon S3 is somewhat lacking."
"It's possible that they could use a stronger community for seeking guidance and help."
"The product also has a limited use case in some respects."
"I would prefer not having to log in to update a ticket; being able to respond via email would be beneficial."
"The technical support could be better. We suffer from language barriers, as we are in Argentina."
"Currently, there are many instances where I see empty logs, indicating that, while tasks are scheduled, commands are not executing successfully."
"I find that most important features are strong, however, there is a lack of good development for artificial intelligence, such as machine learning."
"The documentation is not that great."
"The current user interface of Tidal Software is functional. However, it can be improved to make it more intuitive and user-friendly."
"Understanding and using Tidal Automation could be overwhelming for someone with minimal programming language."
"For the most part, the drill-down and the logging are really good. But if we take an Informatica job, for example: We have the ability, and the operators have the ability, to actually drill down and see, at a session level, where the failure is. There is, unfortunately, no way to extract that into an actual output email or failure email. It's not that that information is not available, but extracting it into an email would be a nice-to-have."
"Setting up the initial product was a little hard."
"One thing I would like to see improved is that, currently, when an action is executed and finishes in Tidal, it's marked as either "success" or "failure." I would like more options that would flag a job according to multiple options, rather than just "good" or bad"... Tidal has told us that it's possible to do so through the product or with a workaround."
"One of the weaknesses of the product is, when something happens, it's difficult to find out the root cause. There are a lot of logs you can take a look at in Tidal. Sometimes, they are useful, but other times, they're not. That is mostly relegated to the administrative team. Users for the most part don't see that and don't know anything about that. They just know they have a problem, then it's up to the administrative team to see what happened and figure out the problem."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It comes with a package that costs approximately $20,000 USD per year."
"I like the way this solution is priced because you can buy a license, or you can buy the software outright."
"Compared to other products, the pricing model for this solution is much more convenient, flexible, and adaptable to the Portuguese reality."
"While solutions like UiPath and Blue Prism cost around $11,000-$12,000 for each license, this product costs around $7,000 and you can keep it forever."
"Once you buy the software, you just pay for the support for backend help."
"It has gone up in price. The price of Fortra's Automate has increased since we first started using it. It does a lot but also costs a lot. It was a lot more affordable before Fortra owned the software."
"I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost."
"The pricing is quite reasonable. We can run the process with one bot. The limitation is at the server level because they have some resources, and sometimes that is enough. It isn't too expensive, so you can get a good return off of one, and you can also have a pack of five bots that is quite competitive."
"The price is reasonable in terms of the product’s functionality."
"We pay maintenance annually through Blue House of about $9,000. That's for our two environments: production and test."
"We think the pricing is very fair. We have been happy with the pricing compared to some of the other solutions in the space."
"...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."
"This solution is a bit expensive in the current world where everybody is trying to cut down on certain things."
"We've been able to purchase more adapters because the cost of the product has been very reasonable."
"The new prices that we've received seem reasonable and comparable to the marketplace."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
6%
Performing Arts
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Performing Arts
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise38
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for HelpSystems AutoMate?
I use Fortra's Automate for IT operations as an automated repetitive workflow task, handling tasks like file transfer, job scheduling, SAP data pools, and system notifications.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?
I am somewhat aware of Fortra's Automate's pricing, and I can say it is budget-friendly—not too cheap or too high. The pricing is on point.
What needs improvement with Fortra Automate?
Fortra's Automate is good overall, but the advanced logic is somewhat challenging. Some of the more complex branching and error handling require digging into documentation or trial and error before...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate
Tidal Workload Automation, Cisco Workload Automation, Tidal Enterprise Scheduler
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aldergrove Financial Group, Preferred Health Professionals, Mindbeam Technologies, First Credit Union in British Columbia, Vestcom International, Prime Liberty Benefits, University of Tampa, CNLBancshares, World Precision Instruments, BJ's Restaurants, Globe Pequot Press, Accudata Technologies, Norton Healthcare, Pacific Toxicology Laboratories
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