GoAnywhere MFT vs IBM Sterling File Gateway comparison

Fortra and IBM are both solutions in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category. Fortra is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6, while IBM is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.1. Fortra holds a 9.9% mindshare in MFT, compared to IBM’s 6.9% mindshare. Additionally, 99% of Fortra users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of IBM users who would recommend it.

GoAnywhere MFT

Read 87 GoAnywhere MFT reviews

5,339 Views
5,019 Comparison Views

99% willing to recommend

IBM Sterling File Gateway

Read 19 IBM Sterling File Gateway reviews

2,772 Views
2,717 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

GoAnywhere MFT

IBM Sterling File Gateway

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 2026

IBM Sterling File Gateway and GoAnywhere MFT compete in the managed file transfer solutions category. GoAnywhere MFT appears to have the upper hand in terms of ease of integration and cost-effectiveness, potentially making it more appealing for small to mid-sized businesses.

Features: IBM Sterling boasts robust security measures, extensive protocol support, and middleware capabilities for B2B communication. It includes features like PGP encryption, a wide range of transfer protocols, and partner management. GoAnywhere MFT is recognized for advanced workflow features, strong encryption, and project-based workflow automation that simplifies complex processes. It offers an intuitive design and flexibility in connecting with other applications.

Room for Improvement: IBM Sterling is often considered complex to set up and requires significant expertise to manage effectively. Areas such as performance tuning and system scalability are marked for improvement. GoAnywhere MFT has a criticized initial learning curve and outdated visual design. Users suggest improvements in debugging tools, real-time monitoring, and a more intuitive setup for non-technical users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Sterling offers flexibility in deployment with options for on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments. Despite robust support, some users report slower response times requiring direct IBM intervention. GoAnywhere MFT is noted for straightforward deployment owing to its intuitive interface but could improve in customer support responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Sterling is described as expensive yet valuable for robust functionalities and secure features, with pricing influenced by hardware specifications. GoAnywhere MFT is acknowledged for affordability and flexibility, being praised for aligning well with the budgets of small to mid-sized businesses, ensuring a fair return on investment.

To learn more, read our detailed GoAnywhere MFT vs. IBM Sterling File Gateway Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

GoAnywhere MFT vs. IBM Sterling File Gateway

March 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:

ROI

Sentiment score

5.0

GoAnywhere MFT delivers quick ROI through increased productivity, cost savings, enhanced security, and operational efficiency with ease of use.

Sentiment score

6.6

IBM Sterling File Gateway is valued for cost-effectiveness, ease of use, robust support, and simplifies monitoring, enhancing retail processes.

GoAnywhere can perform the work of three people, leading to a decrease in manpower needs for automation and file transfer.

Chandan Yadav

Tech Consultant at BTPL

There is a drastic improvement in time; at least a 50% to 60% improvement in terms of effort.

AnandSingh2

IT Engineer at Cohesity

In terms of percentage, for the amount of volume we are doing with GoAnywhere MFT and its functionality, I would estimate it has provided about a 50% return in four years.

reviewer2726091

Manager Managed File Transfer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the GoAnywhere MFT report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Sterling File Gateway report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.3

GoAnywhere MFT is praised for knowledgeable service but faces delay issues with complex queries and first-level support.

Sentiment score

6.0

IBM Sterling File Gateway support is mixed; praised for availability but criticized for delays, inefficiencies, and outsourcing concerns.

It's not a situation where you raise a ticket and wait for 48 hours to get a response; it's immediate.

SusangRamesh

Product Marketing Manager at OJCommerce, LLC

They not only help you resolve issues but also ensure that you feel comfortable managing them in the future.

Junaid Shaik

Technology Lead at Infosys

We can also email them, so through live chat I asked my questions and they cleared them, providing good technical support.

Jayamahavarshini S

Software Engineer Intern at a university with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the GoAnywhere MFT report

Regarding the technical support of IBM Sterling File Gateway, I would rate their job about nine.

Devarshi Buch

CEO at Logic Systech Pvt Ltd

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Sterling File Gateway report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

6.7

GoAnywhere MFT efficiently scales for enterprises, providing seamless integration and performance for large workloads, despite minor connection concerns.

Sentiment score

6.4

IBM Sterling File Gateway is highly scalable with some complexity and effective for large transactions, but performance may drop.

The scalability is ten out of ten because it works effectively even with many users, large files, and a lot of data moving at once.

Virginia Kanyi

Customer Service Manager at techmastiff

I would rate the scalability of GoAnywhere MFT as a ten.

reviewer2726091

Manager Managed File Transfer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Stability is excellent, downtime is rare, and even large files can be transferred completely without any problem.

Rohan Suryawanshi

Senior Software Engineer at Opcito Technologies

For more quotes and insights, download the GoAnywhere MFT report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Sterling File Gateway report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.0

GoAnywhere MFT offers strong stability and reliability, maintaining high performance with minimal downtime, despite occasional minor issues.

Sentiment score

6.2

IBM Sterling File Gateway is generally stable, with occasional bugs and issues, but cloud migration has improved overall performance.

The stability of the application itself is excellent.

reviewer2747439

Observability & Monitoring Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Stability is excellent, downtime is rare, and even large files can be transferred completely without any problem.

Rohan Suryawanshi

Senior Software Engineer at Opcito Technologies

It works very well, especially when kept up to date.

Alexey Supryaga

System Administrator at a retailer with 501-1,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the GoAnywhere MFT report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Sterling File Gateway report

Room For Improvement

GoAnywhere MFT needs UI improvements, enhanced support, better configurations, cloud integration, improved logging, security, and a revised pricing model.

IBM Sterling File Gateway needs user management, interface, auto-deployment, performance, and licensing improvements for a better user experience.

That's the only thing that could help if the application could log what caused the error for us to prevent it.

Selvin Hernandez

Tech Support II at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

We had to reach out to GoAnywhere support, and they were quick to provide support within a day, so we were able to complete that use case.

AnandSingh2

IT Engineer at Cohesity

when the application runs on a server and encounters problems, it doesn't provide detailed information on the server issues, which could help users troubleshoot better.

Vidyasagar Gupta

File Transfer Analyst at IG Group

For more quotes and insights, download the GoAnywhere MFT report

When there is an audit requiring proof that a file has gone in a secure way, most customers have not been able to prove it.

Devarshi Buch

CEO at Logic Systech Pvt Ltd

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Sterling File Gateway report

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers find GoAnywhere MFT's pricing reasonable, valuing its diverse features, flexible licensing, and competitive pricing against competitors.

IBM Sterling File Gateway is costly but valued for secure transfers, cloud compatibility, and appealing to corporate organizations.

Azure is significantly more expensive.

Dan McGuire

Enterprise Application Analyst at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

There are approximately 30% to 40% savings.

AnandSingh2

IT Engineer at Cohesity

It is cost-efficient.

Ramanuj Ghosh

Software Engineering Manager at State Street

For more quotes and insights, download the GoAnywhere MFT report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Sterling File Gateway report

Valuable Features

GoAnywhere MFT offers secure, scalable data transfer with automation, cloud integration, and compliance features for efficient file management.

IBM Sterling File Gateway offers secure, automated file transfers with high configurability, supporting large data volumes and multiple protocols.

It provides multiple cipher options for HTTPS and SFTP protocols, utilizing AES-based algorithms for secure communication and data transfer.

Chandan Yadav

Tech Consultant at BTPL

I can produce reports for security and have full control over secure protocols allowed on the system, making it easy to comply with security standards such as Sarbanes-Oxley.

Dan McGuire

Enterprise Application Analyst at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Before, we had to write scripts and manually update them to move data around, encrypt files, or rename files. Now we just use the GUI to set the modules for transfers, encryption, renaming, and copying, allowing us to set it and schedule it to run without any user interaction.

Selvin Hernandez

Tech Support II at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the GoAnywhere MFT report

The software has automation that at a fixed point in time triggers the copying of file A to B.

Devarshi Buch

CEO at Logic Systech Pvt Ltd

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Sterling File Gateway report

Categories and Ranking

GoAnywhere MFT

Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)

1st

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM Sterling File Gateway

Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)

3rd

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category, the mindshare of GoAnywhere MFT is 9.9%, up from 8.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Sterling File Gateway is 6.9%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Managed File Transfer (MFT) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
GoAnywhere MFT	9.9%
IBM Sterling File Gateway	6.9%
Other	83.2%

Managed File Transfer (MFT)

Featured Reviews

Anuj Bhagwat

Dev Ops Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Has enabled secure, centralized file sharing while saving significant time and resources

The best features in GoAnywhere MFT are that it's fast, reliable, and secure. First, the improvement is that we have resolved one of our security points with compliance. So that compliance point we resolved. And also it's a centralized file sharing system. All the users are able to access the file. There is no one-to-one sharing. It's improved about 80 to 85%. It saves about 80 to 90% resources. In terms of time, we can say 90 to 95% time is also saved because it avoids the one-to-one sharing and simply a user can put one centralized directory and all the users are able to access this solution and access the file. So it's 95%.

Read full review

Devarshi Buch

CEO at Logic Systech Pvt Ltd

Has supported consistent deployments and automation but needs better reporting and tracking

The disadvantages I see in IBM Sterling File Gateway include price and reporting. Reporting is not very easy. If 10 people are putting file transfer using this protocol, determining who did what file transfer, how long it took, what encryption was done, and whether it was accessed by somebody or whether it was fully done without any retrial is difficult. Reporting is a big problem in IBM tool, according to our customers' complaints. When there is an audit requiring proof that a file has gone in a secure way, most customers have not been able to prove it. Additionally, when there is a large file transfer which has to be done in multiple pieces because of bandwidth restriction, they have not been able to do splitting. The splitting was not possible during file transfer. Many customers have asked if they can split the file and then send it, or pick and choose and send it from a large file. It was also found that it was hogging the bandwidth whenever it was doing file transfer. Ultimately, we ended up selling HP also. The tracking and monitoring features of IBM Sterling File Gateway present some challenges, particularly with tracking, monitoring and compliance issues which RBI is asking for. While it was possible to address these issues, it required an expert to figure it out. When expertise business activity is required, it costs money to customers who are not willing to pay. Regarding future features to make it more competitive, automation email could be one feature I recommend where once the file transfer is done, an email or log should be created for the admin person confirming successful completion. Second is 24/7 support in case of any issues. IBM has never been able to give round-the-clock support whereas customers can ship files even at midnight. Our support is also based on support from IBM. The third improvement area could be automation release notes. IBM has never given us or customers notifications when a new release or patch has come. Whenever a patch is released, an email should go to the buyer or user and to the reseller so they can sync up whether to upgrade the patch or not.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

31%

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	62
Midsize Enterprise	21
Large Enterprise	43

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	12

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT?

GoDrive eliminates the need to use the exchange server for file sharing.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT?

GoAnywhere MFT pricing is fine for me. I do not have any complaints regarding the pricing because SFTP is the most valuable asset in the organization.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT?

I believe that GoAnywhere MFT can be improved because the initial setup is somewhat challenging for a new user, so they need to make the initial feature easier for everyone, whether new or experien...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Sterling File Gateway?

The cost-effectiveness of IBM Sterling File Gateway was a major factor in our decision to use it, in comparison to the higher costs associated with DataPower.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Sterling File Gateway?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Sterling File Gateway?

I have been dealing with IBM Sterling File Gateway for some time, and we have sold to about six customers across India with the help of IBM. One large bank which we have sold this solution to is SB...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

Kiteworks vs GoAnywhere MFT

Compared 6% of the time

Axway AMPLIFY Managed File Transfer vs GoAnywhere MFT

Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct vs IBM Sterling File Gateway

Compared 9% of the time

Axway AMPLIFY Managed File Transfer vs IBM Sterling File Gateway

Compared 9% of the time

TIBCO Managed File Transfer vs IBM Sterling File Gateway

Compared 7% of the time

Aspera Managed File Transfer vs IBM Sterling File Gateway

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

GoAnywhere MFT

March 2026

Download GoAnywhere MFT product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Sterling File Gateway

March 2026

Download IBM Sterling File Gateway product report

Also Known As

HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT, GoAnywhere MFT, GoAnywhere Managed File Transfer,

No data available

Overview

GoAnywhere MFT offers an intuitive interface with advanced workflows, robust security, and seamless integration across platforms. It automates file transfers, supports multiple protocols, and ensures strong encryption and centralized management for secure and efficient data exchange.

GoAnywhere MFT provides automation for secure file transfers using SFTP, FTPS, and HTTPS protocols. It supports comprehensive logging, auditing, and threat protection. The platform's encryption and scalability enhance data exchange and operational efficiency in sectors like finance and healthcare. Users appreciate its integration capabilities with AWS, Azure, and Salesforce, reducing manual tasks and maintaining security with robust encryption through connectors.

What are GoAnywhere MFT's most important features?

Intuitive Interface: Easy navigation, facilitating better user experience
Advanced Workflows: Streamlines processes to save time
Robust Security: Strong encryption and threat protection
Seamless Integration: Connects with platforms like AWS, Azure, and Salesforce
Automation Capabilities: Reduces manual tasks, improving efficiency
Multiple Protocol Support: Utilizes SFTP, HTTPS, and FTPS for secure transfers

What benefits should users expect in reviews?

Enhanced Efficiency: Automation reduces manual processes
Data Security: Features strong encryption and comprehensive threat protection
Scalability: Supports large data volumes efficiently
Compliance Support: Meets industry-specific data regulations

GoAnywhere MFT is widely implemented in industries like finance and healthcare for secure data transfers and workflow management. It simplifies internal processes and enhances communication between systems, integrating seamlessly with platforms such as AWS and Salesforce, thus ensuring speed and security.

Fortra

Securely manage transfer files with authentication, encryption and audit trails while you retain administrative control of data using a library of templates.

Sterling File Gateway can help you increase secure and dependable file transfer with your trading partners. It consolidates disparate centers of file transfer activity and facilitates the security-rich exchange of file-based data over the Internet. It helps companies avoid the risk and operational issues that can result from using loosely controlled file-transfer servers.

IBM

Sample Customers

McKesson City of Modesto, California Kwik Trip Northwestern University Charter Communications

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

GoAnywhere MFT vs. IBM Sterling File Gateway

March 2026

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