HCL Workload Automation vs Tidal by Redwood comparison

HCLSoftware and Tidal Software by Redwood are both solutions in the Workload Automation category. HCLSoftware is ranked #21, while Tidal Software by Redwood is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.5. HCLSoftware holds a 2.2% mindshare in WA, compared to Tidal Software by Redwood’s 4.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of HCLSoftware users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Tidal Software by Redwood users who would recommend it.

HCL Workload Automation

Read 1 HCL Workload Automation review

831 Views
831 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Tidal by Redwood

Read 37 Tidal by Redwood reviews

2,191 Views
2,169 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

HCL Workload Automation

Tidal by Redwood

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

Tidal by Redwood and HCL Workload Automation are competing in the automation solutions category. Tidal by Redwood is preferred for pricing and support, while HCL Workload Automation is favored for its extensive features that justify its cost.

Features: Tidal by Redwood strengths include job scheduling, real-time analytics, and integration capabilities. HCL Workload Automation is strong in orchestration capabilities, cross-platform support, and comprehensive reporting tools, providing a wider range of functionalities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Tidal by Redwood offers a straightforward cloud-based deployment model with accessible support. HCL Workload Automation has traditionally been more complex to deploy but is improving with enhancements and offers strong support options.

Pricing and ROI: Tidal by Redwood is competitively priced, ensuring high ROI through efficient deployment and operational savings. HCL Workload Automation has a higher initial setup cost, yet delivers substantial ROI through its features and long-term operational efficiencies, offsetting the initial investment with performance improvements over time.

To learn more, read our detailed Workload Automation Report (Updated: October 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Workload Automation

October 2025

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Helped 869,785 peers since 2012

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

HCL Workload Automation

Ranking in Workload Automation

21st

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Tidal by Redwood

Ranking in Workload Automation

13th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of HCL Workload Automation is 2.2%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tidal by Redwood is 4.7%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Tidal by Redwood	4.7%
HCL Workload Automation	2.2%
Other	93.1%

Workload Automation

Featured Reviews

reviewer1418508

Subject Matter Expert at DXC Technology

Easy to set up, good support, and helps to decrease project costs

With the mainframe environment that we have, it is more similar to the HCL migration, or the workload scheduler. We also like the CWHC utilities; they are more current and under the umbrella of HCL. It reduces project risks. Easy to set up, it doesn't require a lot. You can start working immediately. Migration is increased while it decreases the cost of the project.

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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

"Easy to set up, it doesn't require a lot."

"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."

"It has been super stable. There are no complaints on stability. We would not be using it if Tidal wasn't stable."

"Tidal Automation allows organizations to automate complex workflows and processes, reducing the need for manual intervention and improving operational efficiency."

"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 helps administrators and users to see the information that is relevant to them in that single pane of glass. They can see jobs running, they can see job history, and they can see job progression. If you look at alternatives like Airflow and clouds, you'd have to design your own UI to monitor the progress of the different jobs that you've created in Airflow. So Tidal is huge for us."

"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 is very efficient and can quickly automate most manual and repetitive tasks."

More Tidal by Redwood pros

Cons

"The interface needs some improvements."

"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."

"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."

"Understanding and using Tidal Automation could be overwhelming for someone with minimal programming language."

"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 job failure alerts can be updated with more details for better troubleshooting."

"Setting up the initial product was a little hard."

"Initially, it is complicated to understand the functionalities as there is limited product documentation."

"I would like more involvement with the cloud."

More Tidal by Redwood cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

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

"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."

"...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 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."

"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 has no hidden costs. It helps me to plan forward into the future. I know that I can add another 100 or a thousand jobs, and that's how much it will cost me today."

"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."

"There are project, system, and server costs. Some of the things that they are doing is introducing new products. They are introducing what they call their Repository, which is a way for you to move a job. That doesn't cost anything to us, because it is reusing a tool called Transporter. The repository is the successor to Transporter, so we already own it and are sort of grandfathered in. But that new product requires a server and database, so now we have to go out and get a server and database. So, there is a cost there."

More Tidal by Redwood pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Insurance Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Tidal Automation?

Tidal Automation by Redwood is a user-friendly solution.

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

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

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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...

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Comparisons

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MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs Tidal by Redwood

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Control-M vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 16% of the time

Automic Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 10% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 8% of the time

AWS Step Functions vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Workload Automation

October 2025

Download HCL Workload Automation product report

Buyer's Guide

Tidal by Redwood

September 2025

Download Tidal by Redwood product report

Also Known As

No data available

Tidal Workload Automation, Cisco Workload Automation, Tidal Enterprise Scheduler

Overview

HCL Workload Automation orchestrates complex processes, streamlining tasks across systems, improving efficiency for demanding environments.

Designed for robust workload automation, HCL Workload Automation integrates seamlessly into existing infrastructures, enabling precise control and management of workflows. Its scalability and adaptability suit enterprises seeking operational excellence, aligning processes with strategic goals. Users experience enhanced productivity through efficient job scheduling and workload execution, catering to enterprise demands.

What are the most important features?

Integrated Control: Provides a centralized platform to manage jobs across diverse platforms.
Dynamic Workload Management: Adjusts to fluctuating workloads with dynamic resources.
Cloud Capability: Extends automation capabilities to cloud environments, enhancing scalability.
Script Customization: Offers scripting flexibility for tailored job executions.
Predictive Analytics: Utilizes predictive tools to anticipate workload needs and optimize resources.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in reviews?

Increased Efficiency: Streamlines task execution, saving time and resources.
Cost Reduction: Reduces operational costs by automating repetitive tasks.
Scalability: Supports growth without significant infrastructure changes.
Enhanced Reliability: Minimizes errors through automated job scheduling.
Improved Strategic Alignment: Aligns IT processes with business objectives.

In healthcare, HCL Workload Automation efficiently manages patient data by integrating disparate systems, essential for timely treatment. In finance, it automates transaction processes securely, ensuring compliance with industry standards. In manufacturing, it optimizes supply chain operations by automating inventory management and production scheduling.

HCLSoftware

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

Find out what your peers are saying about BMC, Broadcom, JAMS Software and others in Workload Automation. Updated: October 2025.

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