GoAnywhere MFT Reviews

We use GoAnywhere MFT for file transfers and loading other files on our FTP.

What I appreciate most about GoAnywhere MFT is the threat protection feature, whereby before transferring files anywhere, I am able to first make the file analysis and confirm there are no threats or malware in the files. Before allowing files to be transferred elsewhere, the threat protection helps us prevent data loss because it has highly graded encryption which helps keep our data safe.

I also appreciate the cloud connectors. GoAnywhere MFT is able to connect with different applications. For example, it can connect with Microsoft SharePoint and Dropbox.

The implementation process needs improvement. When I wanted to implement GoAnywhere MFT and requested trials, I had to wait for a period of a day without reply, until I requested the demo. They should improve their customer support service so when someone wants to register or purchase this product, they should be faster.

They should make sure that the start trial part is accessible to everyone when someone wants to get that trial. If they want people to first communicate with customer support, they need to ensure their support team is available 24 hours.

I have been using GoAnywhere MFT for one year.

Deployment of GoAnywhere MFT was very challenging because the trial request process and response time caused delays. If they had replied in time, the deployment would not have been delayed.

GoAnywhere MFT has never crashed, but sometimes it becomes slow.

The scalability of GoAnywhere MFT is fine.

The support for GoAnywhere MFT becomes excellent when you become a customer. The support is impressive and they handle issues in a timely manner. However, when requesting to become a customer, that is where support issues arise. When you are an established customer, their support is good.

On a scale from 1 to 10, I would give GoAnywhere MFT support seven.

Positive

Before using GoAnywhere MFT, we were using Google Drive. We were using Google Workspace which has a sub-feature called Fogo (F-O-L-G).

We took a period of two weeks to fully deploy GoAnywhere MFT. We had to first gain access, then request a demo. After the demo, we had to negotiate pricing. From the pricing, we took the final steps.

One person can deploy GoAnywhere MFT.

The pricing of GoAnywhere MFT is friendly. It is friendly because payment is based on the number of users and the number of licenses purchased.

I started seeing the benefits of GoAnywhere MFT one week after implementation.

The user interface of GoAnywhere MFT is free and friendly, as everything on the user interface can be managed without assistance.

I rate GoAnywhere MFT eight out of ten overall.

We are using it for all our file-transferring needs. We mostly use it for confidential files and larger files. We want to securely send the files that are on the confidential side. We feel it is very secure for sending a file over.

By implementing this solution, we wanted to have a centralized place for all our file-transferring needs because previously, there were too many ways. It was done by email. It was done through FTP. Everyone was trying to find their own solution. This way, we could centralize it and make sure that everyone is using the same tool.

We use it with Office 365. We have a single sign-on, and we have implemented it with every deployment of a laptop.

It works seamlessly. There are no issues. It has been excellent. It is so easy. It is very user-friendly. There are never any issues. There is a lot of flexibility with it, and we are staying compliant, so it is very important.

It streamlines everything and keeps things centralized. There is also automated scheduling.

For us, cybersecurity is very important, and GoAnywhere MFT keeps us very secure. That is a very good benefit. We have a centralized place for file transfers. People do not think of other options, such as using Dropbox or sending files by email or FTP.

GoAnywhere has saved us time in connecting securely with the third parties we need to collaborate securely with. It is hard to say how much time it has saved, but we do not need to discuss how we are going to send a file securely. We used to waste a lot of time previously.

It streamlines the files. Anyone can go pick up the file that we give access to. It is great.

For what we are using it for, it is doing the job, so I would not be able to say how to improve it. For us, it is perfect. It is a good solution that we are using, and we are going to continue to do so. However, it should be advertised more as a solution. I did not see it out there beforehand.

We have been using GoAnywhere MFT for the past six months. They gave us a free trial, and we liked it, so we made the purchase.

It is very stable. We have not had any issues.

It is scalable. 

We have 25 users using this solution. It is one company. We are just 25 people. It is a small company.

We did not require any support. It is very simple. We are only using the file transfer, so it is very simple.

We were not using anything before. That is why it is such a great solution for us.

We have the cloud solution, The cloud provider is AWS.

I was involved in its deployment, and there were no problems. In terms of the implementation strategy, we just had a team meeting about it. I informed everyone and then implemented the credentials.

It does not require any maintenance.

I did not need any external help.

The best benefit is time and security.

I find it to be very fair. It is very good.

We did not evaluate other options. I trust Fortra, and I use them for other solutions. That is why I went to them with a scenario, and they got back to us about using this system.

I would highly recommend this solution. I am a big believer that you get what you pay for.

We do not use GoAnywhere's Secure Forms. We are using this solution for simple file transfers. We are not getting too complex with it. We also do not make use of the GoAnywhere agents or the GoFast feature.

I would definitely rate Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT a ten out of ten.

We use Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT solution to achieve file standardization through automated workflows. In this process, when a file is sent, it's first routed to an ICAP server. Think of a file transfer as simply moving a file from one location to another. However, in this case, instead of transferring the file directly, we connect it to the ICAP server first. This intermediary step allows the file to be scanned and sanitized before it's delivered to its final destination.

We implemented Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT to securely transfer and share files, as well as automate file transfers and processes.

GoAnywhere has significantly improved our data exchange security. It's now faster, easier to use, and more convenient than before. It has improved automation, visibility, and security.

GoAnywhere offers good visibility through its file transfer logs. This allows me to track changes within my organization, including who made them, what changes were made, and when they occurred.

GoAnywhere's automation feature has streamlined our workflows by eliminating the need for extensive coding, programming, or scripting knowledge. Its user-friendly interface allows us to create workflows simply by dragging and dropping components. Additionally, GoAnywhere offers a library of pre-defined workflows readily available for use. These pre-built workflows can be easily integrated into our workspace with a single click. While some workflows may require minor adjustments, such as specifying a CTPS certificate, link, or IP address, GoAnywhere significantly reduces the need for manual configuration.

GoAnywhere integrates with our existing IT infrastructure and systems. It also offers a feature that allows for integration with Outlook. This integration enables us to send files securely via email through a link. However, using the standard email attachment method does not provide any file protection. The Outlook plugin streamlines this process. Once installed, it provides an option within our Outlook interface to connect and send files directly from our mailbox. This eliminates the need to access the GoAnywhere platform separately, generate a link, and then send it – saving us valuable time and steps.

The training and portal videos familiarized me with the benefits of GoAnywhere. I believe someone new to the platform could grasp most of these benefits within a week or two, though not all of them in such a short timeframe.

The most valuable feature, GoDrive, requires an additional license. It functions similarly to Dropbox, providing a central location where all users can easily upload files. Once uploaded, the files are continuously monitored, encrypted, and inaccessible to unauthorized users. Additionally, GoDrive offers image-sharing capabilities. For instance, if we want to send a file to someone via email, we can enter their email address. Instead of sending the file through the exchange server, GoDrive generates a link. This link, when sent to the recipient, allows them to access the file with a single click. The link can be set to expire after a specific number of downloads or uploads, and we can even add a password for further security. In essence, GoDrive eliminates the need to use the exchange server for file sharing.

Fortra needs to offer more use cases for GoAnywhere MFT during training.

I have been using Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT for 2 months.

GoAnywhere MFT is stable.

GoAnywhere MFT is scalable. They have a 99 percent retention rate.

The technical support is good. Their development team releases new versions 4 times a year.

Positive

I deployed GoAnywhere myself and found it to be easy to install. It's the simplest product I've installed so far. The process takes less than 15 minutes. All you need is the installation file. You download it, and there are almost no prerequisites for running the software.

GoAnywhere uses a web-based console for management. You'll get an HTTPS link with an IP address to access it. You can then log in to your web console to manage GoAnywhere. Even deploying it on multiple machines is straightforward; there's an agent that simplifies the process.

GoAnywhere MFT delivers a positive return on investment, as evidenced by our extensive customer base.

I would rate Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT 8 out of 10.

GoAnywhere allows us to encrypt our data using either TGP or AES encryption.

Depending on the use case, one or two people are required to maintain GoAnywhere.

We offer GoAnywhere to a wide range of clients, from small IT shops to large banks with thousands of employees.

I recommend reading about all the additional features, such as GoDrive. You should also be aware that GoAnywhere is highly scalable.

Batch jobs are defined in GoAnywhere, which interacts with multiple agencies across public safety applications. The files are transferred securely from an IBM  middleware environment like WebSphere Application Server to GoAnywhere. From there, they go to the vendors or the file consumers.

We are not dependent on any operating system. We've always worked with all flavors of OS, including AUX, Linux, and Windows. The product is multi-platform and we tend to use enterprise Linux OS, like Red Hat and OpenShift. 

GoAnywhere makes functions easier because we don't need to do all the scripting for managed file transfers. We can do transfers from a user-friendly UI. The solution also centralizes data exchanges, helping to facilitate file transfers between our critical systems. The workflow features enabled us to eliminate manual processes and unsecured file-transfer methods.

GoAnywhere helps the organization do jobs more efficiently. It saves time that the team can spend elsewhere. We can allocate resources to other activities or priority tasks. It also allows us to process much more data and documents.

The product can automate submissions of regulatory documentation, which is crucial for our end-users. We are responsible for setting up the infrastructure that other state agencies use. It's critical for us to transfer a variety of documents across the board.

Automated scripts running through GoAnywhere are essential because we work in public safety, which involves 24/7 transfers. Automation improved our efficiency many times over. 

It's difficult for me to quantify how much time we saved by automating scripts because this process has occurred over more than a decade. I'm certain that it saves lots of time, but I can't precisely say how much. 

GoAnywhere doesn't completely replace our other solutions. We can eliminate some custom scripts, but other agencies use different FTP solutions, such as IBM Sterling. 

It's easy to define the jobs in GoAnywhere's user interface. It's one of the easiest to use. It's comparable to other enterprise FTP products like IBM Sterling, but we find this a little more straightforward. The workflow is nicely defined, making the processes more accessible for beginners. It's critical that GoAnywhere enables us to limit access to sensitive data inside our network so that only verified users can access it.

We don't need to write custom programs or have any specialized programming knowledge. The ability to use GoAnywhere without custom scripts saves developers lots of time. We eliminated around 100 custom scripts.

The security could be upgraded to address novel cyberattacks. I'm not sure whether the product's security is being updated periodically. 

I took over the team responsible for GoAnywhere in the last two or three years. My team lead has managed the solution for the last 12 to 15 years. 

I rate GoAnywhere's support a nine out of ten. They're excellent. 

Positive

I rate GoAnywhere MFT a ten out of ten.

We use it for trading files with partners over the internet, partners with whom we don't have a VPN connection. And we use it for internal file movement and workflows.

We are using GoAnywhere for enterprise. We have two gateway nodes in both data centers.

From an automation standpoint, it helps us trade files over the internet with partners with whom we don't have a VPN connection. For the most part, GoAnywhere is used between us and partners that we trade files with. We consume those files with internal, backend processes and we use it for moving files within those backend processes, in the workflow. It has become very important to us over these four years. It's key in our workflow and our workload automation strategy.

The workflow features eliminate the need for custom programs and scripts for file transfers. We write a few Python scripts here and there when we need to get fancy, but we can generally wire things up in GoAnywhere pretty quickly. It saves a lot of time and resources, making that ability pretty critical. We did a migration from SSIS to Informatica over the last two years, and my team wired up about 275 jobs during that time. Without GoAnywhere, that would have been a much more painful file management process.

With just shy of 500 jobs running in GoAnywhere, a conservative number would be half of our scripts, about 250, have been eliminated by centralizing things in this solution. And the automation of file transfers has helped to reduce workload in our organization by 20 percent.

Another thing that has been really important, with the ability to set SLAs on file arrivals, is that we have fundamentally set implied SLAs with our partners. That means that where we didn't really have a written agreement for an SLA on a given file, if over the last year a partner has sent us that file within X amount of time, we set the SLA alert to an hour later. That has meant we've pushed implied SLAs onto our providers.

File monitors are one of the most valuable features. We have about 400 file monitors running in GoAnywhere. They monitor the NAS locations where files arrive, and they kick off workflows. When a file arrives, GoAnywhere will identify that the file is there, move it to a consumption zone, then reach out to our enterprise scheduler through a REST API call.

The solution helps centralize the exchange of data between systems, employees, customers, and trading partners. It's very central and that's pretty important. We generally move about 3,000 files a day, between our partners and internal workflows.

My team really likes the intuitiveness of GoAnywhere's user interface. For example, my automation team has a file coming in from a bank, a file that needs to be unzipped, reformatted, re-zipped up, and then put into another folder where another team is going to consume it. Because of all the progressive elaboration—the project started a year ago—the format of the file is not the same. We addressed it with GoAnywhere instead of having the producer of the file change the format. That's how flexible it is for us.

And looking at the comprehensiveness of GoAnywhere's workflow features, we use it pretty extensively for working with files. Stonebranch is our enterprise automation platform, but we don't really do any file work with Stonebranch. We chose to use GoAnywhere, our MFT tool, to move and manipulate files.

The solution also connects to popular ICAP servers and that's pretty important to our security guys when it comes to preventing malware and other malicious content from entering our organization. The connection to popular ICAP servers, so that content is inspected for sensitive information like credit cards, is pretty important. We're a financial institution and a lot of the data we work with has PAN data and card numbers in it, coming in from partners.

There's one persnickety issue about NAS permissions. That is a problem we have run into with GoAnywhere. I would like to see more focus on compatibility with/enforcement of user roles and access permissions across NAS, among other things. We have filed a couple of tickets on that in the past.

We've been on HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT for about four years.

It's rock-solid. I can't remember the last time we had a GoAnywhere outage.

It's well-architected. With the frontend gateway servers and the backend servers, you can scale to meet your needs. We're not anywhere near having to address that point, but if we got to a point where we needed to scale, we could just put another gateway server and another application server in play, and that would be able to take on more traffic. It's easily scalable.

The help has always been great. Anytime we have had an issue, the response has been good and they've been on top of it. We're pretty happy with the support.

Positive

We were a Cisco Tidal house before we went to Stonebranch and GoAnywhere. We made the decision to put GoAnywhere in when we bought the new automation platform, instead of going with Stonebranch's file movement platform. We went with GoAnywhere because it met more of our needs, especially when it comes to trading files with partners over the internet. That really wasn't the focus of Stonebranch, which was really just for the workflows.

The initial setup was a piece of cake. And upgrading the platform and dropping the .jar files has been really painless as well. By comparison, my IBM upgrades take four hours.

The return on investment was in the initial purchase, as it was 30 percent less than the other product we looked at.

The ease of use and learnability of the interface also help. It took my guys no time to learn the interface and the product, and to start turning out value, working with it in workflows. The learning curve was short. It didn't take a lot of training. The time to value was great, and that is great ROI.

GoAnywhere was the most attractively priced product that met our needs. In our PoC it really came down to MOVEit and GoAnywhere, and GoAnywhere's pricing was about 30 percent less.

GoFast is an additional license. We're not using it but we might. We're all going to be hybrid at some point in time and I'm getting my arms wrapped around it. Do I put a file replication solution in place that's bi-directional, like Peer? Or do I put GoAnywhere out in AWS with a high-speed adapter so that I can send files from on-prem to AWS where compute is happening for ETLs?

We have three MFT platforms in-house. One is IBM Sterling File Gateway and we use that to move about 15,000 files a day. But that's really B2C, with our 2,400 or credit unions. We move files from Fiserv and other vendors, and from PSU, to the institutions through IBM File Gateway.

Before going with GoAnywhere, we looked at Axway, Ipswitch, and MOVEit. We did a PoC with Ipswitch, MOVEit, and GoAnywhere, and went with GoAnywhere. The products did the same thing but GoAnywhere had a better interface than MOVEit, and the price was more attractive. I hear that Ipswitch was bought out and is called something else now.

Make sure you size it properly.

Also, in the grand scheme of things, what I've learned is that you don't have to be on an IBM platform or Ipswitch, or Axway—the big names, the competitors. One of the players in the industry that is a little smaller, like HelpSystems, has a product that gets the job done for less money. We're really not that big as far as revenue goes. We're less than a billion-dollar-a-year corporation, with 2,500 people. But we are a not-for-profit and we work with Fiserv so we have a lot of IBM footprint on the ground. That is not typical of a company that is doing less than a billion dollars a year. Traditionally, the mentality is to just use the big-name products, Big Blue and HPE, but that is just not necessary. That's one of the valuable things that I've learned. GoAnywhere gets the job done for a lot less money than the big traditionals.

Our users include three guys who are automation engineers and two guys who are MFT engineers. We also have a handful of folks, four or five, in the network operations center, who do ad hoc file-sends to credit unions.

Overall, it's a great product.

 I primarily use it for FTP purposes, sending files in and out within the corporation and through third-party vendors, both inbound and outbound.

It has been pretty seamless and straightforward for connectivity between my company and a third party. It is one of the easier aspects of using the product.

I could see its benefits after some time. That is because it was self-taught. I learned the functionality, the usability, and all the features as I went along by reading the help functions. There are probably still a lot of features that I have not yet used or know about.

The usability is valuable because I am self-taught and have not had any formal training in the product. The help feature is quite handy.

The biggest weakness I have seen in the product is scheduling. It is very limited in that aspect. It needs more flexibility and more ways to schedule. It is very strict with no customization options. The monitors are limited in how you can set them up.

Handling errors is challenging as errors are hard to understand. The help guide does not cover error messages well. It is Java-based, so it is hard to understand Java error messages.

I have been using it for about four or five years now.

I have not experienced any lagging or crashing. 

We have not used it to a high level of scalability. What we are running currently is what was installed by a previous manager, and it has been used for about six to seven years without issues.

They are very responsive and very knowledgeable. I would rate them a nine out of ten. Sometimes, they are hard to reach by phone. I get placed on hold for a long time, and I usually hang up and call later in the day or the following day. That is the only down thing I can think about in terms of support. They are hard to get hold of sometimes.

Positive

I have used FileZilla, which is freeware. We have also used WinSCP.

FileZilla is just a simple point-to-point file transfer, whereas GoAnywhere has way more features.

I did not install it in our environment. Another person who is not with the company anymore installed it. I came into play after it was fully installed and configured.

My initial onboarding was difficult for me because it required some level of programming which I am not savvy with. Initially, I reached out to tech support due to the cryptic errors that I was getting.

I do not use it on a daily basis or a full-time basis. It took about a year to be comfortable with it. I am still learning as I go along. There are still times when I wonder how to do something. I am still learning it, but it took me a good decent year to get acclimated to it.

In terms of maintenance, there is patching that comes out almost every month. It is pretty easy to download and apply the patch. It is pretty quick and painless.

I would rate GoAnywhere MFT an eight out of ten. I have not had any formal training on it. I would love that opportunity. Until then, it is self-learning.

We use GoAnywhere to filter files for our clients and set up SOP connections. Our clients are primarily large corporations, and we have around 10 specialists working with GoAnywhere. 

GoAnywhere has improved productivity through automation from the source to the destination. It has improved build time because the files are transferred to them immediately.

We use the agents for other branches of our client. It's crucial that the agents enable us to extend MFT automation to remote systems because the agent is like a mini-GoAnywhere. The solution has saved time connecting securely with third parties that we need to collaborate with, especially our clients. We're dealing with SaaS, so it helped us secure our files and the cloud files being tested. 

The best feature of GoAnywhere is that transfers are straightforward if there are no other requirements from the source and destination. It doesn't require much maintenance.

The reporting could be more customizable. 

I have used Fortra's GoAnywhere for two years.

I rate GoAnywhere 10 out of 10 for stability. 

GoAnywhere can scale up to the enterprise level. 

I rate Fortra support nine out of 10. I'm very satisfied with the customer support. They can accommodate us when we need their help. 

Positive

We had another product before we switched to Fortra. Their customer support couldn't answer our technician's questions fast enough, whereas Fortra gave us the answer we needed in a timely manner. 

I rate Fortra GoAnywhere 10 out of 10. I would recommend GoAnywhere, depending on a company's needs. It's appropriate for enterprises who want to securely transfer files from service to service. 

We are mostly using it for ETL-related workloads. In our organization we have a lot of different systems that need to talk to each other. Files have to be transferred from one system to another. We use GoAnywhere to automate the file transfer processes, whether it involves an SFTP system or a Windows network shared drive.

We also use it for data translation and data load, when we want to extract the data from a database system and create a CSV file and send it to a downstream system.

And we have recently started using Cloud Connectors for things like Microsoft Azure Data Lake and blob storage. Most organizations are moving to the cloud and we have a lot of cloud-related integrations now coming into the picture. GoAnywhere MFT helps to accomplish them.

With the automation you don't have to worry about doing anything manually. You create a workflow and schedule it. You have various options to schedule your workflow daily, or at a certain date and time, and a repeat frequency. If you have complex scheduling requirements, those can also be done. 

The very quick development time is another benefit.

The most valuable feature is the ability to call a workflow from another workflow. That really gives you an edge by increasing reusability and speeding up development time. You can create a workflow which is a type of template and then call that workflow from any other workflow. That's really helpful for us. It has sped up development time by 80 to 90 percent. All you have to do is pass the parameters from the caller and everything is done by your template.

And after using it for some time and you become very comfortable with the syntax, if you want to quickly develop something you can directly edit the XML. It creates XML for all the workflows and you can directly import and edit them. That also helps with the speed of the development.

The solution is very intuitive because all the help is built-in. When you go to Help there is a developer guide there. You can search any library or function. Also, the tooltips are helpful. You can click on any label and it shows a tooltip that describes what it does. It also provides integrated development, meaning all the development can be done in the GoAnywhere portal itself, from a browser. You don't need any additional tools or an IDE. It's very user-friendly and developer-friendly.

GoAnywhere also has a very good log through which you can track any issues. 

In addition, the workflow features are able to fulfill the requirements most of the time. Only certain, very rare scenarios are not covered. But GoAnywhere also provides a custom task feature. Apart from all the built-in tasks, if your workflow demands a special task, and you have the expertise, you can create a custom task. That's a good advantage.

They need to increase the number of Cloud Connectors and speed up their development of them.

Also, there are a number of built-in tasks in GoAnywhere. One, in particular, the write to CSV task, is slow. If you have, say, 100,000 records in your row set and you want to write them to a CSV file, it takes a long time. That definitely requires performance improvement.

I have been using HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT for more than eight years.

The solution is very stable. In all the time I've been using it, I haven't seen any deficiencies in terms of workflows or behaviors.

Any memory issues happen because of poor workflow design. Otherwise, It's very stable.

We have gone from 40 or 50 workflows to more than 600 workflows now. But we have only slightly increased the memory footprint of the server on which GoAnywhere is installed. We haven't seen any issues. The solution is scalable.

We have around 70 to 80 users of GoAnywhere and, at any point in time, some 10 to 20 active users. Among our 600-plus workflows, there are some running every hour or every minute or daily. On average, they transfer 100,000 files per day. 

We have four environments: dev, test, QA, and production. Dev/sandbox is a single environment, while Test, QA, and Production are clustered. We have two nodes for high-availability.

Within our company there is still a lot of demand for GoAnywhere. We are going to increase our use of it by 10 to 20 percent per year.

Their technical support is good. Responses are not really instantaneous, but they respond within their SLA. They could improve their response time.

Neutral

It's a great value in terms of our overall satisfaction. It helps automate all our processes and reduces development time, so we don't have to invest much in developing. We haven't really seen any issues using it in all this time, or challenges in terms of operations. Overall, it brings us great value.

Because every new development request requires a certain amount of effort, new development in GoAnywhere is really fast thanks to the template workflow and being able to call another workflow. It helps reduce development costs and that's a great value.

The licensing is very organization-friendly. It's a one-time license, not a monthly or recurring model. Compared to other tools it's less expensive.

If your overall requirements are related to ETL and sending files to different systems, and you want to automate these kinds of daily processes, then GoAnywhere would be the best fit. It's one of the best solutions. It's lightweight and doesn't need heavy servers or big hardware to run, and it's very scalable. All these features really add to the GoAnywhere solution.

Overall, the solution is a nine out of 10. The ease of use is definitely 9.5 and the performance is a nine. But in terms of catching up with all the new standards, it's a little behind it. On that, I would give it an eight. It doesn't have connectors to various new systems. For development, it's a 9.5.