ActiveBatch by Redwood vs Aspera Managed File Transfer comparison

ActiveBatch by Redwood and IBM are both solutions in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category. ActiveBatch by Redwood is ranked #10 with an average rating of 9.4, while IBM is ranked #12 with an average rating of 9.0. ActiveBatch by Redwood holds a 2.1% mindshare in MFT, compared to IBM’s 3.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of ActiveBatch by Redwood users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of IBM users who would recommend it.

ActiveBatch by Redwood

Read 35 ActiveBatch by Redwood reviews

2,093 Views
691 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Aspera Managed File Transfer

Read 4 Aspera Managed File Transfer reviews

791 Views
767 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

ActiveBatch by Redwood

Aspera Managed File Transfer

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Aspera Managed File Transfer and ActiveBatch by Redwood compete in the data management solutions category. Aspera stands out with superior data transfer speed, while ActiveBatch offers comprehensive workflow automation.

Features: Aspera is known for its high-speed data transfer, security protocols, and scalability. It provides a secure infrastructure for rapid file exchanges. ActiveBatch offers workflow automation, integration capabilities, and process optimization, serving as a versatile tool for automating business processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Aspera Managed File Transfer features easy implementation but requires technical know-how for complex setups, supported by accessible customer service. ActiveBatch provides flexible deployment with a supportive network, aiding intricate automation setups with comprehensive support.

Pricing and ROI: Aspera presents a competitive pricing model with ROI through reduced transfer times and operational costs. ActiveBatch involves a higher initial investment with ROI gained through resource optimization and improved process efficiency. The contrast lies in Aspera’s cost-effectiveness for data tasks versus ActiveBatch’s justified higher costs for extensive automation.

To learn more, read our detailed ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. Aspera Managed File Transfer Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. Aspera Managed File Transfer

July 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

ActiveBatch by Redwood

Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)

10th

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Process Automation (9th), Workload Automation (9th)

Aspera Managed File Transfer

Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)

12th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category, the mindshare of ActiveBatch by Redwood is 2.1%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Aspera Managed File Transfer is 3.1%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Managed File Transfer (MFT)

Featured Reviews

Shubham Bharti

Senior Analyst at Capgemini

Flexible, easy to use, and offers good automation

Occasionally, I find myself contemplating if there is room for improvement in the user interface (UI), and envisioning that with certain enhancements. The UI could potentially offer a more refined and user-friendly experience, fostering smoother interactions and facilitating easier navigation for users engaging with the application. New users might encounter a minor setback due to the absence of readily accessible training videos, which could have otherwise proven to be an invaluable resource in aiding their initial familiarization with the platform, potentially hindering their seamless onboarding process and delaying their ability to harness the software's full range of capabilities to its utmost potential.

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Michele Illiano

Head of Division at Innovery

Beneficial quick protocol, powerful, but limited use cases

Aspera Managed File Transfer should be packaged into another solution. Explaining to customers you need to have multiple solutions from multiple vendors for their use cases can get complicated for them to understand. The best way to propose a suite is to have an integrated suite where the customer could choose to license part of it. This solution could be one solution not two choices between 10 or 12 different solutions. The main feature of Aspera Managed File Transfer is the communication protocol, which is fast. There are a lot of different clients that are offering features related to these fast protocols. It's possible to create one unique suite that can handle this base protocol. It will be quite easy to propose to the customers.

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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

"One of the most valuable features is the job templates. If we need to create an FTP job, we just drag over the FTP template and fill out the requirements using the variables that ActiveBatch uses. And that makes it reusable. We can create a job once but use it for many different clients."

"The user interface is really incredible."

"We leverage the solution's native integrations regularly. We have to get files from a remote server outside the organization, and even send things outside the organization. We use a lot of its file manipulation and SFTP functionality for contacting remote servers."

"The nice thing about ActiveBatch is once we have created a specific job that can be easily be replicated to another job, then minimal changes will have to be made. This makes things nice. Reduction of coding is substantial in a lot of cases. The replication of one job to another is just doing a few minor tweaks and rolling it into production. This decreases our development costs substantially."

"Easy to configure and simple to develop new features."

"Approximately ~20 hours of manual effort have been reduced to ~5 hours with the help of ActiveBatch."

"Since we are no longer waiting for an operator to see that a job is finished, we have changed our daily cycle from running in eight hours down to about five. We had a third shift-operator retire and that position was never refilled."

"It is very useful in sending confidential files through FPP servers."

More ActiveBatch by Redwood pros

"Aspera Managed File Transfer is an optimal solution for customers who want to transfer large files to remote sites with lower bandwidth and in less time."

"Good user interface and ability to set up multiple file transfer jobs."

"We were able to effectively nullify the China firewall since the China firewall was disrupting our data transfer."

"The main feature of Aspera Managed File Transfer is that it's an incredibly fast protocol, you can use all the bandwidth available. If I need to send large amounts of data this is the fastest protocol on the market. I have been using it for some minor projects and it is very powerful."

"We were able to effectively nullify the China firewall since the China firewall was disrupting our data transfer."

Cons

"They should offer pricing that is more affordable."

"ActiveBatch UI could use a little more help, and video tutorials would be greatly appreciated for user guides."

"The monitoring dashboard could have been more user-friendly so that in the monitoring dashboard itself we can see the total number of jobs created in the system and how many were currently active/scheduled/chained."

"There are very few documents that provide us with detailed information on the troubleshooting of errors that occur during integration with the existing environment."

"The user interface can be improved so that it is more appealing and accessible to new users."

"I have faced struggles to understand, set up the tool, and implement it in my early days as a new user."

"The product should be improved by providing a customization option."

"I can't get the cleaning up of logs to work consistently. Right now, we are not setup correctly, and maybe it is something that I have not effectively communicated to them."

More ActiveBatch by Redwood cons

"Deployment is complex and it was difficult to get support."

"If you want to do a file transfer between two countries, and one is not China, then you have other more affordable options."

"The solution's pricing is high and should be reduced."

"Aspera Managed File Transfer should be packaged into another solution. Explaining to customers you need to have multiple solutions from multiple vendors for their use cases can get complicated for them to understand."

"If there is any failure in the data transfer and it can automatically detect and reinitiate it, that would be great."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price was fairly in line with other automation tools. I don't think it's exorbitantly expensive, relatively speaking."

"The pricing was fair. There are additional costs for the plugins. We have the standard licensing fees for different pieces, then we have the plugins which were add-ons. However, we expected that."

"If you compare ActiveBatch licensing to Control-M, you're looking at $50,000 as opposed to millions."

"ActiveBatch is currently redesigning themselves. In the past, they were a low cost solution for automation. They had a nice tool that was very inexpensive. With their five-year plan, they will be more enhancement-driven, so they're trying to improve their software, customer service, and the way that their customers get information from them. In doing that, they're raising the price of their base system. They changed from one pricing model to another, which has caused some friction between ActiveBatch and us. We're working through that right now with them. That's one of the reasons why we're why we were evaluating other software packages."

"I don't think we've ever had a problem with the pricing or licensing. Even the maintenance fees are very much in line. They are not excessive. I think for the support that you get, you get a good value for your money. It's the best value on the market."

"It allows for lower operational overhead."

"I like ActiveBatch Workload Automation's licensing model because they're not holding you down on an agentless model or agent model, where every server needs to have an agent. That's the main selling point of the solution and I hope they stay that way."

"Currently, we are paying approximately $7,000 yearly, which includes support."

"Aspera Managed File Transfer is not an inexpensive solution. I am not aware of many competitors to determine how affordable the price is overall."

"It was close to $10,000 to $20,000."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

21%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Insurance Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ActiveBatch Workload Automation?

Managing the workload and monitoring the tasks were very difficult with manual interventions. Now, by using ActiveBatch, the process is automated and it runs tasks on a scheduled basis.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ActiveBatch Workload Automation?

I'd advise users to start by knowing what the actual requirement is and thoroughly assess the automation needs. New users should take advantage of the demos and trial versions so they get an idea o...

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What needs improvement with ActiveBatch Workload Automation?

After upgrades we are facing a few issues and errors triggered, so focusing on this would be appreciated. Some of the advanced features in the user interface are a bit confusing even after referrin...

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What do you like most about Aspera Managed File Transfer?

Aspera Managed File Transfer is an optimal solution for customers who want to transfer large files to remote sites with lower bandwidth and in less time.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Aspera Managed File Transfer?

There are other products of Aspera which come as add-ons, however, we haven't purchased those, like report generation, since that was not our requirement. The features we needed were included in th...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Aspera Managed File Transfer?

We have an office in China, and we wanted to transfer data from China to the UK. We have an office in the UK as well.

See all answers

Comparisons

Control-M vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 17% of the time

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 14% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 10% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 9% of the time

Stonebranch vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 60% of the time

webMethods.io vs Aspera Managed File Transfer

Compared 13% of the time

Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct vs Aspera Managed File Transfer

Compared 12% of the time

Kiteworks vs Aspera Managed File Transfer

Compared 8% of the time

GoAnywhere MFT vs Aspera Managed File Transfer

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ActiveBatch by Redwood

August 2025

Download ActiveBatch by Redwood product report

Buyer's Guide

Managed File Transfer (MFT)

July 2025

Download Aspera Managed File Transfer product report

Also Known As

ActiveBatch

No data available

Overview

ActiveBatch by Redwood enhances efficiency with features like job scheduling, integration, and real-time monitoring. It supports diverse platforms, automates tasks, and offers a single-pane view with robust security.

ActiveBatch streamlines automation by offering drag-and-drop functionality, pre-built job steps, and native integrations. Its customizable workflows and alert system aid in managing complex workloads like data processing and server monitoring across hybrid environments. While it effectively reduces manual errors and enhances productivity, areas like navigation and support for cloud platforms need enhancement. New users may face challenges due to its complexity and steep learning curve, and further improvements in reporting, mobile access, and training could provide additional support to users.

What important features does ActiveBatch offer?

Comprehensive Job Scheduling: Manages and automates complex workloads efficiently.
Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly connects with different platforms and applications.
Real-time Monitoring: Offers a single-pane view for quick issue identification.
Customizable Workflows: Tailors processes to specific organizational tasks.
Robust Alert System: Ensures timely notifications for critical events.
Data Protection: Incorporates strong security measures for secure operations.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating ActiveBatch?

Enhanced Efficiency: Automates repetitive tasks, reducing manual intervention.
Improved Productivity: Streamlines processes across hybrid environments.
Error Reduction: Decreases likelihood of manual errors.
Platform Support: Provides integration with diverse systems.

In finance, ActiveBatch is implemented for orchestrating batch processes and data management. The healthcare industry utilizes it for automating patient data updates and server monitoring, while the retail sector benefits from file transfers and inventory management automation.

ActiveBatch by Redwood

IBM Aspera takes a different approach to tackling the challenges of big data movement over global WANs. Rather than optimize or accelerate data transfer, Aspera eliminates underlying bottlenecks by using its proprietary fasp technology that fully utilizes available network bandwidth to maximize speed and quickly scale up with no theoretical limit. Using fasp, transfers are secure end-to-end and are largely unaffected by file size, transfer distance, or network conditions, making transfer times up to 100Xs faster than TCP-based protocols.

IBM Aspera offers SaaS, on-prem, and hybrid solutions to meet the needs of modernizing infrastructures. All solutions offer robust security and compliance, intuitive file sharing, workflow automation, central administration, and real-time visibility. Quickly and easily initiate transfers across hybrid infrastructures, including support for cloud-to-cloud transfers. IBM Aspera offers unmatched transfer speeds, end-to-end security, reliability, and exceptional bandwidth control.

IBM

Sample Customers

Informatica, D&H, ACES, PrimeSource, Sub-Zero Group, SThree, Lamar Advertising, Subway, Xcel Energy, Ignite Technologies, Whataburger, Jyske Bank, Omaha Children's Hospital

Gwinnett County Public Schools, Evonik, Voith, BITMARCK, Oracle

Buyer's Guide

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. Aspera Managed File Transfer

July 2025

Free Report: ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. Aspera Managed File Transfer

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