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ActiveBatch by Redwood vs AutoSys Workload Automation comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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

JAMS Scheduler
Sponsored
Ranking in Workload Automation
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ActiveBatch by Redwood
Ranking in Workload Automation
9th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (13th), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (10th)
AutoSys Workload Automation
Ranking in Workload Automation
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of JAMS Scheduler is 3.6%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ActiveBatch by Redwood is 3.3%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AutoSys Workload Automation is 6.4%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
JAMS Scheduler3.6%
AutoSys Workload Automation6.4%
ActiveBatch by Redwood3.3%
Other86.7%
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

SP
Developer at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
Centralized scheduling has improved automation and reduces manual monitoring for complex workflows
The best features JAMS Scheduler offers are centralized job scheduling, dependency management, and monitoring. I also appreciate the alerts and retry options because they help us handle failures without constantly checking jobs manually. Centralized scheduling makes it easier to manage all our jobs from one place instead of maintaining multiple schedulers or scripts. Dependency management is especially useful for chaining workflows because JAMS Scheduler can automatically trigger the next job only when the required previous step completes successfully. Another useful feature is the monitoring and alerting. If a scheduled job fails or runs longer than expected, we can quickly identify it and take action, which is particularly helpful for production support and reducing manual monitoring. JAMS Scheduler has helped quite a bit with identifying common job failures, missed schedules, dependency issues, and execution errors. The alerts and job history make it easier to identify the failure point and take corrective action without manually checking every workflow. JAMS Scheduler's code-driven automation has been useful for handling more complex scheduling logic and workflows that go beyond simple time-based triggers. It is important for us because we can combine scripts, dependencies, conditions, and parameters to support different production scenarios without creating too much manual intervention.
Sai  - PeerSpot reviewer
Ai/Data Analyst at CSD
Automation has streamlined complex data workflows and now saves time on recurring reporting
To improve ActiveBatch by Redwood, the UI could be more modern and intuitive, and another thing that comes to mind is that it can feel overwhelming when workflows become large and complex. Troubleshooting can take extra time when there are multiple dependencies, jobs, and integrations running together. Better visualization of workflow relationships and easier debugging would really help. I would also appreciate seeing more simplified onboarding and documentation for newer users, as there is a learning curve at the beginning. Another improvement area could be smarter analytics or AI-driven recommendations, such as proactively identifying workflow bottlenecks, failed job patterns, or optimization suggestions instead of relying mostly on manual monitoring. From an operational perspective, faster configuration for integrations and cloud-based workflows would make implementation smoother, especially in environments working heavily with APIs and data pipelines. I have covered the main points regarding needed improvements. Overall, the platform is very capable and reliable for automation and workflow scheduling, especially in data-heavy environments. Most of the improvements I want are around making it easier for day-to-day use, such as a more intuitive UI, simpler troubleshooting for complex workflows, better onboarding for newer users, and more intelligent monitoring or optimization insights. The core functionality is strong, and the biggest opportunity is improving the overall user experience and simplifying operational management.
PK
Assistant VP at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Experience significant automation with robust integration and user-friendly interfaces
There are areas of AutoSys Workload Automation that have room for improvement. They are implementing good enhancements in the R24 release. The web UI needs some improvement. Cloud integrations are limited to 25 or 30 configurable plugins and integrations to the cloud. They can improve in that area. They have separate tools, not AutoSys Workload Automation, such as Atomic and other SaaS-based solutions that can run inside the cloud. AutoSys Workload Automation can be configured in the cloud, but it requires a substantial number of VMs depending on the load. For on-premises deployment, it is a very good solution. They need to increase their footprint in the cloud and improve the web UI. They are making excellent progress in the R24 release.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the easily accessible data in the database because we run a lot of SQL scripting against the database."
"The user-friendly and adaptable scheduler allows us to manage various scheduling scenarios."
"I cannot say enough about JAMS Scheduler support, as it has been the fastest, greatest, best support I have had on any product in my 35 professional years of work."
"The overall product is fantastic. I love it. It has been a fantastic, solid product. If I have one tiny bit of a problem with it, the support team gets in touch with me right away. I don't know if I've had another service that has been as fantastic as the JAMS support team."
"Saving five to six hours of our working time weekly is significant because it reduces the need for manual scheduling, which is vital for our job and routine checks, helping my team focus more on their other operational responsibilities and making our workflow more organized."
"By using JAMS, my company has seen benefits such as getting to know about Google products and the latest features that are newly launched by Google, and they help me in building my projects portfolio and engaging with knowledge."
"JAMS offers diverse scheduling capabilities for any kind of job, including Linux, PowerShell scripts, and SQL, enabling automation of jobs, which has proven beautiful after three years of usage."
"It makes everything that we want to do so much easier. We have had a number of instances in the past where we have had developers who have been working on a project, and even though we have had JAMS for all these years, they will create some SQL Server Agent job, or something like that, to run a task. When it is in code review and development is complete, the question always comes around, "Can JAMS do this?" The answer has always been, "Yes." Pretty much anything we have ever developed could be run by JAMS."
"For developers, it is easy to orchestrate the workflows and the integration has been very easy."
"I find this to be the easiest product that I have ever used, especially compared to Robot Schedule and CA AutoSys as well as an in-house scheduling software that I had designed and developed at one time."
"As far as centralization goes it's nice because we can see all these processes that are tied to this larger process. The commissions, FTP processing, the reporting, the file moves to the business users — all that is right there. It's very easy to read. It's easy to tie it together, visually, and see where each of these steps fits into the bigger picture."
"The software offers real-time monitoring and reporting features that let IT teams keep tabs on the progress of their batch operations and workflows."
"Easy to configure and simple to develop new features."
"Automating the scheduled data workflows and integrations helped improve analyst productivity by around 25 to 30%, mainly because less time was spent manually triggering jobs or fixing missed dependencies."
"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 user interface is really incredible."
"It has helped to simplify cross-dependency between MVS and Open systems jobs."
"We're able to monitor a complex workload, easily see where we're at in our batch flows, and take care of problems before they become bigger issues."
"Automation of patch process."
"The most valuable features of AutoSys Workload Automation are the file transfer protocol and file watcher. The solution has a user-friendly user interface. It is very simple to use. You have a scope of all your jobs, jobs are what you call tasks that you will automate in the solution. It lets you monitor everything in these jobs."
"This product has allowed us to provide more business value to our company by automating more processes."
"It is more scalable; we run around 100K jobs on a daily basis, and to manage that much workload on the system, it is very reliable in terms of the uptime on the system."
"It has allowed us to automate many of the functions of our operations staff. For instance, we had production control staff spending two hours a day entering date parms into our daily business processes. And now, CA Workload Automation does it for us."
"Virtual machine usage: It helped us to schedule the job to run on multiple servers based on the workload."
 

Cons

"They recently switched to subscription-based pricing, which increased."
"There are some improvements needed for JAMS Scheduler; I would like to see more detailed error diagnostics and clearer troubleshooting guidance when scheduled jobs fail."
"Improvements could be made in the service desk's knowledge and communication skills among engineers to better address customer needs and ensure issues are fully resolved."
"Fortra is getting much better with documentation and examples, but there is still room for improvement."
"It is important to receive notifications if a charged job fails and SQL is halted. JAMS does not provide halted notifications by default, which is a critical feature that needs to be added."
"When looking at a folder in JAMS with many jobs, it would be good to have better information in the list display of what's inside those jobs. We get some information, but other important details are missing."
"We have had a lot of people working from home who can't always connect to the JAMS server. We use VPN, as most companies do, and we have it set up so that everybody can access the JAMS server. But many times, our people cannot access it... JAMS could do a better job of telling you what the problem is when you try to log in to the server."
"As an admin, I would like to have a web-based GUI instead of a client application that we have to install on our PCs."
"ActiveBatch by Redwood could be improved with a more modern and intuitive user interface, faster performance for very large workflows, and expanded built-in integrations with newer cloud and DevOps platforms."
"We currently face issues with the web console of ActiveBatch by Redwood. When users operate through an RDP session, every user has their own ActiveBatch by Redwood application. However, on the web console, users encounter daily activity issues where the job instances do not appear or update correctly, and they cannot view the latest logs."
"Some improvements can be made to the user interface."
"We haven't explored the cloud aspect of the solution because it's very costly."
"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."
"I can't get the cleaning up of logs to work consistently."
"Providing some detailed training materials could be very helpful for new users who have very limited technical information about the tool."
"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."
"The initial setup, what we had, was called 35 then we went to a 45 version. Now we went from the 45 to what's called R11, that was a nightmare."
"I think the interface could be unified in a better way."
"I would like to see two-factor authentication, since you see a lot of companies in the news for security breaches. That is a really big thing for us."
"The reporting system, currently, could be better."
"The scalability is poor because I cannot use it for all automation solutions."
"Once we realized how much we were leveraging this feature on the mainframe version, and that we wouldn’t have it on ESP-DE, we were a little disappointed."
"We need the ability to be able to have Windows user passwords changed periodically and automatically."
"Some of the reports are either a bit hard to understand or don’t give you what you might expect to see."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It was $10,000 for the first year. Then, there is a maintenance cost for licensing every year that we get billed $5,000 for every year."
"JAMS is close to the lower end of the pricing models for enterprise scheduling solutions. They are much cheaper than Control-M, as well as some other products that I've used. I also don't know of another solution where you can actually get true, unlimited licensing, where you can have as many instances and as many agents as you want."
"The pricing of JAMS has not been an issue for us, as it has allowed us to save time."
"It's expensive, to be honest, but it does the job."
"JAMS is relatively inexpensive, with additional costs only incurred for tags, other services, and optional support renewals."
"Fortra's JAMS pricing structure has deteriorated significantly since its acquisition by Fortra."
"It's certainly a lot cheaper than Tivoli and Control-M. In comparison to them, you get a lot more bang for your buck. You get pretty much the whole functionality and more, in some cases, when compared to Control-M, but at a fraction of the price."
"Our licensing is pretty cheap because we have a state solution. So, we pay only $1,000 a year."
"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."
"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."
"If you compare ActiveBatch licensing to Control-M, you're looking at $50,000 as opposed to millions."
"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."
"The price was fairly in line with other automation tools. I don't think it's exorbitantly expensive, relatively speaking."
"It allows for lower operational overhead."
"Currently, we are paying approximately $7,000 yearly, which includes support."
"The price of this solution is reasonable and there is an annual license required."
"Validate how many agents you need beforehand."
"CA pricing has been a problem, and not looked upon favorably here at all."
"It is overpriced."
"The pricing needs to be improved. Some of my client's complained that it was too expensive."
"I certainly think the pricing is worth the value."
"People need to pay attention to how they use their ESP agents on the distributed platform. That's where some of the cost comes in, based on how many you need or how many you use."
"There is an annual license to use AutoSys Workload Automation."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise30
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise52
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise79
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JAMS?
My experience with pricing for JAMS Scheduler was good. The pricing was reasonable, and the vendor only charged us fo...
What needs improvement with JAMS?
JAMS Scheduler can be improved by sectioning off credentials and also the web functionality and setting that up.
What is your primary use case for JAMS?
My main use case for JAMS Scheduler is to trigger integrations as well as send out alerts and reports. For sending al...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ActiveBatch Workload Automation?
I was not directly involved in the pricing, setup cost, and licensing decisions for ActiveBatch by Redwood, so my exp...
What needs improvement with ActiveBatch Workload Automation?
ActiveBatch by Redwood could be improved with a more modern and intuitive user interface, faster performance for very...
What is your primary use case for ActiveBatch Workload Automation?
My main use case for ActiveBatch by Redwood is enterprise workload automation, job scheduling, and orchestrating busi...
How does Control-M compare with AutoSys Workload Automation?
Control-M acts as a single, centralized interface for monitoring and managing all batch processes, which is helpful b...
What needs improvement with AutoSys Workload Automation?
There are areas of AutoSys Workload Automation that have room for improvement. They are implementing good enhancement...
 

Also Known As

No data available
ActiveBatch
CA Workload Automation, CA Workload Automation AE
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Teradata, Arconic, General Dynamics, Yum!, CVS Health, Comcast, Ghiradelli, & Boston’s Children’s Hospital
Informatica, D&H, ACES, PrimeSource, Sub-Zero Group, SThree, Lamar Advertising, Subway, Xcel Energy, Ignite Technologies, Whataburger, Jyske Bank, Omaha Children's Hospital
Gaumont, Mercantil do Brasil, CCEE, Hanwha Life
Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. AutoSys Workload Automation and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.