Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs AutoSys Workload Automation vs IBM Workload Automation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of ActiveBatch by Redwood is 2.7%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AutoSys Workload Automation is 10.2%, down from 16.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Workload Automation is 6.2%, down from 8.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
AutoSys Workload Automation10.2%
IBM Workload Automation6.2%
ActiveBatch by Redwood2.7%
Other80.9%
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Shubham Bharti - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Antony Askew - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps us manage complex workloads, reduce our workload failure rates, and save us time
The visibility and control features are somewhat limited. This is a recognized weakness, but thee vendor is currently revamping the user interface to address it. While the current UI is a bit outdated, it's undergoing improvement. AutoSys Workload Automation has some areas for improvement, particularly in housekeeping and product maintenance. These tasks are currently quite manual and labor-intensive for our team. Additionally, the reporting and forecasting functionalities could be more robust. One area for improvement with AutoSys Workload Automation is that it comprises several distinct tools configured to work together. This necessitates familiarity with multiple tools for effective solution management. Consequently, it can sometimes lack a sense of cohesiveness as a unified solution.
Ilhami Arikan - PeerSpot reviewer
With an easy setup phase in place, agent-based installation can be done in minutes
Sometimes we have issues with the solution's stability. So, stability can be improved. Reporting and visibility of the solution need improvement. These days, we need more visibility. We need to access the logs and databases easily. You need to keep track of the running number of logs, like which ones are executed, completed, etc. So if there would be a good reporting dashboard, then it would be good. There's room for improvement in the solution since it is a challenging thing when we want to use the solution's technology with our new technologies. For example, if we need to use TWS on our OpenShift platform, the solution's API is not capable enough. So the product itself needs to be aligned with new technologies.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Using this tool, if there are any huge failures, we immediately get an email notification, and the proper team will be informed, at which time they can act accordingly."
"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 software offers real-time monitoring and reporting features that let IT teams keep tabs on the progress of their batch operations and workflows."
"Error Handling is one of the best standout features of ActiveBatch."
"There are hundreds of pre-built steps."
"By implementing a sophisticated scheduling mechanism, the system allows for the precise triggering of jobs at user-selected frequencies, enabling a seamless and automated execution of tasks according to specified time intervals."
"We get better reports than we use to have."
"The CA workload agent has gotten much better. For our organization it's important for us to communicate in a secure fashion between the host and the other platforms, and we are able to do that with our CA product"
"​It scales very well. We can add jobs and remove jobs. We do not have problems maintaining the product across multiple environments and multiple servers.​"
"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."
"It has helped to simplify cross-dependency between MVS and Open systems jobs."
"It's very easy to work with. The learning curve is not that steep."
"It streamlines processing really well, so we're able to cut down on our processing times."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the functions are easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Workload Automation is its holistic view, which helps me find technical solutions quickly. For instance, if a customer has an issue completing their workload within a specific time frame, the tool provides enough information to identify and resolve the issue. One of the main challenges is dealing with data infrastructure problems and pending updates. Workload Automation helps me leverage current AI capabilities to recommend architectural updates to avoid these issues. It also allows me to balance CPU usage effectively, ensuring service level agreements are met. The interface is user-friendly and facilitates this process smoothly."
"The DWC, when configured correctly, is a great GUI tool to provide Self-Service Scheduling capabilities to the user community."
"It offers features like MDM and a Windows workstation, although there are some technical dependencies. It is more user-friendly and also includes failover and failback capabilities. While both systems offer high availability, Control-M's high availability is superior to AWS's."
"The support from Cisco is very good. I was with them as a company for 40 years"
"Technical support from IBM is very good."
"This solution has a request feature where users can request the added features they need to have developed. Based on client voting for those features, these are developed and released."
"The project we worked on involved the running of nearly 24,000 job instances in a single day, so I would say that the solution is stable."
"The most important feature is the creation of folders. It's a really great feature because you can organize the process with naming conventions."
 

Cons

"The interface is not that user-friendly and is a little tough to navigate."
"There are some issues with this version and finding the jobs that it ran. If you're looking at 1,000 different jobs, it shows based on the execution time, not necessarily the run time. So, if there was a constraint waiting, you may be looking for it in the wrong time frame. Plus, with thousands of jobs showing up and the way it pages output jobs, sometimes you end up with multiple pages on the screen, then you have to go through to find the specific job you're looking for. On the opposite side, you can limit the daily activity screen to show only jobs that failed or jobs currently running, which will shrink that back down. However, we have operators who are looking at the whole nightly cycle to make sure everything is there and make sure nothing got blocked or was waiting. Sometimes, they have a hard time finding every item within the list."
"Setting up the software was hard."
"ActiveBatch UI could use a little more help, and video tutorials would be greatly appreciated for user guides."
"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."
"A nice thing to have would be the ability to comfortably pass variables from one job to another. That was one of the things that I found difficult."
"I have faced struggles to understand, set up the tool, and implement it in my early days as a new user."
"They should offer pricing that is more affordable."
"Autosys is still lagging behind some competitive products from a functionality perspective."
"Most AutoSys Workload Automation customers are moving because of cost; it is more cost intrusive."
"Reduce the number of operational files. This would make the job of a system programmer supporting ESP easier."
"This product needs to improve its graphical user interface."
"I am not sure whether it is our limitation or a tool limitation because we haven't yet explored it, but whenever we look for different types of reporting, we have some limitations in getting those. It could be because of the way we have set it up internally in our enterprise, but it would be helpful if we can customize the reporting features and some of the alerts that can go out. When we connect enterprise systems, each one looks for a different use case, and if we can get different types of reporting, it will be helpful."
"It would be helpful to be able to monitor and manage workload windows so we could minimize downstream applications. This would allow us easier access to the applications."
"We have to escalate through channels to get to somebody who knows what's going on. It takes time that we do not necessarily have.​"
"The reporting system, currently, could be better."
"To improve IBM Workload Automation, I suggest enhancing automation features further, as more automation would be beneficial. The product is good enough for my current customers, but improving technical support and pricing would be welcome. We often need quicker responses and better solutions than we can manage manually. These improvements would make the product even better."
"There should be more custom documentation, specifically around Java APIs. There should also be more training. In terms of features, we are currently using only 50% of its features. We don't use all features that are available, but there is always room for improvement in all of the tools."
"The solution's installation could be improved because the customers have to do it all the time."
"This solution does have bugs and could be improved in this regard. However, these bugs are resolved relatively quickly."
"The solution should offer more free technical sessions to customers so that they can gain more experience or learn more about how to use it."
"IBM Workload Automation could be improved by reducing its cost. The maintenance charges have increased significantly, and a lower cost would be beneficial."
"The schedule refreshes daily and that's a challenge for us."
"The configuration of IBM Workload Automation has some challenges. We have a difficult time customizing it, but it is similar to other solutions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Currently, we are paying approximately $7,000 yearly, which includes support."
"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."
"We paid to use the solution monthly."
"I don't have information on the exact licensing cost of AutoSys Workload Automation because that's managed by the tools and financing teams. For agents, it's close to $4,00, but for the server setup, it's usually a one-time license initially, and it's AMC which is paid every year and comes close to $8,000 to $10,000."
"CA pricing has been a problem, and not looked upon favorably here at all."
"I certainly think the pricing is worth the value."
"The return on investment would be very high because doing things manually without this product would be extremely expensive."
"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."
"Validate how many agents you need beforehand."
"It is overpriced."
"Pricing depends on the number of agents that you install."
"The solution is a little bit expensive."
"We transitioned from a server license to per job license, and that saved us a lot money."
"It is about one-third of the cost of a controller."
"The solution's pricing is affordable."
"To my knowledge, IWA is the only WLA product that will provide "parallel tracking" capability to assist in upgrading from one platform to IWA."
"The contract is with the customer with whom we are working, so IBM is not directly involved in this."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Workload Automation solutions are best for your needs.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Insurance Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
46%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
6%
Insurance Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Computer Software Company
8%
Retailer
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise44
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise77
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise29
 

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 ActiveBat...
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 u...
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...
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 do you like most about AutoSys Workload Automation?
The most valuable aspects of AutoSys Workload Automation are its performance, scalability, and ease of getting starte...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AutoSys Workload Automation?
The solution is costly. The pricing is based on the number of users, which for me, translates to approximately $120,0...
What needs improvement with IBM Workload Automation?
IBM Workload Automation could be improved by reducing its cost. The maintenance charges have increased significantly,...
What is your primary use case for IBM Workload Automation?
We use IBM Workload Automation ( /products/ibm-workload-automation-reviews ) as a scheduler. We install agents on the...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Workload Automation?
I recommend IBM Workload Automation as it's a well-established and stable product. However, the cost is a concern. Th...
 

Also Known As

ActiveBatch
CA Workload Automation, CA Workload Automation AE
IBM Tivoli Workload Scheduler, IBM TWS
 

Overview

 

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
Gaumont, Mercantil do Brasil, CCEE, Hanwha Life
Standard Life Group, Banca Popolare di Milano, A*STAR, ArcelorMittal Gent
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC, Broadcom, JAMS Software and others in Workload Automation. Updated: September 2025.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.