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ActiveBatch by Redwood vs HCL Workload Automation comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

JAMS
Sponsored
Ranking in Workload Automation
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ActiveBatch by Redwood
Ranking in Workload Automation
14th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (28th), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (14th)
HCL Workload Automation
Ranking in Workload Automation
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of JAMS is 2.6%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ActiveBatch by Redwood is 2.9%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HCL Workload Automation is 2.0%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
JAMS2.6%
HCL Workload Automation2.0%
ActiveBatch by Redwood2.9%
Other92.5%
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2770605 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Engineer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Has streamlined complex job scheduling across scripting languages while reducing manual effort
JAMS could be improved with a web client that is accessible and as fast as a normal website, eliminating the need to RDP to the servers to access the JAMS client. A functionality running on the JAMS server to continuously check the JAMS agents would ensure they are working properly. If an agent is not responding, a feature to restart the service from the job server machine would be beneficial. The upgrade process, particularly when switching from V6 to V7, could be clearer in terms of documentation, ideally with screenshots showing exactly what needs to be done on each screen.
AS
Application Administrator Lead at Bluestem
Manages thousands of jobs daily and reduces downtime through secondary node support
The current feedback I receive from my end users regarding ActiveBatch by Redwood highlights issues with the tabs or panes during job modification. When the next user monitors it, they need to close the pane or job and reopen it to see the changes reflected. If the end user makes an update, it will not be visible unless they start from the beginning again. Implementing a refresh button would be helpful for real-time updates when the end user needs to see changes immediately. 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. This issue is only present on the web console, as the application itself works without any problems. ActiveBatch by Redwood can be improved by adding more features, as we are not currently handling cloud-based applications like S3 buckets and Azure. Connecting to these cloud platforms would be a helpful enhancement.
reviewer2783334 - PeerSpot reviewer
SME at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Automation has streamlined critical workloads and has reduced manual reporting efforts
In the future, I would like to see enhancements, particularly in the GUI console, the TDWC GUI console for the end user. We do not have many complaints, but I believe there is some slowness, which may be due to network connectivity. However, in some cases, we do experience lag in the TDWC console, which I think needs to be considered for improvement to speed up the end-user console. As of now, I do not have much clarity on any additional features that I would like to see included in HCL Workload Automation in the future or any functionality that requires enhancement at the moment.

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 interface is good, and it's very easy to define and create jobs. If a job is not running or there is an error, the solution will send an email. That's all very good and very useful."
"It's a full-featured job scheduling tool. The part that I liked the best was the support team. This tool was new, and we were all learning it and setting up the different jobs that were complex in nature. Their support team was very responsive in helping us out through the setup and resolving the issues. They have been incredibly awesome."
"JAMS is easier to use and cheaper than our previous solution. The installation is more straightforward, and JAMS has a graphical user interface, so it's more accessible."
"While I appreciate the other features, the agent stands out for its ease of installation and configuration for JAMS monitoring."
"I like how you can add new execution methods on the fly. It isn't overly complex to add Python script support to an execution method in the JAMS system. The scheduling is excellent. You can schedule a maintenance window and take that resource unit out of everything. It halts all of the jobs."
"The most valuable feature of JAMS is its user-friendly interface, especially after upgrading from version six to seven."
"JAMS has been a beneficial monitoring tool for our project in terms of being able to deliver data that is essential for users."
"ActiveBatch's Self-Service Portal allows our business units to run and monitor their own workloads. They can simply run and review the logs, but they can't modify them. It increases their productivity because they are able to take care of things on their own. It saves us time from having to rerun the scripts, because the business units can just go ahead and log in and and rerun it themselves."
"The automation feature is a very valuable feature as the associates do not have to worry about performing repetitive tasks (i.e. endpoint security scans on a daily basis) that would take several hours to complete on a daily basis."
"It is very useful in sending confidential files through FPP servers."
"Easy to configure and simple to develop new features."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"There are hundreds of pre-built steps."
"We have good features, good utility, and excellent feedback from all our stakeholders and end users."
"The scalability of HCL Workload Automation is essentially limitless, as I have worked with corporations running over a million flows per day without performance issues when scaling according to HCL's documentation."
"Easy to set up, it doesn't require a lot."
"HCL Workload Automation is more stable and secure, helping to avoid incidents and meet SLAs, making it a dependable tool."
 

Cons

"The search capability needs to be improved because when we try to search for a job, it's hard to do."
"JAMS handles exceptions fairly well but there are some areas where it might improve a little bit. It has to do with being able to automatically handle exceptions, out-of-the-box, rather than having to code them."
"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."
"The documentation is not super... It's not as quick and slick as I'd like it to be."
"JAMS lacks source control features. Our previous solution had job control language, but JAMS doesn't. When migrating between versions, JAMS doesn't migrate all the data, like job change history, etc. Also, the scheduler doesn't have a way to make jobs invisible, so you can temporarily turn a job off if you decide not to run it today."
"There could be a better simulation for banning the termination. You have to simulate every one of the processes in order to have an idea for better planning. This kind of simulation is broken and needs 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."
"If around 5,000 or more jobs run at a time, JAMS slows down, and we have to wait around five to 10 minutes or restart JAMS scheduler services."
"Whenever there is an overload, we are seeing crashes happening."
"Providing some detailed training materials could be very helpful for new users who have very limited technical information about the tool."
"I have faced struggles to understand, set up the tool, and implement it in my early days as a new user."
"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."
"The interface is not that user-friendly and is a little tough to navigate."
"I believe ActiveBatch by Redwood could be improved because the UI could be modernized."
"We have faced a couple of issues where we were supposed to log a defect with ActiveBatch. That said, the Active batch Vendor Support is very responsive and reliable."
"ActiveBatch is a little complex."
"For increasing infrastructure or adding users, while the application is good, I do not think its current capability can handle the large volume of scripts at HDFC because critical applications require high performance when many scripts are running at night."
"In the future, I would like to see enhancements, particularly in the GUI console, the TDWC GUI console for the end user."
"The interface needs some improvements."
"To improve HCL Workload Automation, I recommend focusing more on testing new features before release, as the aggressive roadmap has resulted in some features not being properly tested and working as expected."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"All licensing models are a little overpriced, but JAMS offers a good value, especially given their support response times and ability to handle unforeseen issues like the SFTP transfers. I hope to find more use cases to get a better bang for our buck."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The pricing is very fair. We have seen very minimal to no price increases over the years. We are not banging down the door of support all the time either. I would imagine if we were a company that submitted a dozen support tickets a week for the last nine years, then it might be a little different because we would be eating up everybody's time. However, for what we get out of it, the pricing is extremely fair. Back when we were originally looking and brought in JAMS, we were looking at a couple of the other competitive products that were in this space, but the pricing from JAMS was far and away better than what the other competitors could offer for the same functionality."
"JAMS is priced competitively compared to similar solutions and offers flexible licensing options to cater to user needs."
"In the end, you'll find that it's really worth the price. There is some sticker shock, but it's worth every dime."
"There are no additional costs other than the license for Fortra's JAMS which is affordable."
"Currently, we are paying approximately $7,000 yearly, which includes support."
"The price was fairly in line with other automation tools. I don't think it's exorbitantly expensive, relatively speaking."
"If you compare ActiveBatch licensing to Control-M, you're looking at $50,000 as opposed to millions."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Insurance Company
8%
Performing Arts
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
9%
Recreational Facilities/Services Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise47
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about JAMS?
I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JAMS?
They recently switched to subscription-based pricing, which increased. The price is fair considering the functionalit...
What needs improvement with JAMS?
As far as we are using JAMS version 6, it looks good and there is nothing major to add about it. Everything is functi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ActiveBatch Workload Automation?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for ActiveBatch by Redwood has been great; we recently renewed ...
What needs improvement with ActiveBatch Workload Automation?
I believe ActiveBatch by Redwood could be improved because the UI could be modernized.
What is your primary use case for ActiveBatch Workload Automation?
My main use case for ActiveBatch by Redwood is file processing. I use ActiveBatch by Redwood for file processing for ...
What needs improvement with HCL Workload Automation?
In the future, I would like to see enhancements, particularly in the GUI console, the TDWC GUI console for the end us...
What is your primary use case for HCL Workload Automation?
I use HCL Workload Automation for several use cases. In 2022, we had a migration where we needed to upgrade from 9.4 ...
What advice do you have for others considering HCL Workload Automation?
Regarding the impact of using HCL Workload Automation on reducing human error in operations, there is a checkpoint fe...
 

Also Known As

No data available
ActiveBatch
No data available
 

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
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Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. HCL Workload Automation and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.