ActiveBatch by Redwood vs OpCon comparison

ActiveBatch by Redwood and SMA Technologies are both solutions in the Workload Automation category. ActiveBatch by Redwood is ranked #8 with an average rating of 9.4, while SMA Technologies is ranked #7 with an average rating of 9.1. ActiveBatch by Redwood holds a 2.4% mindshare in WA, compared to SMA Technologies’s 1.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of ActiveBatch by Redwood users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of SMA Technologies users who would recommend it.

ActiveBatch by Redwood

Read 35 ActiveBatch by Redwood reviews

1,616 Views
487 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

OpCon

Read 59 OpCon reviews

1,715 Views
419 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

ActiveBatch by Redwood

OpCon

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

OpCon and ActiveBatch by Redwood both compete in the automation solutions category. OpCon appears to have the upper hand in industries requiring specialized integrations, while ActiveBatch offers flexibility for handling complex tasks.

Features: OpCon is renowned for its auto-scheduling capabilities that facilitate task management without direct system access, integration with systems like Corelation KeyStone, and a self-service solution manager for easy automation execution. ActiveBatch provides extensive pre-built job steps, strong integration capabilities with various platforms, and allows complex tasks to be managed using simple scripts for high customization.

Room for Improvement: OpCon users seek enhancements in user interface design, finer user authorization levels, and improved integration with external databases. Training and onboarding are also flagged as areas needing refinement. ActiveBatch users call for a modern GUI, better event-based trigger reliability, and enhanced monitoring dashboards, and they express a need for improved cloud platform integration.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: OpCon primarily supports on-premises deployment with highly responsive 24/7 customer support, offering quick tailored solutions. ActiveBatch supports hybrid and cloud deployments providing more flexibility. While both have commendable customer support, ActiveBatch's ticket-based support can occasionally lead to slower response times compared to OpCon's direct phone support.

Pricing and ROI: OpCon is generally costlier but offers a strong return on investment by automating tasks and reducing manual workloads, proving cost-effective for operational efficiency. ActiveBatch's competitive pricing is well-valued for its features, though recent changes prompted some clients to reconsider their cost structure. Both solutions provide significant productivity gains, with OpCon favored for specialized integrations and ActiveBatch for deployment options.

To learn more, read our detailed ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. OpCon Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. OpCon

June 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 Workload Automation

8th

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Process Automation (9th), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (11th)

OpCon

Ranking in Workload Automation

7th

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of ActiveBatch by Redwood is 2.4%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpCon is 1.8%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Workload Automation

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.

Read full review

Jose Rivera Hernandez

Senior VP of Technology at Triangle Credit Union

Helps automate all kinds of jobs and it's worth the price because it saves a lot of time and money

One problem that I had with them when we got SMA Technologies is that sometimes the jobs fail, but they automatically restart. SMA Technologies automatically gets a notification that the job has failed, and they restart it on their end, so now, we have the job restarting twice. There were times when we came into the office in the morning, and we had two files because the job ran twice. I do not know if the system can prevent a job from running the second time. If a job has run successfully, or it is running, it should not run again.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"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."

"The Jobs Library has been a tremendous asset. For the most, that's what we use. There are some outliers, but we pretty much integrate those Jobs Library steps throughout the process, whether it's REST calls, FTP processes, or file copies and moves... That has helped us to build end-to-end workflows."

"From a scheduling point of view, it is pretty good."

"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."

"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."

"ActiveBatch can automate predictable, repeatable processes very well. There is no real trick to what ActiveBatch does. ActiveBatch does exactly what you would expect a scheduling piece of software to do. It does it in a timely manner and does it with very little outside interference and fanfare. It runs when it is supposed to, and I don't have to jump through a bunch of hoops to double check it."

More ActiveBatch by Redwood pros

"Where I see it working best is when we are trying to automate jobs."

"Auto-scheduling is the most valuable feature. We have the ability to schedule [batch jobs on our Unisys mainframes] seven days in advance, so we know exactly how we're running every night."

"The most valuable feature is being able to schedule tasks so that they reliably occur each day, each week, each month, or sometimes several times a day... The scheduler works as it should."

"I find OpCon's ability to monitor files and folders, and its integration with other software to be the most valuable."

"It makes everything simpler. Once OpCon is in, it just repeats itself day after day. We don't have to worry about whether a process will be missed. It will run every single time. We are not dropping jobs or missing stuff. When you have multiple institutions, it's very easy to miss jobs. You get on a roll, start doing things, and then forget somebody. With OpCon, everything is done."

"Manual processing has been automated 99 percent by OpCon. With new processes, we give it at least two weeks manual so we can write down the details of how to do the steps, then we automate it. Within a month, it has been automated, then it's no longer a manual process."

"There are a lot of valuable features. The version that we're currently casting, Self Service, is going to be the most valuable to us. It is going to allow us to open up the doors, broaden our automation capability and help other business units to be able to automate a lot of the little things that they do from day to day. I'm really looking forward to being able to help other areas with their automation needs. Self Service is really key."

"The stability of this solution is awesome. It's the only product I've ever seen that you can actually build to fix itself if it has a problem. You'll build something and, if you find an issue, you can say, 'Hey, if this happens again, do this to correct it.'"

More OpCon pros

Cons

"As more organizations are moving towards a cloud-based infrastructure, ActiveBatch could incorporate more capabilities that support popular cloud platforms, such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud."

"The thing I've noticed the most is the Help function. It's very difficult, at times, to find examples of how to do something. The Help function will explain what the tool does, but we're not a Windows shop at the data warehouse. Our data warehouse jobs actually run on Linux servers. Finding things for Linux-based solutions is not as easy as it is for Windows-based solutions. I would like to see more examples, and more non-Windows examples as well, in the Help."

"They could provide an easier installation guide or technical support to the organizations during the installation process."

"It does have a little bit of a learning curve because it is fairly complex. You have to learn how it does things. I don't know if it's any worse than any other tool would be, just because of the nature of what it does... the learning curve is the hardest part."

"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."

"The help center and documentation are not that helpful."

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

"There is this back and forth, where ActiveBatch says, "Your Oracle people should be dealing with this," and Oracle people say, "No, we don't know anything about ActiveBatch." Then, it all falls back on me as to what happens. Nobody is taking responsibility. This is the biggest failing for ActiveBatch."

More ActiveBatch by Redwood cons

"It's not something you can just quickly grab, try, run, and play with. You have to get the knowledge and train yourself. It was easy for me, but I also took the time to throw myself into it. There is a learning curve to a certain extent. You have to learn the rules."

"I'd like to see the product include a view where you can see everything about a specific job on a single screen."

"The UI refresh rate is really bad and needs improvement."

"Some additional logging-information reporting would also help. They have all the information there but you still have to search around and look back. It's not right there for you, where you click and can get the reporting. You have to know the system and do some additional searches. So reporting is another area that they can build on by simplifying it."

"The calendar interface and the frequency interface is a very powerful, yet complex, section of OpCon in which all our staff have made mistakes. They have implemented what they believed was logically correct and then afterward discovered that their logic was flawed because OpCon did it a different way. That part, which is incredibly useful, is also incredibly dangerous. The interface or the ability to directly do more functions within the frequency definitely has room for expansion. As good as it is, it can be a lot better."

"A way to select multiple jobs in the UI for a quick change or to hold, release, et cetera, would be nice."

"I don't really think anything needs to be improved within the functionality. The only struggle I had, when I first started using it, is that it depends a lot on the command line and I didn't have that experience. So more built-in, basic commands or more education on commands would be good."

"I would like more web-based training from SMA. That would be nice. Our primary OpCon representative is phenomenal, but we would like some training opportunities for learning on our own. When I started utilizing OpCon, the sheer breadth of it made for a very daunting task. I was almost fearful to start, not to mention fearful to go change things and possibly hinder a job."

More OpCon cons

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."

"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."

"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."

"It allows for lower operational overhead."

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

"Scaling is pricey."

"OpCon cost us $80,000 in 2017 money, and that included everything: support, installation, onsite assistance during the conversion, etc. It's been a worthwhile investment by far."

"The cost is based on the number of jobs. You pay for what you use. For us, the support cost is between €20,000 and €30,000 per year. It's too expensive."

"Yearly, it's around $30,000."

"Annually, we pay $29,000. This is for a blanket policy that covers everything, like licensing and support."

"Yearly, we're paying about $62,000. OpCon has an all-inclusive feature and module license, but you pay per task."

"While the overall cost is reasonable, I'm interested in exploring options for making the managed automation solution, specifically the mass solution, more cost-effective."

"It was substantially less expensive than ASG-Zeke... I would suggest that someone who is only looking at price when evaluating workload automation tools take a very hard look at OpCon because it is well-priced."

More OpCon pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

23%

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Retailer

Computer Software Company

45%

Financial Services Firm

19%

Government

Real Estate/Law Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about OpCon?

My favorite feature is the dashboard feature, which shows jobs that are running, and completed, any failures, and provides dashboard reporting.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpCon?

I am the one who signs the contract. In the beginning, when I started working here, it seemed very expensive, but after I learned everything that it does, I found it worth the price. I would recomm...

See all answers

What needs improvement with OpCon?

See all answers

Comparisons

Control-M vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 18% of the time

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 15% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 12% of the time

Stonebranch vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 9% of the time

Tidal by Redwood vs ActiveBatch by Redwood

Compared 8% of the time

More ActiveBatch by Redwood Competitors

Control-M vs OpCon

Compared 33% of the time

VisualCron vs OpCon

Compared 12% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs OpCon

Compared 11% of the time

UiPath Platform vs OpCon

Compared 11% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs OpCon

Compared 10% of the time

More OpCon Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ActiveBatch by Redwood

June 2025

Download ActiveBatch by Redwood product report

Buyer's Guide

OpCon

May 2025

Download OpCon product report

Also Known As

ActiveBatch

No data available

Overview

ActiveBatch by Redwood automates and manages batch processes, data integration tasks, and workflow scheduling. It's used for file transfers, data processing, server monitoring, and report generation, supporting both on-prem and cloud environments.

Organizations implement ActiveBatch by Redwood to automate complex job scheduling and data workflows, integrating seamlessly with FTP, SQL, PowerShell, and other systems. With features like real-time monitoring, error handling, and centralized management, users can significantly boost productivity while minimizing manual intervention. Its flexibility in supporting on-premises and cloud environments makes it adaptable for diverse IT landscapes. The tool simplifies workflow orchestration with an extensive library of pre-built steps and robust API integrations, ensuring efficiency in handling various workloads.

What are ActiveBatch by Redwood's key features?

Job automation: Automates routine and complex jobs.
Real-time monitoring: Offers instant insights into job performance.
Customizable workflows: Tailors workflows to specific business needs.
PowerShell integration: Supports advanced script execution.
Job triggering: Initiates tasks based on specific conditions.
File handling: Manages file transfers and processing efficiently.
Server management: Monitors and handles server tasks consistently.
API integration: Connects with various applications for streamlined operations.
Alerting: Provides notifications for critical job events.
Flexible scheduling: Enables detailed and adaptable job scheduling.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Centralized management: Simplifies oversight of all processes.
Productivity boost: Reduces manual effort and errors.
Time savings: Accelerates task completion and workflow execution.
Comprehensive visibility: Enhances monitoring of all job activities.
Reliable performance: Ensures consistent task execution.
Scalability: Adapts to growing business and IT needs.

In various industries, ActiveBatch by Redwood is used to streamline operations, whether in finance handling large-scale data processing, healthcare managing patient records, or retail optimizing supply chains. It addresses specific needs by offering robust automation, efficient job scheduling, and seamless integration with existing systems, driving operational excellence and efficiency.

ActiveBatch by Redwood

OpCon automates batch processing, core system operations, file transfers, and daily processing. Integrated across Unisys, Windows, and cloud systems, OpCon is used in financial institutions, credit unions, and multi-platform environments for job scheduling, report generation, SQL queries, scripting, and FTP processes, handling thousands of jobs daily.

Users value OpCon for comprehensive automation capabilities, particularly the scheduling feature that allows advance planning and streamlined workflows. The self-service functionality enables non-IT staff to manage tasks efficiently. OpCon's integration with core banking systems, robust job management, and error notification system significantly improve operational efficiency. Features like Solution Manager enhance accessibility and control, ensuring process continuity and ease of use.

What are the Key Features of OpCon?

Advanced Scheduling: Allows users to plan and automate workflows efficiently.
Self-Service Functionality: Empowers non-IT staff to manage tasks independently.
Integration with Core Systems: Works seamlessly with core banking systems and other platforms.
Error Notifications: Provides robust error management and notifications for quick resolution.
Solution Manager: Enhances control and accessibility for managing automated processes.

What Benefits Should You Look for in Reviews?

Operational Efficiency: Users often report improved operational performance and reduced manual effort.
Time Savings: Automation of repetitive tasks leads to significant time savings.
Improved Accuracy: Automated systems minimize human error, leading to higher accuracy in processes.
Cost Reduction: Optimized resource usage results in cost savings.
Enhanced Flexibility: Customizable workflows meet unique business requirements.

Users find OpCon complex with a steep learning curve. Desired improvements include better separation of environments, enhanced graphical display, finer user authorization, simpler notification and alerts, more templates, increased web functionality, seamless interface, integration tools, online training, smoother scheduling, better reporting, mobile accessibility, smarter self-service, improved mainframe support, and integration with third-party systems. Pricing model and licensing could be more streamlined.

In financial institutions and credit unions, OpCon is implemented to handle thousands of daily jobs, automate internal processes, and integrate workflows across various platforms. It ensures secure file transfers, generates detailed reports, executes SQL queries, and supports seamless third-party integrations.

SMA Technologies

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

LOHR, Carnival Cruise Lines, Herbalife, Digital Federal Credit Union, Synergent, Frandsen Bank & Trust

Buyer's Guide

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. OpCon

June 2025

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