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ActiveBatch by Redwood vs Oracle BPEL comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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 Process Automation
9th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Managed File Transfer (MFT) (11th), Workload Automation (8th)
Oracle BPEL
Ranking in Process Automation
26th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of ActiveBatch by Redwood is 0.6%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle BPEL is 0.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process 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.
PN
A highly scalable solution that provides various features for the execution of business processes
I'm a consultant. I do architecting, designing, and development. I have used two versions, 1.1 and 2.0. I’m unsure about the prices because I oversee the development and implementation. I'll highly recommend the product depending on an organization’s requirements. As someone who has worked with BPEL for 13 years, I highly recommend the product for an on-premise or hybrid integration. Multiple products or alternate solutions have come into the integration domain. However, the product has been in the industry from SOA 11g to SOA 12c and OIC. Though there are multiple competitors, the product has been here for a long time and has been helping multiple customers improve their business. Overall, I rate the solution a nine or nine and a half out of ten.

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."
"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."
"It can connect to a number of third-party/legacy systems."
"We use the main job-scheduling feature. It's the only thing we use in the tool. That's the reason we are using the tool: to reduce costs by replacing manual tasks with automated tasks and to perform regular, repetitive tasks in a more reliable way."
"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."
"One of the most valuable features of this solution is the versatility of the prebuilt jobs."
"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."
"ActiveBatch helped us automate and schedule routine tasks such as data backups, file transfers, database updates, and report generation, which frees IT staff to focus on other studies."
"The product has everything we need."
"What I find the most valuable about Oracle BPEL is that it saves me time."
"The solution is very seamless and fast."
"The most valuable feature is the support for human tasks."
 

Cons

"Setting up the software was hard."
"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."
"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."
"The help center and documentation are not that helpful."
"They could provide an easier installation guide or technical support to the organizations during the installation process."
"Some improvements can be made to the user interface."
"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."
"The documentation is very limited, and it can be improved."
"The solution's integration with SAP should be seamless because some formats are not accepted in SAP but are accepted in Oracle BPEL."
"In the next release, I would like to see REST improved and new technologies for microservices. I'd like to see more containers for separating containers."
"Some user-defined functions for transformation must be added to the next release of the solution."
"They need to have support for new protocols like GraphQL and possibly some out-of-the-box adapters for SAP and other big systems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"It allows for lower operational overhead."
"The price was fairly in line with other automation tools. I don't think it's exorbitantly expensive, relatively speaking."
"The solution's pricing is moderate and not expensive."
"The product is moderately priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
8%
Insurance Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
 

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.
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...
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...
What needs improvement with Oracle BPEL?
They need to have support for new protocols like GraphQL and possibly some out-of-the-box adapters for SAP and other big systems. It should be better if the SAP adapter were included in the bundle.
What is your primary use case for Oracle BPEL?
We primarily use Oracle BPEL for process automation. It is used for workflows for documents, data transfers, and other processes implemented for our customers.
 

Also Known As

ActiveBatch
BPEL Process Manager
 

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
Nacional Monte de Piedad IAP, Bimbo S.A. de C.V., Intelligent Pathways, DVZ Datenverarbeitungszentrum Mecklenburg-Vorpommern GmbH, Arqiva
Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. Oracle BPEL and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,579 professionals have used our research since 2012.