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Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow vs IBM Workload Automation comparison

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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
Amazon Managed Workflows fo...
Ranking in Workload Automation
21st
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Workload Automation
Ranking in Workload Automation
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
33
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 Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow is 1.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Workload Automation is 4.9%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
JAMS2.6%
IBM Workload Automation4.9%
Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow1.7%
Other90.8%
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.
IP
Business and Technology Strategy Lead at Cognix Inc
Operational workflows improve as we address needs but technical support costs affect resources
Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow is easy to use and offers great scalability. The more we include and extend our capabilities, we can easily scale up according to our needs. When we compare it to other tools in the market, such as Control-M and other technologies, Airflow offers a lot of flexibility. Using this tool minimizes costs and maximizes efficiency.
reviewer2701716 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Dynamic workload balancing facilitates efficient job scheduling and ensures continuity with a master-slave setup
One valuable feature of IBM Workload Automation is the ability to combine different applications and platforms to organize jobs together, creating dependencies. It's akin to an orchestra. Another feature is dynamic workload balancing, which I find enhances efficiency by automating job setup to run daily. Moreover, having a backup setup allows for immediate recovery if the master setup fails.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"I appreciate JAMS for its readily available templates that allow me to create and deliver stand-up presentations within minutes quickly."
"The planning capabilities are most valuable."
"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."
"Fortra's JAMS helped us centralize job management across our platforms and applications. This is critical because we schedule tasks across multiple applications and operating systems, using triggers and start dates to coordinate their execution."
"JAMS has helped save IT staff time by automating tasks previously performed with scripts, and its scheduling feature has been particularly useful."
"I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events."
"JAMS has improved our productivity immensely because everything flows. I don't think we could operate at our current staffing levels without it."
"One of the product's main strengths is that it is well-suited for a DevOps pattern, allowing us to automate our CI/CD pipeline."
"Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow is easy to use and offers great scalability; the more we include and extend our capabilities, we can easily scale up according to our needs."
"I have supported this product in literally 100s of different environments and its unmatched in its ability to scale to any size."
"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 most important feature is the creation of folders. It's a really great feature because you can organize the process with naming conventions."
"The support from Cisco is very good. I was with them as a company for 40 years"
"Jobs can be triggered in multiple nodes."
"I recommend IBM Workload Automation as it's a well-established and stable product."
"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 solution helps automate processes so that the workload can be handled on a daily basis."
 

Cons

"With no programming experience, I find JAMS code-driven automation challenging due to the required PowerShell scripting."
"Fortra is getting much better with documentation and examples, but there is still room for improvement."
"JAMS has built-in reporting. I've never really used it. I tried using it a few years ago and I couldn't figure it out. It was wonky. It could be improved upon."
"The biggest area with room for improvement is the area that my organization benefits the most from using JAMS, and that is in custom execution methods. I happen to have a very good C# developer. Ever since we got JAMS, he has spent a lot of time talking to JAMS developers, researching the JAMS libraries, and creating custom execution methods. He's gotten very good at it. He is now able to create them and maintain them very easily, but that knowledge was hard-won knowledge. It was difficult to come by, and if I should ever lose this developer, then I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who could create JAMS custom execution methods quite as well as he can since there really isn't all that much help, such as documentation or information, available on how to create custom execution methods."
"The error messages from JAMS often need clarification, hindering our ability to resolve issues swiftly."
"Sometimes the UI is not the most responsive I've ever used. But because it does its job, I don't complain."
"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."
"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."
"The documentation provided is good."
"To be very honest, technical support from AWS is extremely expensive."
"It should support other schedulers that aren't IBM products."
"The performance of the previous versions could be better."
"The configuration of IBM Workload Automation has some challenges. We have a difficult time customizing it, but it is similar to other solutions."
"IBM needs to move away from its native terminology and adopt a more cloud-centric approach."
"It is missing some features and can improve in areas where the competition is somewhat better like linking job dependencies."
"Scalability-wise, it can be a little bit challenging."
"IBM Workload Automation could be improved by reducing its cost. The maintenance charges have increased significantly, and a lower cost would be beneficial."
"This solution does have bugs and could be improved in this regard. However, these bugs are resolved relatively quickly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 product is reasonably priced, and we don't have any add-ons."
"The product is reasonably priced, and we don't have any add-ons."
"It's expensive, to be honest, but it does the job."
"For what it does, the product is priced very well."
"In the end, you'll find that it's really worth the price. There is some sticker shock, but it's worth every dime."
"The licensing model for JAMS is straightforward and based on the number of agents, not the number of jobs you run. It's cheap and fairly simple."
"JAMS is relatively inexpensive, with additional costs only incurred for tags, other services, and optional support renewals."
"It is not an inexpensive solution but it is less expensive than other options."
"Pricing depends on the number of agents that you install."
"The solution's pricing is affordable."
"The contract is with the customer with whom we are working, so IBM is not directly involved in this."
"We transitioned from a server license to per job license, and that saved us a lot money."
"The solution is a little bit expensive."
"To my knowledge, IWA is the only WLA product that will provide "parallel tracking" capability to assist in upgrading from one platform to IWA."
"It is about one-third of the cost of a controller."
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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
25%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Transportation Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Retailer
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise18
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise29
 

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 Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow?
I rate the product pricing a five. It is not an inexpensive solution but it is less expensive than other options like...
What needs improvement with Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow?
Customization in general depends on the use cases that we are trying to address, but I don't have a specific thing ri...
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow?
Custom Generalizations do not directly correlate with specific sections conventional to reviews. Less clarity on dire...
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

No data available
No data available
IBM Tivoli Workload Scheduler, IBM TWS
 

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
Information Not Available
Standard Life Group, Banca Popolare di Milano, A*STAR, ArcelorMittal Gent
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow vs. IBM Workload Automation and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.