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AppWorx Workload Automation vs Rocket Zena comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

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

AppWorx Workload Automation
Ranking in Workload Automation
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Rocket Zena
Ranking in Workload Automation
19th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of AppWorx Workload Automation is 1.4%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rocket Zena is 2.6%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Srikanth Gubba - PeerSpot reviewer
Automation boosts efficiency with a user-friendly interface
Currently, I have switched to negotiating through third-party vendors for licensing, which has made it more expensive. Broadcom should address this by dealing directly with customers again. Licensing fees have increased as they charge based on executions rather than user agents, causing higher costs. Technical support also involves third-party interactions, complicating direct assistance from Broadcom.
JuanGonzalez6 - PeerSpot reviewer
A continuously evolving, stable solution, with responsive support
The visual whiteboard for design and execution included with the solution is very crucial to those who are new to Rocket Zena, especially so that the learning curve is minimized and they can focus on accomplishing the task. We process our system's payroll through Rocket Zena. The fact that it's a multi-process, multi-layered application, means that we can rely on the solution for kicking off processes, notifying user vendors of the steps, completions, error logging, and historic events from the previous run times. Rocket Zena's ability to automate jobs on the mainframe as a distribution workload automation solution is good. The solution continuously improves over time. We're eager to start the latest upgrade this coming year that'll put us on the cloud. Hopefully, this will improve the product even more. We can run things natively without the scheduler if needed. The solution working properly and up to date without the need for a mainframe scheduler is crucial. We use the solution to manage a few complex operational workflows end-to-end across multiple technology stacks. Rocket Zena does a great job of simplifying our cross-platform processes through automation. The solution helps speed operations up and keeps them automated allowing us to focus on other priorities. The solution helps increase our completion rates by working overnight to meet our SLAs. Rocket Zena completes 30 percent of our workload outside of our standard work hours. Rocket Zena's cross-platform job scheduling helped us save around 40 percent of programming time by automating repetitive tasks. We use the solution to transfer our current files and keep up with our infrastructure on a few automated jobs, such as refreshing our database which happens overnight. The solution helped free up around 15 percent of our engineer's time to focus on more value-added work.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The automation in Atomic Applications Manager has provided a solid return on investment as it has significantly reduced the time required for tasks that were previously manual, such as running batch and online jobs and report submissions."
"We have a lot of nightly jobs that need to be run. Therefore, we perform a lot of calculations and processes during nighttime hours."
"AppWorx Workload Automation's simplicity and powerful functionality are its most valuable features for us."
"Scheduling is a good feature."
"AppWorx isn't limited to Unix or Linux. We can set it up in Windows, AWS, or Azure environments. It's not dependent on any one particular environment."
"The solution is very user friendly so anyone can use it."
"The automated solution is the most valuable piece. Otherwise, we would have to be doing everything manually on every server."
"The most valuable features of AppWorx Workload Automation are simplicity and reliability. Additionally, they recently transformed the UI which is better."
"We haven't had any problems since we installed it. It runs as expected, we haven't had any critical problems. It helps keeps the business running 24/7."
"You can click Ctrl-G and bring a diagram view. You're able to view in a diagram format. The view that it provides is easy, and you can move to the left, up, or down. You can double-click on a certain process. It'll drill into that process and all of its underlying components. You can double-click on an arrow or a component, and it'll bring up a screen that'll have all the variables that are assigned to that particular piece, as well as the values at run time. So, the diagram feature of it, at least for me, is pretty valuable."
"From a Linux configuration point of view, Rocket Zena is straightforward. It's fairly easy to set up the server and agents once you know how to do it."
"I like the whole product, but specifically, I like the license part. It's very easy to acquire a license for this product."
"Its FTP feature is very good, as is scheduling any process or task with the Zena client. I have found it to be very helpful. If a task fails, it gives you a prompt."
"In the latest upgrade, Zena added a web-based client. The more I use it, the more I like it. It's an excellent interface. They do a good job of steadily improving the solution to make it more useful."
"I have found the scheduling feature the most valuable. I can map dependencies by using ASG-Zena. It gives a nice, quick visualization as to where things are."
"The most valuable feature is the FTP file transfer."
 

Cons

"AppWorx Workload Automation does not support mainframe environments, which limits its use for larger and older organizations like ours that still rely on mainframes."
"It has been a deprecated product, because it is so old. There has been a couple of new solutions that are a little more advanced."
"We are looking for additional features that would allow us to call APIs and integrate the product with other tools more effectively."
"Currently, I have switched to negotiating through third-party vendors for licensing, which has made it more expensive. Broadcom should address this by dealing directly with customers again."
"As a general process automation and integration tool, it has been superseded by other offerings, notably the Workload Automation suite."
"The scalability could improve."
"Reporting, forecasting and intelligence could be improved."
"It is not really scaling per say because they are not putting much into it. They are trying to push their new product."
"The documentation has room for improvement."
"Another one that is probably a little bit bigger for me is that when there is an issue or there's an error, it writes on a different screen. I have to find the actual process name and go to a different screen to view the alert that got generated. On that screen, everyone's processes, not just the processes of the folks in my department, are thrown. It takes me a while to find the actual error so that I could go in there and look at the alert. It could be because of the way it was set up, but at least for me, it isn't too intuitive."
"The scheduling mapping is a little disjointed. There is no wizard-type approach. There are a lot of different things that you have to do in completely different areas. They could probably add the functionality for creating all components of a mapping or an OPA schedule. The component creation could be done collectively rather than through individual components."
"The UI is not intuitive, and it would be nice if there was a web interface."
"One area where it could be improved is communication between the different servers. Sometimes there are processes that have already been completed but we get a status notification that they're still active."
"In the next release, I would like the user experience to be improved. The user interface should be more appealing to gen-z."
"In the web interface, it stacks the tasks across the top, and they accumulate until you close or clean those out. That seems a little cumbersome. You must right-click and close all tabs constantly to keep the console clean and manage your views."
"Rocket Zena is a mainframe-based job scheduler. I would like it to be more open so that we can use it on a distributed platform."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are satisfied with the pricing."
"The cost model is based on the number of orchestrated systems used."
"The price for annual licenses is a bit expensive so pricing is rated a two out of ten."
"Licensing options are fairly straightforward."
"The pricing and the licensing are good. It is affordable and can be used to improve and optimize productivity."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AppWorx Workload Automation?
Compared to other tools, it is now expensive. Licensing now depends on execution counts as opposed to agent counts, leading to increased costs.
What needs improvement with AppWorx Workload Automation?
Currently, I have switched to negotiating through third-party vendors for licensing, which has made it more expensive. Broadcom should address this by dealing directly with customers again. Licensi...
What is your primary use case for AppWorx Workload Automation?
In general, I use Atomic Applications Manager to manage our unique servers in our cloud infrastructure, specifically for support in our manufacturing industry. We are an enterprise and utilize many...
Do you have any tips for managing my company's modernization, without any disruptions?
Today, we will look at the legacy systems, the red flags that point at the system getting old and rusty, and the ways a reliable custom software. This guide: https://www.cleveroad.com/blog/legacy-s...
 

Also Known As

CA Automic Applications Manager
ASG-Zena
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Sandvik, Hanwha Life
Fraternidad Muprespa
Find out what your peers are saying about AppWorx Workload Automation vs. Rocket Zena and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.