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AutoSys Workload Automation vs JAMS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 8, 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

AutoSys Workload Automation
Ranking in Workload Automation
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
JAMS
Ranking in Workload Automation
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of AutoSys Workload Automation is 10.2%, down from 16.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of JAMS is 2.0%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
JAMS2.0%
AutoSys Workload Automation10.2%
Other87.8%
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Antony Askew - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps us manage complex workloads, reduce our workload failure rates, and save us time
The visibility and control features are somewhat limited. This is a recognized weakness, but thee vendor is currently revamping the user interface to address it. While the current UI is a bit outdated, it's undergoing improvement. AutoSys Workload Automation has some areas for improvement, particularly in housekeeping and product maintenance. These tasks are currently quite manual and labor-intensive for our team. Additionally, the reporting and forecasting functionalities could be more robust. One area for improvement with AutoSys Workload Automation is that it comprises several distinct tools configured to work together. This necessitates familiarity with multiple tools for effective solution management. Consequently, it can sometimes lack a sense of cohesiveness as a unified solution.
Patrick Norton - PeerSpot reviewer
Support has been among the most helpful and knowledgeable we've ever worked with but performance monitoring needs improvement
The monitoring of the JAMS product and its performance is an area of concern for me. I also need better tools to adopt version seven. Another area for improvement would be the addition of source control for jobs internally, as this feature would solve several problems for me. JAMS has some quirks. It has a bit of a learning curve. Some exceptions are not intuitive, such as when a job is terminated due to exceeding its defined runaway time limit. This generates a misleading exception message that is difficult for new users to understand and requires experience to interpret correctly. Stalled jobs present a unique challenge, particularly when pushing a system like JAMS version six to its limits. While rare, these instances occur when jobs become unresponsive despite appearing in API queries but not in the monitoring console. Although workarounds exist, they highlight the need for improved native monitoring capabilities within JAMS. Currently, the system assumes flawless operation, necessitating supplemental monitoring tools to detect issues like excessive pending or stalled jobs, ensuring timely intervention by our teams.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use CA Workload Automation AE r11.3.6 to automate enterprise-wide scheduling and file transfers using an FTP plugin."
"Autosys is one of the oldest products in the market, and it has been around for quite a long time, close to 20 to 25 years."
"Running anything in crontab, you need to put a lot of logic into it to make it work. With this product, you don't have to worry about it. You have the schedule object where you put all the dates or holidays in it, and it does it for you."
"The benefits I have seen from AutoSys Workload Automation are significant; I would say it is about ease of administration."
"The most valuable feature of AutoSys Workload Automation is user-friendliness. If someone has some knowledge of the tool they can use it."
"It gives a real-time view of all the batch processing that we have. Monitoring-wise, it is really good."
"AutoSys Workload Automation is scalable."
"The most valuable feature of AutoSys Workload Automation is batch processing."
"The overall product is fantastic. I love it. It has been a fantastic, solid product. If I have one tiny bit of a problem with it, the support team gets in touch with me right away. I don't know if I've had another service that has been as fantastic as the JAMS support team."
"The fact that we no longer need to use Excel spreadsheets is huge. Before JAMS, every group was keeping track of their own batch jobs. Nobody really knew what the other jobs were. So, if jobs failed, other groups wouldn't necessarily know. With JAMS, everything is done through a single scheduler. You can choose who to notify."
"The ability to sequence jobs is excellent; it means we don't have to schedule them individually, and if one fails, it doesn't unwind the entire workflow."
"The planning capabilities are most valuable."
"The alerting in it is really targeted... you can set specific alerting so that if jobs in a given folder fail, certain people are alerted. You can also set security at the folder level, so that only people in those areas can go set them. That means that the alerting and security can be set at a very granular level."
"JAMS has improved my organization by taking a myriad of manual processes and allowing us to automate them. It enables our folks to focus more on tasks that require their human intelligence and their creativity and less on just mundane tasks. It increases efficiency, accuracy, and consistency."
"Previously, we manually managed file transfers by writing our scripts. The automated MFT feature is great for me and the company. It helps us know where the files are going and enables us to track errors if anything fails. It also makes the connection seamless for third-party vendors."
"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."
 

Cons

"The scalability is poor because I cannot use it for all automation solutions."
"Quick search feature and job analysis could be improved."
"Documentation and cross-application externals could be improved."
"The visibility and control features are somewhat limited."
"Performance improvements in the UI would be appreciated."
"To make it a lot more user-friendly, in order to make it so other people can use it without having to do much training with it; the more user-friendly it is, the easier it is to work with."
"I would like to see two-factor authentication, since you see a lot of companies in the news for security breaches. That is a really big thing for us."
"The solution could improve by having support for container environments."
"The product does not allow the users to cut and paste the job names from the screen."
"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."
"The only thing that they could improve on is the fact that they don't have a browser version of JAMS. They've got all the bits and pieces there if you want to build your own web version of it. It does come with a web client, but it's pretty clunky. They could improve on that."
"Fortra is getting much better with documentation and examples, but there is still room for improvement."
"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."
"Improvements could be made in the service desk's knowledge and communication skills among engineers to better address customer needs and ensure issues are fully resolved."
"The client is horrible. Every time JAMS puts out a survey on what they can improve, I always say, "The client: When you are setting up jobs, it is quite horrible." The response has been, "Well, we are just using the Windows foundation," and I am like, "Why isn't it only your product?" We can get around it now that we know its quirks, but it is not the most user-friendly of tools out there. The UI is completely unintuitive. We had to go and open up a support ticket with JAMS just to get something back. It is not user-friendly at all."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The return on investment would be very high because doing things manually without this product would be extremely expensive."
"CA pricing has been a problem, and not looked upon favorably here at all."
"Validate how many agents you need beforehand."
"We paid to use the solution monthly."
"The pricing needs to be improved. Some of my client's complained that it was too expensive."
"The price of this solution is reasonable and there is an annual license required."
"I certainly think the pricing is worth the value."
"There is an annual license to use AutoSys Workload Automation."
"The product is reasonably priced, and we don't have any add-ons."
"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's expensive, to be honest, but it does the job."
"I haven't been involved in the financial side for several years, but we buy one host and unlimited agents, and we get a reasonable price for that. We're happy with the amount we pay and the scalability it provides."
"The pricing of JAMS has not been an issue for us, as it has allowed us to save time."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
46%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
6%
Insurance Company
5%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise77
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

How does Control-M compare with AutoSys Workload Automation?
Control-M acts as a single, centralized interface for monitoring and managing all batch processes, which is helpful because nothing gets left unattended since it is all visible in one place, and th...
What do you like most about AutoSys Workload Automation?
The most valuable aspects of AutoSys Workload Automation are its performance, scalability, and ease of getting started for new users.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AutoSys Workload Automation?
The solution is costly. The pricing is based on the number of users, which for me, translates to approximately $120,000 to $130,000 for a license period of two to three years.
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 functionality and importance of the tool, although the increase did unsettle our management.
What needs improvement with JAMS?
A major improvement would be the integration of AI to help us accomplish various tasks. AI could assist in simplifying operations and could potentially enhance the tool's capabilities.
 

Also Known As

CA Workload Automation, CA Workload Automation AE
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Gaumont, Mercantil do Brasil, CCEE, Hanwha Life
Teradata, Arconic, General Dynamics, Yum!, CVS Health, Comcast, Ghiradelli, & Boston’s Children’s Hospital
Find out what your peers are saying about AutoSys Workload Automation vs. JAMS and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.