AWS Step Functions vs Fortra's JAMS comparison

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Amazon Web Services (AWS) Logo
84 views|76 comparisons
75% willing to recommend
Fortra Logo
2,149 views|668 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between AWS Step Functions and Fortra's JAMS based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Workload Automation solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed AWS Step Functions vs. Fortra's JAMS Report (Updated: May 2024).
771,157 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The solution is stable...The solution is easy to scale.""It is a scalable solution.""AWS Step Functions acts as a high-level layer, allowing us to seamlessly integrate with microservices.""It's a general solution that you can adapt to your own needs and is simple to use. We like that it can be integrated with everything in the AWS suite, and that the creation of the pipeline can be done using the graphical user interface.""One can rate all the calls and that is a good feature.""It's Amazon, it's scalable.""What I like the most about Amazon Step Functions is how easy it is to use.""The number of historical events is great."

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"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.""It's a full-featured job scheduling tool. The part that I liked the best was the support team. This tool was new, and we were all learning it and setting up the different jobs that were complex in nature. Their support team was very responsive in helping us out through the setup and resolving the issues. They have been incredibly awesome.""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.""The planning capabilities are most valuable.""I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events.""Our company is based on data. Everything we do is data-driven, so it has been very valuable having one place where we can process all of the data and do batch schedules with chunks of data.""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 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."

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Cons
"The pricing of the solution can be improved.""The price and support are areas with shortcomings where the solution needs to improve.""I would like to see more data transformation features in Amazon Step Functions like additional operators and logic.""The solution's data size limit can be improved.""It wasn't easy to understand the licensing model. It's like if you use just a little, it's cheap, but it becomes more expensive as you use more. It's like a hook that ties you inside the Amazon ecosystem. So, it creates a dependency.""The interface can sometimes feel limited, as we're unable to see what AWS is running behind the scenes.""The solution's pricing could be cheaper. It is cheaper than Airflow.""Setup took about one day. We had some errors to understand in the beginning, but now everything is working good."

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"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.""The tabs in the JAMS file transfer could be clearer. It would help us demonstrate to our client that JAMS not only automates jobs but also does fast transfers, and it's an alternative that supports and filters different kinds of platforms. Filtering file transfers will be highly beneficial to them.""We have had a lot of people working from home who can't always connect to the JAMS server. We use VPN, as most companies do, and we have it set up so that everybody can access the JAMS server. But many times, our people cannot access it... JAMS could do a better job of telling you what the problem is when you try to log in to the server.""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.""If there were a softcover book on how to really take advantage of all of JAMS' tools, I would buy it. I do better with training books than online searching, so a book would be helpful.""The ACL or access permission area needs to be improved. When it comes to defining and providing security permissions, it's a bit confusing if you are new to JAMS. JAMS needs to improve the features for security access or permissions.""The documentation is not super... It's not as quick and slick as I'd like it to be.""As an admin, I would like to have a web-based GUI instead of a client application that we have to install on our PCs."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The solution's price is reasonable."
  • "The solution is expensive."
  • More AWS Step Functions Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It was $10,000 for the first year. Then, there is a maintenance cost for licensing every year that we get billed $5,000 for every year."
  • "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."
  • "This is a good product at a fair price."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "Our licensing is pretty cheap because we have a state solution. So, we pay only $1,000 a year."
  • "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."
  • More Fortra's JAMS Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:AWS Step Functions acts as a high-level layer, allowing us to seamlessly integrate with microservices.
    Top Answer:I was the second member to join a team tasked with creating a proof of concept. My responsibility was to demonstrate how to orchestrate microservices effectively using AWS Step Functions. Essentially… more »
    Top Answer:Orchestrating microservices with Step Functions provides a high-level abstraction for organizing entire workflows. This approach addresses the challenges that arise when working with multiple… more »
    Top Answer:I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events.
    Top Answer:JAMS is priced competitively compared to similar solutions and offers flexible licensing options to cater to user needs.
    Top Answer: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. Additionally, reintroducing… more »
    Ranking
    15th
    out of 51 in Workload Automation
    Views
    84
    Comparisons
    76
    Reviews
    6
    Average Words per Review
    508
    Rating
    7.7
    5th
    out of 51 in Workload Automation
    Views
    2,149
    Comparisons
    668
    Reviews
    20
    Average Words per Review
    1,443
    Rating
    9.2
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Amazon Step Functions, Step Functions
    Learn More
    Overview

    AWS Step Functions lets you coordinate multiple AWS services into serverless workflows so you can build and update apps quickly. Using Step Functions, you can design and run workflows that stitch together services such as AWS Lambda and Amazon ECS into feature-rich applications. Workflows are made up of a series of steps, with the output of one step acting as input into the next. Application development is simpler and more intuitive using Step Functions, because it translates your workflow into a state machine diagram that is easy to understand, easy to explain to others, and easy to change. You can monitor each step of execution as it happens, which means you can identify and fix problems quickly. Step Functions automatically triggers and tracks each step, and retries when there are errors, so your application executes in order and as expected.

    JAMS is an enterprise job scheduling and workload automation solution that manages IT processes – from simple batch processes and scripts, to cross-platform workflows that integrate jobs running on multiple servers and business applications. JAMS enables you to define, schedule, execute and monitor jobs from a single centralized console.

    JAMS can automate jobs on any platform - Windows, Linux, UNIX, IBM i, zOS, and OpenVMS and includes native application integrations to run jobs specific to databases, BI tools, and ERP systems. Its extensive automation features enable you to run jobs on any schedule, as well as trigger off the completion of other events. JAMS centrally monitors the status of all jobs, provides notifications of failure (or success), and maintains a detailed audit trail and log of every execution.

    JAMS helps enterprises eliminate the slack, security risks, and lack of visibility associated with trying to automate critical business processes with a jumble of homegrown, single-platform scheduling tools and scripts. Once jobs are centrally managed in JAMS, IT teams can rest assured that JAMS is managing the cross-platform workflows and delivering measurable results to the business.

    A Key Part of Fortra (the new face of HelpSystems) JAMS is proud to be part of Fortra’s comprehensive portfolio. Fortra simplifies today’s complex business landscape by bringing complementary products together to solve problems in innovative ways. These integrated, scalable solutions address the many challenges you face in streamlining your operations. With the help of JAMS Enterprise Job Scheduler and other solutions, Fortra is your relentless ally, here for you every step of the way on your automation journey.

    Sample Customers
    Alpha Apps, The Guardian, SGK, Bigfinite
    Teradata, Arconic, General Dynamics, Yum!, CVS Health, Comcast, Ghiradelli, & Boston’s Children’s Hospital
    Top Industries
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm29%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Insurance Company5%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm35%
    Government13%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Computer Software Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Manufacturing Company14%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Healthcare Company10%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business67%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise22%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise9%
    Large Enterprise77%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business41%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise37%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise63%
    Buyer's Guide
    AWS Step Functions vs. Fortra's JAMS
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Step Functions vs. Fortra's JAMS and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    771,157 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    AWS Step Functions is ranked 15th in Workload Automation with 9 reviews while Fortra's JAMS is ranked 5th in Workload Automation with 27 reviews. AWS Step Functions is rated 7.8, while Fortra's JAMS is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of AWS Step Functions writes "Simplifies complex task automation and enhances development workflows while offering user-friendly interface, seamless scalability and efficient workflow orchestration". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortra's JAMS writes "We can scale up our organization's scheduling and automation without having to add staff to the department". AWS Step Functions is most compared with Camunda, IBM BPM, Apache Airflow, Pega BPM and Oracle BPM, whereas Fortra's JAMS is most compared with Control-M, AutoSys Workload Automation, Tidal by Redwood, Redwood RunMyJobs and VisualCron. See our AWS Step Functions vs. Fortra's JAMS report.

    See our list of best Workload Automation vendors.

    We monitor all Workload Automation reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.