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AWS Step Functions vs JAMS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
9.5
AWS Step Functions reduce development time and costs, enhance scalability and reliability, streamline workflows, and improve ROI.
Sentiment score
8.9
JAMS streamlines operations, reduces costs, enhances scalability, improves productivity, and allows developers to focus on development tasks.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
AWS Step Functions support is generally effective, especially for enterprise users, though experiences can vary for smaller organizations.
Sentiment score
9.6
JAMS customer service is praised for responsiveness, knowledge, and helpfulness, with high ratings despite occasional delays in support.
The speed of reply and the content of their responses usually solve the problems that arise.
I use enterprise support, which is excellent, providing responses within fifteen minutes.
They are very quick to respond depending on the issue's severity.
Their response is prompt, exemplifying how support should be.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
AWS Step Functions is scalable and adaptable, efficiently handling high demand and diverse business needs for various users.
Sentiment score
6.0
JAMS scales well for large businesses, handling high job volumes efficiently, with flexible licensing and robust failover capabilities.
They can handle multiple simultaneous requests effectively.
We might be underutilizing it, but as more jobs require processing, additional servers would be necessary.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
AWS Step Functions offers strong stability and reliability, ensuring uptime with contingency plans and integration of third-party services.
Sentiment score
7.8
JAMS is highly stable and reliable, with minimal issues, widely trusted for mission-critical operations across diverse conditions.
If one zone fails, others handle the demand, ensuring high availability.
We experience periods of major incidents annually due to capacity constraints, which result in job failures.
Being on the new version, there's been zero downtime.
 

Room For Improvement

AWS Step Functions needs better data handling, integration, pricing clarity, and dynamic coding to improve performance and usability.
JAMS needs better search, intuitive interface, enhanced documentation, error messaging, database support, source control, and C# developer resources.
There is room for improvement in terms of integration with other products.
Another area for improvement would be the addition of source control for jobs internally, as this feature would solve several problems for me.
A major improvement would be the integration of AI to help us accomplish various tasks.
 

Setup Cost

AWS Step Functions pricing is complex and variable, with mixed reviews on cost-effectiveness and integration benefits.
JAMS offers cost-effective, flexible licensing with scalable options, remaining more affordable than competitors despite recent pricing changes.
Pricing for Step Functions is very cheap.
The cost is average, provided it is configured correctly.
The price is fair considering the functionality and importance of the tool, although the increase did unsettle our management.
 

Valuable Features

AWS Step Functions simplify pipeline creation with integration, visualization, automation, and advanced workflows, enhancing application development and execution.
JAMS offers flexible scheduling, automation, robust monitoring, and cross-platform support, enhancing productivity with seamless notifications and custom integrations.
Step Functions provide seamless integration with AWS services, which enhances the speed of application development.
It was particularly valuable for its integration capabilities, allowing for execution of scripts and data migration.
AWS Step Functions offers advanced workflows that save time and enhance efficiency by reducing delays and ensuring consistent orchestration among various services.
This efficient feature has been invaluable, enabling us to streamline our workflow and enhance productivity.
The most valuable feature of JAMS is its user-friendly interface, especially after upgrading from version six to seven.
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS Step Functions
Ranking in Workload Automation
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (12th)
JAMS
Ranking in Workload Automation
5th
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 May 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of AWS Step Functions is 1.6%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of JAMS is 1.9%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alberto Marangon - PeerSpot reviewer
Automate complex workflows with seamless AWS integration
Step Functions provide seamless integration with AWS services, which enhances the speed of application development. The JSON app launched recently allows us to define data execution more easily. The Standard Workflows feature includes error replay capabilities, which are crucial for efficient error management. The Amazon State Language (ASL) in JSON format facilitates workflow automation and accelerates the deployment of Step Functions.
Rob Grafrath - PeerSpot reviewer
We can scale up our organization's scheduling and automation without having to add staff to the department
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 was hard-won knowledge. If I ever lose this developer, I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who could create JAMS custom execution methods 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. I really think that they could benefit greatly by being much more transparent about C# development, maybe by making a JAMS cookbook or a developer portal where they could throw ideas at each other. One of my complaints with the marketing around JAMS is that it says things like, "It integrates with Teams". They talk about integrating with a lot of things, but marketing doesn't tell you that they are talking about JAMS running PowerShell jobs. Since PowerShell can automate things like SharePoint and Teams, that is how marketing gets away with saying it has so many integrations. JAMS doesn't have as many built-in integrations as they advertise. I think they should build more of them, and improve on the ones they have built.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Healthcare Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon Step Functions?
The integration capability is easy, whereas building state machines is tricky.
What is your primary use case for Amazon Step Functions?
The primary use case was the execution of scripts and data migration related to data lakes. We were using Python and other AWS Step Functions ( /products/aws-step-functions-reviews ).
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon Step Functions?
I would recommend AWS Step Functions to others. Overall, I rate AWS Step Functions an eight out of ten.
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?
Fortra's JAMS pricing structure has deteriorated significantly since its acquisition by Fortra. Previously, both Help Systems and MVP offered more favorable pricing and licensing terms. However, Fo...
What needs improvement with JAMS?
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 co...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Amazon Step Functions, Step Functions
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Alpha Apps, The Guardian, SGK, Bigfinite
Teradata, Arconic, General Dynamics, Yum!, CVS Health, Comcast, Ghiradelli, & Boston’s Children’s Hospital
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Step Functions vs. JAMS and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.