Control-M vs Stonebranch vs Tidal by Redwood comparison

Read 26 Stonebranch reviews

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2,832 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Tidal by Redwood

Read 37 Tidal by Redwood reviews

2,380 Views
2,356 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Control-M

Tidal by Redwood

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Control-M, Stonebranch, and Tidal by Redwood based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about BMC, Broadcom, Redwood Software and others in Workload Automation.

To learn more, read our detailed Workload Automation Report (Updated: August 2025).

Workload Automation

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Helped 866,300 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of Control-M is 19.9%, down from 26.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Stonebranch is 4.9%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tidal by Redwood is 4.6%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Control-M	19.9%
Tidal by Redwood	4.6%
Stonebranch	4.9%
Other	70.6%

Workload Automation

Featured Reviews

Mark_Francome

Senior System Specialist at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Easily connects to different platforms and ties everything together in a centralized screen

Areas of Control-M that have room for improvement include the reporting feature. The reporting on Control-M hasn't changed much over the years, although it is in a different internal format. It used to be Crystal Reports, and now they've upgraded that. It would be better if that was really flexible where you could define your own reports. You can customize it a little bit, but when people come in with complex questions, you should be able to use that tool and access anything in the database. Control-M has two internal databases that are core to the product. You can go in and do your own SQL queries against the database, but this reporting tool should really be able to do everything that you can do with SQL, and give you good information. Instead, you end up having to export to spreadsheets and then change and update them. It can be very labor-intensive to get this information out. Other than the reporting, they've addressed most things over the years. Control-M is a tool that's been around for more than 30 years, so they have actually fixed most issues that you would encounter. They have a request for enhancement process that most users have sent requests to, but it doesn't move very quickly. The other challenge is they're supporting so many different platforms; BMC just wants it to be a trouble-free release. When users request new features, such as improved reporting, BMC's priority remains maintaining a clean-running system.

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Siddharth Matalia

Senior Technical Specialist at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Good GUI and has helpful support but needs a mobile app

This was a migration project where we provided our database, the previous one, and there was a tool that automatically converted the awarded job into Stonebranch. All the conversion was done from the Stonebranch side, and we got a person as well from Stonebranch during migration. There was a person who worked with us a decade back for the AutoSys install as well. He was well aware of our environment, so he helped us a lot. It was easy. It was not that complex. It is much more GUI. That said, we are looking for how the various automation can be done since, through command lines, you can create a number of jobs. While you are creating a single job, it takes 15 minutes with the GUI, however, if you go for the command line, within two or three minutes, your job gets completed. We have built our own solution for automation using some REST API and all those various integrations. It is working for our organization right now. However, we are requesting some kind of solution from Stonebranch. They should have been providing that to us already. For deployment, three or four people were engaged with the setup on their side. To manage everything, they provided us with a person who required help to manage it. Eventually, since it was a cloud platform on their side, if there is some configuration necessary, which they do it. They get a notification, and they fix it very immediately if there is an issue. The response time is very good from their side, and we don't have to worry about maintenance.

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Steve Mikula

IT Scheduling Manager at Paychex, Inc.

Very reliable processing engine, and scheduling is flawless—crucial elements in our financial transaction processing

Because we've been on it for 20 years, it's pretty easy for us to automate jobs with Tidal at this point. It has become second nature. It's pretty simplistic to set up and get going, although there are different levels of complexity you can have within the product. It depends on how simple you want to keep it. If you just keep it: Job A, Job B, Job C, Job D, that becomes pretty simple. But when you start integrating some complex calendars that use sub-calendars—and you can go three, four, or five deep to set up schedules—it becomes more complicated. The beauty of it is you can go as deep as you need to. We can get really complex or we can keep it simple. We have some use cases for both scenarios. The thing that I like the most is the reliability of the engine. The actual scheduling part of the product is pretty much flawless, but the stability of the product is what I find to be reassuring. We are a financial company, we move billions of dollars a day, and if we don't have our transactions processed in a timely manner we can be penalized and our clients can be penalized. It can have a serious financial impact.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Our data transfers have improved using Control-M processes, e.g., our monthly batches. When we used to do things manually, like copying files and reports, we used to take three to four days to complete a batch. However, with the automated file transfers and report sharing, we have been able to complete a batch within two and a half days and our reports are on time to users. So, 30% to 40% of the execution time has been saved."

"Speeds up processes and automated tasks."

"The unified view where you can define, orchestrate, and monitor applications, workflows, and data pipelines is important because we have more than one team working on Control-M. We have a support team, a job-creation team, and a SAP team. We can all work together on it. It avoids anyone from working on his part and not using the latest modifications."

"It integrates seamlessly with other tools within our ecosystem."

"Helix Control-M has contributed to the overall stability of our applications and improved user experience."

"I am proud to say almost all of the banks in South Africa are using it."

"Technical support is very helpful and available 24/7."

"Control-M has improved application reliability and the SLAs in our company by quite a bit. You can see if problems are coming. If we have an SLA in a couple of hours, we know well before that couple hours if processing is behind, and it allows us to take some preventative action."

More Control-M pros

"When it comes to agent technology and compatibility with other vendors, from a platform perspective it was the one vendor that fit all the platforms that we have, from your old platforms - mainframe, NSK, IBM i - to the new ones, going into cloud and container"

"Stonebranch performs well, and the graphical representation is excellent. Overall, it requires more technical effort from our teams, but the solution is intuitive, so anybody can use it."

"I love the Universal Controller. It's been great for us. We host it on-premise... It's High Availability, meaning there's failover from one server to the other if one goes down."

"I have found the agents to be so much simpler, when compared to ESP."

"We like that it has GUI and is not just a command line."

"The ability to monitor tasks that are on the open-system side as well as our mainframe side gives us a one-window view of all our processes."

"The Universal Agent is the most valuable feature. Being agent-based and being able to go across multiple technology stacks, which is what our workflows do, Stonebranch gives us the ability to bridge those disparate technologies. It enables us to remove the dependency-gap with the agent so we know the status of the workflow at each step."

"The features are upgraded, and every six months they're releasing patches."

More Stonebranch pros

"The Graphical Views feature is also very good for helping us to understand a job stream. It's great for providing a visual overview of the status of a workflow, especially the Critical Path view. That is one of our favorites."

"The first, big thing that we got out of using Tidal Workload Automation was having a centralized view of the status of all of our batch processes across all these systems... We can look into the schedule at any given time and see if things are running on track or if they are falling behind. We can also see if something failed."

"Tidal Automation is very efficient and can quickly automate most manual and repetitive tasks."

"For us, the calendaring system is very robust. Some of the teams have very specific requests for when they need jobs to run. That's been really valuable, because a lot of times, when people run scripts, if they run on a holiday, they're going to fail... A couple of times a month it probably saves us work and the necessity of logging in from home and checking to make sure everything's okay."

"It's easy to use and easy to administer, and it's very flexible."

"We wouldn't be able to do many of the complex scheduling that we do today without it. For us, it is a mission-critical app. Because if it doesn't work or has a problem, then SAP doesn't function. It is that critical. So, it's an essential tool for us to manage and run SAP jobs."

"The data management on offer was valuable."

"Tidal Automation by Redwood is a user-friendly solution."

More Tidal by Redwood pros

Cons

"The licensing cost can be improved."

"Some of the features are not available. We were about to deploy the REST API, but we had some challenges. We had to use a third-party application. So, it should be improved in terms of integrating REST API jobs. That was something that was lacking. The customer was not that happy in terms of getting the desired output. So, we had to use a third-party application called Hangfire. We would like to have more videos on REST API integration, and we would like to have easy integration with the Control-M application through the REST API."

"I do not have any specific suggestions for additional features that should be included in the next release."

"I would like to see more auditing capabilities. Right now, it has the basics and I've been trying to set those up to work with what our auditors are looking for."

"They can improve their interface."

"The next major release needs to focus on the lightweight web client."

"There is definitely room for improvement. Version 9.0.20 actually comes with a web-based interface, but there are still a lot of things unavailable with it. There will eventually be more inclusions added into the web interface, but there is still a long way to go."

"Control-M could be improved on the reporting side. There can be better reporting on tasks and better dashboard capabilities for activities being completed. At the moment, it's a bit cumbersome if you receive an error message. There isn't a central place where you can view all of that."

More Control-M cons

"There is a component called the OMS, which is the message broker. We rely on infrastructure, resiliency, and availability for that piece. If that could change to be highly available just as a software component, so that we don't have to provide the high-available storage, etc. for it, that would be a plus. It would just be cheaper to run."

"Stonebranch Universal Automation Center could improve the analytics."

"Occasionally, we have an agent that doesn't come back up after patching. That doesn't happen very often... It's really just a restart of the agent and it comes back up. But that might be one thing that could be improved."

"One hiccup we've had is due to the fact that we have other internal scheduling tools. We're able to talk to them, but we have trouble with some of the networking between them, so we're still trying to work out the kinks there."

"It would be ideal if they had the exact same features as the CA Workload Automation DE series. It would be helpful to have calendaring options."

"The Universal Controller is decent for the money it costs... It needs some work to have full features, compared to other products that are out there, specifically IBM's Workload Scheduler."

"It can be hard to manage the task monitor."

"There is room for improvement with its connectivity with the Microsoft SRS system. It is very weak. They keep telling us it works with it, and technically it does, but it does not provide a lot of visibility. We have lost a lot of visibility migrating to Stonebranch, compared with just running tasks on the SRS server. That's really about the only thing that is a sore point for us."

More Stonebranch cons

"Tidal's adaptability and user-friendliness could be increased by integrating it with additional programmes and platforms."

"Their software installation and update process could use some improvements. I'm pretty sure they're working on that, but that's definitely an area where it could be streamlined a lot. There's still a lot of manual work that you have to do with the schedule when you deploy masters or do the agents."

"The job failure alerts can be updated with more details for better troubleshooting."

"Understanding and using Tidal Automation could be overwhelming for someone with minimal programming language."

"With the client, we have had certain issues. The user interface for Tidal is a little slow. A lot of people would love this tool if they had a faster user interface. The drill-down functionality should be much quicker than what it is pulling out now. If I fill out some data, then it takes awhile to get that data back onto the screen. It's not as fast as we were expecting."

"From an administrative point of view, I wouldn't give really high marks to the solution. I actually entertained getting the JAWS application at one point. One of the shortcomings with the scheduler is the reporting capabilities. At least at the time, JAWS was the best that they had for a third-party integration. I think they've got things in the pipeline to help alleviate that gap."

"Tidal Automation could be further integrated with other systems used in the operation of tidal energy systems, such as weather forecasting tools, energy management systems, or asset management software."

"They can do better reporting in terms of production statistics reporting."

More Tidal by Redwood cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In our environment, pricing depends on the total number of maximum jobs that can run, which is fine. Therefore, if the number of jobs increases, then the licensing fees will increase."

"The license model is based on the number of jobs we run on the SaaS application or the number of executions, unlike the on-premise model options. If we have a handful of jobs, it's always good to consider Control-M, but if it's a large number of jobs, Control-M might not be a great option."

"For the tooling that you get, the licensing is acceptable. It has competitive pricing, especially with all the value that you get out of it. There are additional costs with some of the additional modules, but they are all electives. Out of the box, you get the standard Control-M experience and the standard license. They're not forcing some of the modules on you. If you decide that you do need them, you can always purchase those separately."

"They are expensive. If we were a small company, it would be complicated because we have to have strong sales and operations to be able to afford a tool of this level. Being a large company, the cost-benefit is covered, but it is not within the level of cheap solutions."

"Its pricing and licensing could be a little bit better. Based on my experience and discussions with other existing customers, everybody feels that the regular Managed File Transfer piece, not the enterprise one, is a little overpriced, especially for folks who already have licensed Advanced File Transfer. We understand that Advanced File Transfer is going away and is going to be the end of life, and there is some additional functionality built into MFT, but the additional functionality does not really correlate with the huge price increase over what we're paying for AFT already. This has actually driven a lot of people to look for alternative solutions."

"There are two different types of licenses available. The first is based on the number of jobs that we run per day, and the other is based on the number of agents that we install. My current project has a contract for five years."

"Licensing costs are around $3000 a year."

"One of the restrictions that we had was with some of the licensing, and not having any insight on the financials part of the product. I don't know what the licensing on the product is, but we don't have an unlimited enterprise license. So, there might be a limitation on either the cost of the licensing or the number of seats."

More Control-M pricing and cost advice

"Outside of licensing fees, there aren't any other costs."

"The price of the solution is at a medium level compared to the competition."

"When we reviewed this solution against other vendors, Stonebranch blew everybody out of the water in terms of cost."

"Stonebranch is cheaper than Control-M, so many companies are using Stonebranch."

"I don't have pricing information, but I do know it's cheaper than our old legacy system. Other than the standard licensing fees there are no additional costs."

"There have been pricing increases, but with the reduction that our company obtained from Tidal this year, the pricing has become very acceptable for this type of product."

"They work with you on licensing. So, it has been great. Everybody has different licensing, but I've had good luck with the licensing. They've been very accommodating. You basically need to buy a license for each physical server, but then you're allowed an unlimited number of virtual servers."

"The solution enables admins and users to see the information relevant to them, but this is bundled as an add-on that we would have to pay for."

"The pricing is pretty reasonable. That seems to help a lot versus other companies. There are no other fees aside from the standard licensing fees. There are other products out there where you pay based on how many jobs you run and so on, and I know that's very frustrating for users."

"We think the pricing is very fair. We have been happy with the pricing compared to some of the other solutions in the space."

"Right now, we are in a good position with the licensing model that we have with the Tidal vendor. So, we won't have any issues. even if we double in our current production. Initially, Tidal provided us some specs where if you have these number of jobs, then you come under this category. They usually provide a range of jobs from 2,000 to 10,000. You can use these specs for your infrastructure. Whether you have 2,000 or 8,000 jobs, Tidal should support it."

"This solution is a bit expensive in the current world where everybody is trying to cut down on certain things."

"Tidal is a low-cost tool and not expensive in comparison to other tools."

More Tidal by Redwood pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

26%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

25%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	24
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	108

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	1
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	22

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	38

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 b...

What do you like most about Control-M?

First of all, the shift from manual to automation has been valuable. We have a tool that can automate.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Control-M?

Its cost can be more competitive. One of the main things customers look at is the cost. It's not affordable. The cost...

What do you like most about Tidal Automation?

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Tidal Automation by Redwood is a user-friendly solution.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tidal Automation?

The price is reasonable in terms of the product’s functionality.

What needs improvement with Tidal Automation?

Initially, it is complicated to understand the functionalities as there is limited product documentation. The setup a...

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Control-M

Comparisons

Compared 13% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Control-M

Compared 8% of the time

Automic Automation vs Control-M

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs Control-M

Compared 6% of the time

Rundeck vs Control-M

Compared 3% of the time

More Control-M Competitors

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Stonebranch

Compared 16% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Stonebranch

Compared 11% of the time

ESP Workload Automation Intelligence vs Stonebranch

Compared 7% of the time

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs Stonebranch

Compared 6% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs Stonebranch

Compared 4% of the time

More Stonebranch Competitors

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 30% of the time

Automic Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 9% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 8% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 8% of the time

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 4% of the time

More Tidal by Redwood Competitors

Product Reports

Control-M

Download Control-M product report

Download Stonebranch product report

Tidal by Redwood

Download Tidal by Redwood product report

Also Known As

Control M

Stonebranch Universal Automation Center

Tidal Workload Automation, Cisco Workload Automation, Tidal Enterprise Scheduler

Interactive Demo

BMC

Demo not available

Tidal Software by Redwood

Demo not available

Overview

Control-M by BMC offers orchestration for hybrid cloud workflows, starting at $29,000 annually. It's designed for teams managing dependencies efficiently with automation and scheduling capabilities.

Control-M is known for its automation, integration, and scheduling capabilities. It provides a user-friendly GUI for seamless third-party application integration and robust file transfer capabilities. Role-based administration features, self-service portals, and the ability to handle complex workflows enhance operational efficiency. Its control modules enable diverse integrations, while forecasting, monitoring, and alerting functionalities improve reliability and adaptability across platforms, making it essential for orchestrating tasks efficiently.

What are Control-M's key features?

User-Friendly GUI: Offers intuitive interface for easy navigation.
Seamless Third-Party Integration: Facilitates smooth interaction with other tools.
Robust File Transfer: Ensures reliable and secure data movement.
Role-Based Administration: Enhances security and access control.
Self-Service Portal: Enables users to manage tasks independently.
Forecasting and Monitoring: Provides predictive insights for better planning.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Operational Efficiency: Streamlines processes and reduces manual tasks.
Improved Reliability: Minimizes errors with automated workflows.
Real-Time Insights: Offers visibility into job performance and system status.
Scalability: Adapts to growing business needs.
Integration Flexibility: Supports diverse applications and environments.

Control-M is vital in industries like financial services, data management, and IT operations. It automates batch processing, job automation, and file transfers, supporting applications such as SAP, Oracle, and Informatica. This enhances transparency, reduces errors, and provides insights into job performance and system status.

BMC

Stonebranch automates enterprise-level workload and task scheduling across platforms like Linux, Windows, and mainframe, managing thousands of daily tasks for improved efficiency and visibility.

Stonebranch enables organizations to streamline job scheduling by replacing older systems with a robust solution that automates complex workflows, batch processing, and secure file transfers. Its compatibility with multiple platforms and enhanced visibility aid teams in efficiently managing business processes, database interactions, and IT workflows. Equipped with a Universal Controller and Agent, it provides seamless integration across diverse systems, empowering users with greater control over their tasks. While it fosters digital transformation, there are opportunities for enhancements in areas like graphical workflow overviews and API functionality.

What features does Stonebranch offer?

User-friendly interface for intuitive navigation
Robust agents ensuring reliable task execution
Comprehensive workflow automation tools
Platform-agnostic compatibility for diverse systems
Secure file transfer capabilities
High scalability for growing needs
Effective error handling features

What benefits should users expect?

Improved efficiency in task management
Streamlined processes reducing operational complexities
Enhanced visibility and control over workflows
Seamless integration with existing systems
Support for digital transformation initiatives

Organizations in industries such as finance and healthcare implement Stonebranch for its ability to automate complex processes, manage mainframe and distributed environments, and securely transfer sensitive data. Its platform-agnostic nature caters to the demanding needs of these industries, providing a reliable backbone for essential operations.