Control-M vs Tidal by Redwood comparison

BMC and Tidal Software by Redwood are both solutions in the Workload Automation category. BMC is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4, while Tidal Software by Redwood is ranked #14 with an average rating of 9.0. BMC holds a 17.7% mindshare in WA, compared to Tidal Software by Redwood’s 4.8% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of BMC users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Tidal Software by Redwood users who would recommend it.

Control-M

Read 139 Control-M reviews

19,898 Views
14,725 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Tidal by Redwood

Read 37 Tidal by Redwood reviews

2,192 Views
2,170 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Control-M

Tidal by Redwood

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 21, 2025

Control-M and Tidal by Redwood are leading competitors in IT automation, especially in job scheduling and workload management. Control-M's strength seems to lie in its comprehensive feature set, making it highly suitable for complex environments, while Tidal offers notable flexibility and cost-effectiveness that can appeal to businesses focusing on cross-platform operations.

Features: Control-M provides a rich array of features including a Virtual Terminal specifically for AS400, extensive support for SAP and Informatica integrations, and high availability with robust reporting. It also facilitates proactive monitoring with tools like BIM. Tidal by Redwood focuses on customizability with advanced calendaring, complex dependency management, and robust integration across various platforms, including support for VMs, making it versatile for diverse IT setups.

Room for Improvement: Control-M users suggest enhancements in output analysis, reporting capabilities, and application integrations, along with more user-friendly upgrade compatibility checks. Tidal by Redwood could improve its intuitive user interfaces and streamline its Transporter and API integrations, along with enhancing the overall user experience for easier navigation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Control-M offers diverse deployment options including on-premises, hybrid, and public cloud environments, supported by strong technical assistance, though complex issues occasionally face resolution delays. Tidal by Redwood offers flexible deployment and a simple licensing model, receiving high praise for customer service despite an initial learning curve for new users.

Pricing and ROI: Control-M, while high-end in cost, is justified by its feature-rich platform offering substantial ROI through automation efficiencies, although its task-based licensing might deter smaller enterprises. Tidal by Redwood is seen as more cost-effective due to its transparent pricing and flexible licensing, providing a scalable investment option with favorable ROI through seamless IT integration.

To learn more, read our detailed Control-M vs. Tidal by Redwood Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Control-M vs. Tidal by Redwood

September 2025

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Helped 873,003 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:

Categories and Ranking

Control-M

Ranking in Workload Automation

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

139

Ranking in other categories

Process Automation (2nd), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (4th)

Tidal by Redwood

Ranking in Workload Automation

14th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of Control-M is 17.7%, down from 26.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tidal by Redwood is 4.8%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Control-M	17.7%
Tidal by Redwood	4.8%
Other	77.5%

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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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

"It provides a unified view where you can orchestrate and monitor all your application workloads and data pipelines. That's very important because with cloud, software as a service, edge computing, traditional data center, and legacy apps, there are all these environments. If you don't have that single pane of glass or that one place to look at, you're going to invest a lot of time and resources into tracking things down when they go wrong."

"Control-M is an orchestration tool that provides a broad and complete vision of your environment, integrates many different heterogeneous technologies, is easy to use with numerous native integrations, and offers audit and governance capabilities on the platform."

"Control-M is a very powerful tool and very dynamic and helps us a lot on a daily basis."

"Control-M processes about 10,000 jobs starting every day in our production environment, and adding new jobs is very simple."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"Control-M is useful to automate all critical and non-critical processes. Using Control-M, we can automate application workflows as well as file transfers involved in application workflows. We can also use it to run batches related to applications. Automating these processes reduces the RTO and RPO, which helps in the case of failures. It also helps us to identify bottlenecks and take corrective measures."

"If they have ad hoc requirements, then they can theoretically schedule their own file transfers with the Self Service. We are trying to push as much work back to the customers or developers that have that requirement, because they prefer to help themselves, if possible. We try empowering them and enabling them through Control-M, especially for file transfers, because it is a much broader base of the business then just with batch scheduling. Typically, with SAP batch scheduling, it would work with dedicated teams. With file transfers, the entire business is involved. There are business users, end users, etc. It definitely needs to be as simple as possible and as managed as well as possible. They need to manage it themselves, if possible, because our team is not growing but the number of customers, applications, and jobs are growing. We need to hand back some of the responsibility to the customer for them to resolve and action it."

"The most effective feature of Control-M is the API integration."

More Control-M pros

"We use the solution for cross-platform, cross-application workloads. That's the biggest use for us and that's the biggest advantage."

"Tidal helps administrators and users to see the information that is relevant to them in that single pane of glass. They can see jobs running, they can see job history, and they can see job progression. If you look at alternatives like Airflow and clouds, you'd have to design your own UI to monitor the progress of the different jobs that you've created in Airflow. So Tidal is huge for us."

"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."

"Tidal Automation software provides real-time monitoring and alerts, allowing users to track job progress and identify potential issues before they cause delays or errors."

"Tidal Workload Automation Software provides the ability to quickly adapt to changing business requirements."

"From a management standpoint, when using the solution for cross-platform, cross-application workloads, I've never had a problem with the application. It's very interactive, especially with the different security levels that they offer."

"Tidal Automation offers extensive monitoring and reporting features that let users keep track of the status of their workflows and quickly spot any problems."

"With other tools, you do not have the ability to schedule jobs on their own. You need to create a group and then assign everything to that group. Only then will the job be able to execute. In Tidal, you can schedule a single job and there is no need to create a group. That's what I like the most."

More Tidal by Redwood pros

Cons

"The UI can be challenging for new users due to its learning curve."

"Support is one aspect that they really need to improve. Though we receive support for current versions, the challenge arises when working in large organizations with legacy workflows or applications, typically 10 to 20% of the total."

"With the current version update, I'm not sure why we needed a separate database upgrade. Why not put it all in one package? Previously, you could do it either via a manual upgrade or an in-place upgrade but it wasn't separate."

"The MFT applications should have more functionality and flexibility within that tool. Having more flexibility with that tool for handling the one to many or many to one concept. Like being able to take data from one source and push it to many locations or pull data from many locations and bring it back into a single source. That's why we still use our TPS program for the file transfers just because we don't have some of those capabilities available to us within MFT."

"There should be an expansion in storing more data as it currently provides data storage for only up to 60 days."

"The biggest improvement they could have is better QA testing before releases come out the door."

"We have some plug-ins like BOBJ, and we need a little improvement there. Other than that, it has been pretty good. I haven't seen any issues."

"A Control-M on-prem license is based on the number of jobs, which is the number of tasks a particular customer wants to have. These tasks have to be run within 24 hours window. For example, if you have a license for 100 jobs, you can run a maximum of 100 jobs in a 24-hour window. If your operations could not run 10 jobs, and they ran only 90 jobs, they just carry over to the next day, but the next day, they will have 110 jobs. Control-M asks you to buy those 10 more licenses because you were out of compliance in terms of the number of licenses. This is something that needs to be indicated in Control-M GUI so that customers know the number of licenses they're going to use in this time window. Their support and documentation should be improved. I am not that satisfied with their customer support. Sometimes, they don't have the answers. Their documentation is very poor. It is not well written, and it is not in a very logical manner. You can use it on Unix, Linux, Windows, and AIX, but it needs some improvement on iSeries. It needs a built-in mechanism inside the system to give you an option to restore from the last point of failure. If a process crashes, the Control-M needs to have a mechanism in iSeries where the process can be restored from the last point of failure."

More Control-M cons

"One of the weaknesses of the product is, when something happens, it's difficult to find out the root cause. There are a lot of logs you can take a look at in Tidal. Sometimes, they are useful, but other times, they're not. That is mostly relegated to the administrative team. Users for the most part don't see that and don't know anything about that. They just know they have a problem, then it's up to the administrative team to see what happened and figure out the problem."

"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."

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

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

"I'm still hoping with Explorer to be able to see end-to-end job streams. That's not really something that's easy to see today in the web client. However, I haven't worked with Explorer yet. One of the things that we have found frustrating is not being able to see an end-to-end job stream across multiple applications within Tidal. We use jobs for that right now, but I have high hopes that we'll be able to see that in Explorer."

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

"Some users have complained that the initial setup process is complicated and time-consuming, while others have suggested that the software could offer more freedom in customizing processes."

"For the most part, the drill-down and the logging are really good. But if we take an Informatica job, for example: We have the ability, and the operators have the ability, to actually drill down and see, at a session level, where the failure is. There is, unfortunately, no way to extract that into an actual output email or failure email. It's not that that information is not available, but extracting it into an email would be a nice-to-have."

More Tidal by Redwood cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"Initially, our licensing model was based on the number of jobs per day. That caused some issues because we were restricted to a number. So at our renewal time we said, 'We want to convert from number of jobs to number of endpoints.' That cost us extra money but it gave us additional capabilities, without worrying about the number of jobs."

"Compare to other tools Pricing and licensing was more. It should be decrease."

"It is not bad. The company can afford it, and it pays for itself. We have those jobs running automatically."

"The pricing is moderate, not too low or too high compared to other solutions."

"You're going to spend a lot of money upfront, but the benefits you're going to get out of it are going to quickly pay for it."

"It works on task-based licensing."

"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."

More Control-M pricing and cost advice

"We pay maintenance annually through Blue House of about $9,000. That's for our two environments: production and test."

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

"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."

"We are satisfied with the pricing of Tidal. It's in the moderate range and it feels very achievable for us."

"The new prices that we've received seem reasonable and comparable to the marketplace."

"Our yearly licensing costs are between $10,000 to $20,000. They have always been reasonable with us. I like that non-production licensing is about half the cost of production licensing. Licensing is by adapter typically. We have had scenarios where we have had to take an adapter from one environment to another, and they've allowed us to do that. They have made it a very reasonable process. There's definitely a feeling that they will work with you."

"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."

"Our licensing model for Tidal is on an annual basis. It is very good and works well for us. Tidal's licensing is very transparent and simple. It lets you know, for the amount you use, that's the price that you pay. So, we buy X number of licenses, and we know that this is where we are. I'm very happy with that. I saw the licensing modules on other platforms, and I didn't like them. Other companies and solutions would calculate the connections, adapters, and instances. I think that's the reason that BMC was pretty expensive: They just didn't understand what our needs are."

More Tidal by Redwood pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

27%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

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	26
Midsize Enterprise	13
Large Enterprise	115

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 because nothing gets left unattended since it is all visible in one place, and th...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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

For on-premises, the task pricing is somewhat expensive, but for SaaS, it is very expensive.

See all answers

What do you like most about Tidal Automation?

Tidal Automation by Redwood is a user-friendly solution.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Tidal Automation?

I would recommend Tidal Automation by Redwood as the first priority for users looking for any automation tool. Overall, I rate Tidal Automation by Redwood a nine out of ten.

See all answers

Comparisons

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Control-M

Compared 12% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Control-M

Compared 9% of the time

Automic Automation vs Control-M

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs Control-M

Compared 5% of the time

Rundeck vs Control-M

Compared 3% of the time

More Control-M Competitors

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 29% of the time

Automic Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 10% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 9% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 6% of the time

More Tidal by Redwood Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Control-M

November 2025

Download Control-M product report

Buyer's Guide

Tidal by Redwood

October 2025

Download Tidal by Redwood product report

Also Known As

Control M

Tidal Workload Automation, Cisco Workload Automation, Tidal Enterprise Scheduler

Interactive Demo

BMC

Demo not available

Tidal Software by Redwood

Overview

Control-M by BMC is engineered to manage hybrid cloud workflows, offering orchestration capabilities starting at $29,000 annually. Aimed at helping growing teams, it efficiently supports cross-environment scheduling and automation needs.

Control-M offers robust cross-platform scheduling, automation, and integration with applications such as SAP and Informatica. Users appreciate its ease of use with a graphical interface, centralized management, and monitoring capabilities. Advanced features, including Managed File Transfer, automated error handling, and real-time alerts, enhance productivity. The ability to unify workflows and support diverse environments makes Control-M a trusted tool in many sectors. While improvements in reporting flexibility and API integration with tools like ServiceNow are needed, addressing performance issues during upgrades could enhance its value. Offering improved support for new technologies and cloud environments is beneficial, with cost-effectiveness being a consideration.

What are the key features of Control-M?

Cross-Platform Scheduling: Facilitates seamless task management across various OS environments.
Automation: Provides efficient workflow automation for complex processes.
Third-Party Integration: Ensures smooth integration with applications like SAP and Informatica.
Graphical Interface: Simplifies job management and monitoring with user-friendly design.
Managed File Transfer: Enhances data transfer processes with structured handling.
Real-Time Alerts: Offers notifications for immediate response to workflow issues.

What benefits should organizations expect from Control-M?

Increased Efficiency: Streamlines operations and reduces manual workload.
Enhanced Productivity: Automation and monitoring features boost operational output.
Improved Compliance: Supports SLA achievement and regulatory requirements.
Operational Agility: Provides flexible and adaptable task management across platforms.

Control-M is leveraged in industries like finance for enterprise scheduling and data management, supporting mainframe, Linux, Unix, Windows, and cloud platforms. It contributes to workflow orchestration and workload automation, improving operational efficiency and enhancing IT infrastructure across those environments.

BMC

Tidal Software is a leading provider of enterprise workload automation solutions that orchestrate the execution of complex workflows across systems, applications and IT environments. With a comprehensive portfolio of products and services, Tidal optimizes mission-critical business processes, increases IT cost efficiencies and satisfies legal and regulatory compliance requirements. Hundreds of customers around the world count on Tidal for modernizing their workload automation and driving their digital transformation. Tidal Software is headquartered in Chicago with offices in Houston, London, Minsk, Belarus and Chennai, India. For more information, visit tidalsoftware.com.

Tidal Software by Redwood

Sample Customers

CARFAX, Tampa General Hospital, Navistar, Amadeus, Raymond James, Railinc

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Control-M vs. Tidal by Redwood

September 2025

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