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Fortra's Automate vs Rocket Zena comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Fortra's Automate
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (4th), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (7th)
Rocket Zena
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Workload Automation (22nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Fortra's Automate and Rocket Zena aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Fortra's Automate is designed for Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and holds a mindshare of 2.8%, up 1.6% compared to last year.
Rocket Zena, on the other hand, focuses on Workload Automation, holds 2.9% mindshare, up 2.7% since last year.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortra's Automate2.8%
UiPath Platform10.8%
Microsoft Power Automate7.3%
Other79.1%
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Workload Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Rocket Zena2.9%
Control-M12.1%
AutoSys Workload Automation7.0%
Other78.0%
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Jane Rachma Kiniti - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Project Manager at Labo des histoires
Automate has streamlined workflows and increased efficiency with powerful automation
The best features of the solution are the flexible automation features, it is rich with beautiful connectors, and it is easy to use with little to no coding knowledge required to get started, so anybody can use the tool. The intuitive interface of Automate has an intuitive design, which makes it easy to learn and use even without a strong technical background, and it has a drag-and-drop interface, which makes everything so easy and straightforward. The error handling capabilities in complex automation tasks are powerful, as it handles all types of tasks, whether complex or simple. I've never faced any problems even when dealing with complex tasks, so everything is super smooth and highly reliable, even when dealing with big tasks, as it has never slowed down. Automate's compatibility with existing IT infrastructure has impacted our business operations positively by providing smooth integration with other software that we use, such as Gmail, Jira, and Microsoft 365 apps, which gives us a unified platform instead of having to keep switching from one software to another, saving a lot of time and streamlining the whole workflows. The automated analytics have helped improve our business processes since it has increased our efficiency by automating our everyday tasks, freeing up time for us to focus more on strategic activities such as analyzing data and developing new business strategies. It is also cost-saving. By minimizing manual labor, it decreases human errors that can lead to costly mistakes. By automating the tasks, it helps to save costs, and it also improves our accuracy by reducing these errors to ensure that tasks are done almost perfectly.
JuanGonzalez6 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Solutions Manager at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees
A continuously evolving, stable solution, with responsive support
The visual whiteboard for design and execution included with the solution is very crucial to those who are new to Rocket Zena, especially so that the learning curve is minimized and they can focus on accomplishing the task. We process our system's payroll through Rocket Zena. The fact that it's a multi-process, multi-layered application, means that we can rely on the solution for kicking off processes, notifying user vendors of the steps, completions, error logging, and historic events from the previous run times. Rocket Zena's ability to automate jobs on the mainframe as a distribution workload automation solution is good. The solution continuously improves over time. We're eager to start the latest upgrade this coming year that'll put us on the cloud. Hopefully, this will improve the product even more. We can run things natively without the scheduler if needed. The solution working properly and up to date without the need for a mainframe scheduler is crucial. We use the solution to manage a few complex operational workflows end-to-end across multiple technology stacks. Rocket Zena does a great job of simplifying our cross-platform processes through automation. The solution helps speed operations up and keeps them automated allowing us to focus on other priorities. The solution helps increase our completion rates by working overnight to meet our SLAs. Rocket Zena completes 30 percent of our workload outside of our standard work hours. Rocket Zena's cross-platform job scheduling helped us save around 40 percent of programming time by automating repetitive tasks. We use the solution to transfer our current files and keep up with our infrastructure on a few automated jobs, such as refreshing our database which happens overnight. The solution helped free up around 15 percent of our engineer's time to focus on more value-added work.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product effectively handles all the tasks we require."
"The licensing of the product is very good; you only need to license it once and then you have it forever, which makes the product quite affordable."
"Fortra's Automate performs the job effectively and has the capability to alert us of any issues."
"The most valuable features of Fortra's Automate include its FTP functionality and file manipulation capabilities."
"It's very easy to use. That's a big selling point for it. It has got a drag-and-drop interface, so you can quickly deploy bots."
"I actually quite liked the no-coding functionality."
"The peace of mind I have using Automate for scheduling tasks allows me to focus on other responsibilities without worrying about operational issues."
"Automate's best feature is that we do not need to write any code; we can create our jobs using the drag and drop option available, and any technical member without coding expertise can use this tool."
"We haven't had any problems since we installed it. It runs as expected, we haven't had any critical problems. It helps keeps the business running 24/7."
"We haven't had any problems since we installed it, it runs as expected without any critical issues and helps keep the business running 24/7."
"You can click Ctrl-G and bring a diagram view. You're able to view in a diagram format. The view that it provides is easy, and you can move to the left, up, or down. You can double-click on a certain process. It'll drill into that process and all of its underlying components. You can double-click on an arrow or a component, and it'll bring up a screen that'll have all the variables that are assigned to that particular piece, as well as the values at run time. So, the diagram feature of it, at least for me, is pretty valuable."
"I like the whole product, but specifically, I like the license part. It's very easy to acquire a license for this product."
"Once you master it, it's a pretty good tool."
"I have found the scheduling feature the most valuable. I can map dependencies by using ASG-Zena. It gives a nice, quick visualization as to where things are."
"From a Linux configuration point of view, Rocket Zena is straightforward. It's fairly easy to set up the server and agents once you know how to do it."
"In the latest upgrade, Zena added a web-based client. The more I use it, the more I like it. It's an excellent interface. They do a good job of steadily improving the solution to make it more useful."
 

Cons

"The technical support could be better. We suffer from language barriers, as we are in Argentina."
"Automate could simplify the UI for creating a workflow for automation. As a technical person, I can understand it easily. However, there are few activities in the software that our HR department cannot understand."
"The workflow for variables could be better. The input and output of task-level variables could be made a little clearer in terms of passing those around from one task to another upon success, etc. Things like that could be a little easier potentially."
"The documentation is not that great."
"There are newer AWS services such as Lambda or Security Hub that security analysts use to detect malicious traffic or alerts, but the integration is not available for these, so we still rely on custom scripting because there are no options for drag-and-drop with these newer services."
"One thing I dislike about Fortra's Automate is that it does not perform well with OCR software, which is optical character recognition."
"I have encountered challenges with error handling and alerting, as some jobs fail and require retries."
"Fortra's Automate is good overall, but the advanced logic is somewhat challenging."
"Rocket Zena is a mainframe-based job scheduler. I would like it to be more open so that we can use it on a distributed platform."
"The UI is not intuitive, and it would be nice if there was a web interface."
"In the next release, I would like the user experience to be improved. The user interface should be more appealing to gen-z."
"In the next release, I would like the user experience to be improved."
"The scheduling mapping is a little disjointed. There is no wizard-type approach. There are a lot of different things that you have to do in completely different areas. They could probably add the functionality for creating all components of a mapping or an OPA schedule. The component creation could be done collectively rather than through individual components."
"In the web interface, it stacks the tasks across the top, and they accumulate until you close or clean those out. That seems a little cumbersome. You must right-click and close all tabs constantly to keep the console clean and manage your views."
"The documentation has room for improvement."
"Another one that is probably a little bit bigger for me is that when there is an issue or there's an error, it writes on a different screen."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to other products, the pricing model for this solution is much more convenient, flexible, and adaptable to the Portuguese reality."
"I believe the price falls within a reasonable range, which significantly influenced our decision regarding the product. This aspect is crucial for any technological solution, especially in our country where enterprises might be hesitant to invest heavily in something untested or uncertain about its practicality and potential returns."
"From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point."
"It has gone up in price. The price of Fortra's Automate has increased since we first started using it. It does a lot but also costs a lot. It was a lot more affordable before Fortra owned the software."
"From a distributor's side, one of the biggest selling points is its price point. Without going into any numbers, compared to UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and Blue Prism, we're significantly cheaper. The main difference is that other competitors usually charge you per process. However, in Automate's case, it's priced per bot. So, a bot can run multiple processes at the same time, but you are only priced for a single bot."
"I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost."
"The pricing is quite reasonable. We can run the process with one bot. The limitation is at the server level because they have some resources, and sometimes that is enough. It isn't too expensive, so you can get a good return off of one, and you can also have a pack of five bots that is quite competitive."
"It comes with a package that costs approximately $20,000 USD per year."
"The pricing and the licensing are good. It is affordable and can be used to improve and optimize productivity."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for HelpSystems AutoMate?
My use cases for Fortra's Automate mainly involve automation tasks. As a cloud provider, we give cloud solutions including GCP, AWS, and different tools, and we are mainly using this tool for RPA p...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?
Regarding the pricing of Fortra's Automate, for a startup or mid-market company, I would say it is not cheap and is definitely on the higher side. The pricing when setting up any bot or using the d...
What needs improvement with Fortra Automate?
I have encountered challenges with error handling and alerting, as some jobs fail and require retries. While we can check logs, they are not always accurate and need to be improved. I believe that ...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate
ASG-Zena
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aldergrove Financial Group, Preferred Health Professionals, Mindbeam Technologies, First Credit Union in British Columbia, Vestcom International, Prime Liberty Benefits, University of Tampa, CNLBancshares, World Precision Instruments, BJ's Restaurants, Globe Pequot Press, Accudata Technologies, Norton Healthcare, Pacific Toxicology Laboratories
Fraternidad Muprespa
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