JAMS vs Tidal by Redwood comparison

Fortra and Tidal Software by Redwood are both solutions in the Workload Automation category. Fortra is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.5, while Tidal Software by Redwood is ranked #10 with an average rating of 9.3. Fortra holds a 1.9% mindshare in WA, compared to Tidal Software by Redwood’s 3.9% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Fortra users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Tidal Software by Redwood users who would recommend it.

JAMS

Read 35 JAMS reviews

1,798 Views
513 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Tidal by Redwood

Read 37 Tidal by Redwood reviews

2,525 Views
1,207 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

JAMS

Tidal by Redwood

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Tidal by Redwood and JAMS are strong contenders in the workload automation space, competing on features such as scheduling, automation, and job management. Tidal demonstrates strengths in centralized job management and flexibility with adapters, while JAMS offers intuitive automation and exception handling, which could give JAMS an edge with users seeking streamlined cross-platform integration.

Features: Tidal by Redwood provides a robust calendaring system, advanced job scheduling capabilities, and enhanced user permissions and segmentation. JAMS is noted for its extensive automation capabilities, custom job dependencies, and agent-based job execution, which simplifies cross-platform integration. Tidal stands out with its centralized job management and adaptability using various adapters.

Room for Improvement: Tidal users face challenges with its Transporter tool and report a steep learning curve for new users, alongside the need for enhanced monitoring and root-cause analysis. JAMS, while appreciated for its performance, can benefit from improved custom execution methods and search functionality, as well as better native integrations and collaboration features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both Tidal and JAMS are mainly deployed on-premises with some hybrid and cloud use. Tidal's technical support has improved post-Cisco, offering video training and prompt responses. JAMS users find the support team responsive, knowledgeable, and note its simpler deployment driven by lower initial cost and robust support, which some find more flexible than Tidal's setup.

Pricing and ROI: Tidal is valued for its transparent, flexible licensing model and competitive pricing, yielding significant ROI through automation savings. JAMS is seen as cost-effective, particularly with its unlimited license model offering scalability without significant additional costs. Both provide substantial ROI, with JAMS recognized for its budget-friendly entry and Tidal for its cost-efficiency driven by integrated capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed JAMS vs. Tidal by Redwood Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

JAMS vs. Tidal by Redwood

April 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 850,671 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

JAMS

Ranking in Workload Automation

5th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Tidal by Redwood

Ranking in Workload Automation

10th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of JAMS is 1.9%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tidal by Redwood is 3.9%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Workload Automation

Featured Reviews

Rob Grafrath

VP, Enterprise Systems at Capio

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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I didn't know about JAMS because I don't have a person with any challenges with the purchase administration. The feature or the user interface is user-friendly because of the readable icons or very descriptive icons. Though I'm a beginning user of JAMS, I had no issues using it."

"I appreciate JAMS for its readily available templates that allow me to create and deliver stand-up presentations within minutes quickly."

"We also use the solution’s Interactive Agents. If we need to push something to our dealer portal, we can just drop a file in a folder and it goes. Running interactive tasks helps me users focus on business processes since I don’t have to take care of running the jobs manually."

"The code-driven automation for more complex scheduling requirements frees up time because it's really easy to use... It's almost like a stand-alone software that we can't live without."

"JAMS has helped save IT staff time by automating tasks previously performed with scripts, and its scheduling feature has been particularly useful."

"The planning capabilities are most valuable."

"One of the things I like the most, as a SQL DBA, is the fact that we can manipulate tables in the background. Also, the fact that you can have your own views and work with the product the way it fits best is a very helpful feature."

"While I appreciate the other features, the agent stands out for its ease of installation and configuration for JAMS monitoring."

More JAMS pros

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

"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."

"With the varied features in the varied adapters provided, we use Tidal Enterprise Scheduler because we want everything to be scheduled in one place. Tidal provides that for us with its tools and varying platforms in our organization. Tidal provides all the connectors to the platforms. This is very useful because we don't want to look for another scheduler for scheduling certain jobs. We don't want to look at those schedules manually between platforms."

"By leveraging machine learning algorithms, Tidal Automation can use this data to optimize turbine settings and improve overall efficiency and performance."

"One of the most useful features is being able to set up a schedule and create dependencies. The calendar can kick off processes at certain times, based on dependencies that you specify, like time, or whether another process has finished. Dependencies are the most useful thing."

"The best feature of Tidal Workload Automation Software is its ease of integration with other systems, including ERP, CRM, and BI tools."

"The feature that I find to be valuable, as I'm working with other folks, is the ability to cross-schedule across platforms, and the flexibility that comes with that."

"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."

More Tidal by Redwood pros

Cons

"The monitoring of the JAMS product and its performance is an area of concern for me."

"It is important to receive notifications if a charged job fails and SQL is halted. JAMS does not provide halted notifications by default, which is a critical feature that needs to be added."

"It does validations when you try to delete an object and if there are any dependencies in place, the deletion process will not proceed... there is no information provided as to what it was that caused the validation to fail... it's quite a tedious process to find which object is getting in the way."

"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."

"JAMS has built-in reporting. I've never really used it. I tried using it a few years ago and I couldn't figure it out. It was wonky. It could be improved upon."

"Sometimes the UI is not the most responsive I've ever used. But because it does its job, I don't complain."

"Fortra is getting much better with documentation and examples, but there is still room for improvement."

"There could be a better simulation for banning the termination. You have to simulate every one of the processes in order to have an idea for better planning. This kind of simulation is broken and needs improvement."

More JAMS cons

"The UI might have the potential to provide a more polished and user-centric encounter, promoting seamless engagements and simplifying the navigation process for individuals interacting with the software."

"The user interface is the place that needs the most work. If and when we find issues with the product, they are usually in that area. If I had to choose, that's where I'd want issues, as opposed to in the engine. But the UI is average. It's a little sluggish at times and there are some bugs in it."

"The drill-down into details using the Graphical Views feature is a bit difficult and not that helpful. If you want to go into the details, you have to go to the Job Activity. Graphical Views is not that easy for getting that kind of information."

"I don't know if Tidal wants to get into the business of monitoring long-running jobs, but that could be a feature for the future: a job launching and monitoring tool. Using Tidal for monitoring doesn't seem like a good fit, but if they could offer something that did that as an add-on or include it, it might be helpful."

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

"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 solution needs more advanced reporting and data visualization capabilities to enable deeper analysis of job performance and trends."

"We've had some quirky stuff happen on an occasional basis where a job does not take off. For example, a job we expected to be finished by 3:00 a.m. is sitting there and not executing when we come in in the morning. We have to go all the way back to the dependencies and then we can see that one of the dependencies has become unscheduled, for some reason. No changes were made to the schedule but this prerequisite job has, all of a sudden, become unscheduled. I have brought this up with Tidal's support but they have never had an answer for it."

More Tidal by Redwood cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is reasonably priced, and we don't have any add-ons."

"All licensing models are a little overpriced, but JAMS offers a good value, especially given their support response times and ability to handle unforeseen issues like the SFTP transfers. I hope to find more use cases to get a better bang for our buck."

"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."

"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."

"For what it does, the product is priced very well."

"JAMS is relatively inexpensive, with additional costs only incurred for tags, other services, and optional support renewals."

"The product is reasonably priced, and we don't have any add-ons."

"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."

More JAMS pricing and cost advice

"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."

"The solution has no hidden costs. It helps me to plan forward into the future. I know that I can add another 100 or a thousand jobs, and that's how much it will cost me today."

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

"...it is a pretty affordable scheduler tool that lets us do a lot. You get a lot of bang for the buck... The licensing model is hugely flexible."

"Our annual maintenance cost is competitive for what we have and what they do."

"If you are willing to shop around to other vendors, you can possibly get a good price on your support license."

"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."

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

More Tidal by Redwood pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Workload Automation solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Healthcare Company

10%

Wholesaler/Distributor

Financial Services Firm

22%

Manufacturing Company

15%

Computer Software Company

10%

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about JAMS?

I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Tidal Automation?

Tidal Automation by Redwood is a user-friendly solution.

See all answers

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

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

See all answers

What needs improvement with Tidal Automation?

Initially, it is complicated to understand the functionalities as there is limited product documentation. The setup and configuration of the software is a bit complicated. Providing the training vi...

See all answers

Comparisons

Control-M vs JAMS

Compared 17% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs JAMS

Compared 15% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs JAMS

Compared 13% of the time

Stonebranch vs JAMS

Compared 9% of the time

VisualCron vs JAMS

Compared 8% of the time

More JAMS Competitors

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 43% of the time

Control-M vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 23% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 8% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 5% of the time

More Tidal by Redwood Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

JAMS

April 2025

Download JAMS product report

Buyer's Guide

Tidal by Redwood

April 2025

Download Tidal by Redwood product report

Also Known As

No data available

Tidal Workload Automation, Cisco Workload Automation, Tidal Enterprise Scheduler

Overview

JAMS offers efficient automation and scheduling with strong capabilities in planning, dependency management, and multi-platform support. Its intuitive interface and robust tools assist in managing complex workflows for enhanced resource allocation.

JAMS stands out for its blend of automation and scheduling capabilities, making it suitable for handling complex workflows across platforms. Its features such as batch scheduling, natural language scheduling, and interactive agents promote seamless integration with other tools like PowerShell. The focus on metrics and notifications ensures users are informed about operational efficiency enhancements. While JAMS is effective in many areas, users report a need for improved simulation for termination processes and a more intuitive client setup. They see potential in enhanced search functions, better exception handling, and greater transparency in custom execution. The current setup challenges like disappearing options and mobile accessibility can affect user satisfaction. Including a fully web-based client and improving documentation could add value.

What are JAMS' key features?

Planning and Scheduling: Coordinates workflows efficiently with advanced scheduling techniques.
Dependency Management: Ensures seamless operation by managing inter-task dependencies.
Interactive Agents: Integrates with PowerShell and other tools to enhance automation.
Natural Language Scheduling: Simplifies job creation with intuitive language use.
Multi-Platform Flexibility: Operates across diverse environments ensuring robust performance.

What benefits should users consider?

Operational Efficiency: Reduction in manual oversight with robust scheduling and integration tools.
Resource Allocation: Efficient management of workflows across multiple timeframes and platforms.
User Satisfaction: Seamless user experience with intuitive interfaces and integration capabilities.
Visibility: Centralized management provides comprehensive oversight over tasks.

Organizations using JAMS for workflow and batch job automation leverage its capabilities for SSIS, SQL procedures, and Python scripts. JAMS supports file automation and managed file transfers across environments like AWS and Azure. Users employ JAMS for data management, reporting, and integration tasks, including handling holiday-aware scheduling for improved task coordination.

Fortra

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

Teradata, Arconic, General Dynamics, Yum!, CVS Health, Comcast, Ghiradelli, & Boston’s Children’s Hospital

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

JAMS vs. Tidal by Redwood

April 2025

Free Report: JAMS vs. Tidal by Redwood

Find out what your peers are saying about JAMS vs. Tidal by Redwood and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our JAMS vs. Tidal by Redwood 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.