IBM Workload Automation vs Tidal by Redwood comparison

IBM and Tidal Software by Redwood are both solutions in the Workload Automation category. IBM is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.0, while Tidal Software by Redwood is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.5. IBM holds a 6.0% mindshare in WA, compared to Tidal Software by Redwood’s 4.7% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Tidal Software by Redwood users who would recommend it.

IBM Workload Automation

Read 33 IBM Workload Automation reviews

3,700 Views
3,404 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Tidal by Redwood

Read 37 Tidal by Redwood reviews

2,191 Views
2,169 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

IBM Workload Automation

Tidal by Redwood

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 21, 2025

IBM Workload Automation and Tidal by Redwood compete in the workload automation category, offering robust solutions for enterprise scheduling. Based on feature-rich automation capabilities and extensive integrations, Tidal by Redwood holds an advantage in flexibility and user-friendly interfaces.

Features: IBM Workload Automation provides conditional branching, multiplatform support, and SAP integration without endpoint installs. It is well-suited for event-based scheduling, real-time updates, and complex rule setups. Its regional calendar integration is a valuable asset for global operations. Tidal by Redwood excels in visualizing job dependencies, offering flexibility across platforms. It provides drill-down functionality and user-friendly interfaces that enhance efficiency and customization. It supports widespread integration, providing a holistic view of workflows with regional calendar management.

Room for Improvement: IBM Workload Automation needs upgrades in navigation, simplifying job setup, improving SLA monitoring, and alerts. Real-time alert improvements and better cloud integration are required. Tidal by Redwood requires enhancements in analytics, reporting, and its user interface, especially for complex schedules. It could also benefit from intuitive navigation and comprehensive visualization for intricate job schedules.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both IBM Workload Automation and Tidal by Redwood offer on-premises and hybrid cloud deployments. IBM is noted for excellent customer service and technical support across environments, while Tidal emphasizes flexibility and licensing options, primarily focusing on on-premises solutions. Some inconsistencies are reported in Tidal's technical support.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Workload Automation is seen as expensive due to Processor Value Unit licensing, but users find it reliable with a substantial ROI, despite ongoing maintenance costs. Tidal by Redwood presents competitive, transparent licensing with flexibility, avoiding extra costs for feature expansion. Cost predictability and the absence of hidden fees contribute to customer satisfaction and a favorable ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Workload Automation vs. Tidal by Redwood Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Workload Automation vs. Tidal by Redwood

September 2025

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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

IBM Workload Automation

Ranking in Workload Automation

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Tidal by Redwood

Ranking in Workload Automation

13th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of IBM Workload Automation is 6.0%, down from 8.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tidal by Redwood is 4.7%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Workload Automation	6.0%
Tidal by Redwood	4.7%
Other	89.3%

Workload Automation

Featured Reviews

Ilhami Arikan

Cloud Services Automation Technologies Manager at Garanti Teknoloji

With an easy setup phase in place, agent-based installation can be done in minutes

Sometimes we have issues with the solution's stability. So, stability can be improved. Reporting and visibility of the solution need improvement. These days, we need more visibility. We need to access the logs and databases easily. You need to keep track of the running number of logs, like which ones are executed, completed, etc. So if there would be a good reporting dashboard, then it would be good. There's room for improvement in the solution since it is a challenging thing when we want to use the solution's technology with our new technologies. For example, if we need to use TWS on our OpenShift platform, the solution's API is not capable enough. So the product itself needs to be aligned with new technologies.

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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.

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 have supported this product in literally 100s of different environments and its unmatched in its ability to scale to any size."

"It offers features like MDM and a Windows workstation, although there are some technical dependencies. It is more user-friendly and also includes failover and failback capabilities. While both systems offer high availability, Control-M's high availability is superior to AWS's."

"The technical support is great, the product is easy-to-use, and it is stable."

"The whole product is valuable because it is a tool for batch automation."

"The most valuable feature of IBM Workload Automation is its holistic view, which helps me find technical solutions quickly. For instance, if a customer has an issue completing their workload within a specific time frame, the tool provides enough information to identify and resolve the issue. One of the main challenges is dealing with data infrastructure problems and pending updates. Workload Automation helps me leverage current AI capabilities to recommend architectural updates to avoid these issues. It also allows me to balance CPU usage effectively, ensuring service level agreements are met. The interface is user-friendly and facilitates this process smoothly."

"The most important feature is the creation of folders. It's a really great feature because you can organize the process with naming conventions."

"Jobs can be triggered in multiple nodes."

"The solution helps automate processes so that the workload can be handled on a daily basis."

More IBM Workload Automation pros

"The most valuable feature is the job scheduler, where you can schedule thousands of jobs to execute at specific times."

"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 saves times due to automation. With some files, we do hundreds a day for a particular vendor. This would be hard to do manually. Also, the speed at which we can do this is excellent."

"Tidal integrates with other third-party systems, which makes it easy to connect and exchange data."

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

"We had a number of different schedulers in this organization and we've been porting everything that was running out of these other, unrelated schedulers into this scheduler. That has afforded us the ability to set up direct dependencies between processes that couldn't talk to one another before. Over the 15 years, we've definitely gained a lot from that. What had been manual controls have become automated controls..."

"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 Automation’s most valuable feature is customization. It can work and connect with any app."

More Tidal by Redwood pros

Cons

"IBM needs to move away from its native terminology and adopt a more cloud-centric approach."

"The solution should offer more free technical sessions to customers so that they can gain more experience or learn more about how to use it."

"The solution's installation could be improved because the customers have to do it all the time."

"The configuration of IBM Workload Automation has some challenges. We have a difficult time customizing it, but it is similar to other solutions."

"The performance of the previous versions could be better."

"It would be helpful to have a mobile app that could be used to follow the job schedule."

"To improve IBM Workload Automation, I suggest enhancing automation features further, as more automation would be beneficial. The product is good enough for my current customers, but improving technical support and pricing would be welcome. We often need quicker responses and better solutions than we can manage manually. These improvements would make the product even better."

"It should support other schedulers that aren't IBM products."

More IBM Workload Automation cons

"My complaint about their pricing model is that every year or every time technology changes or somebody has a new requirement, it usually means that I can schedule that with Tidal, but I would need another adapter. So, every time there is a change, I need a different adapter that I don't have. That's why it is harder to plan for Tidal growth because you have to buy a new adapter every time."

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

"It takes a lot of time to learn the product. I have admins and developers who are working on the products for the last three to four years and still don't know all the functionalities. Tidal has really great things about it, but people are focused on their day-to-day job and the solution is not intuitive."

"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."

"One thing I would like to see improved is that, currently, when an action is executed and finishes in Tidal, it's marked as either "success" or "failure." I would like more options that would flag a job according to multiple options, rather than just "good" or bad"... Tidal has told us that it's possible to do so through the product or with a workaround."

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

"One area for improvement is the command-line interface and the API to bulk-load jobs. It's a little bit kludgy, but we still manage without it. They're working on it and it's getting better all the time. In addition, the documentation for their API for creating jobs needs to be updated. It's a bit of a learning curve."

"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."

More Tidal by Redwood cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is about one-third of the cost of a controller."

"Pricing depends on the number of agents that you install."

"The solution is a little bit expensive."

"The solution's pricing is affordable."

"To my knowledge, IWA is the only WLA product that will provide "parallel tracking" capability to assist in upgrading from one platform to IWA."

"We transitioned from a server license to per job license, and that saved us a lot money."

"The contract is with the customer with whom we are working, so IBM is not directly involved in this."

"The licensing model's flexibility is awesome. The way it's licensed for us is that it's licensed per master and then per agent. We have an enterprise agreement, so we have unlimited agents, and we have it on 500 devices."

"There are project, system, and server costs. Some of the things that they are doing is introducing new products. They are introducing what they call their Repository, which is a way for you to move a job. That doesn't cost anything to us, because it is reusing a tool called Transporter. The repository is the successor to Transporter, so we already own it and are sort of grandfathered in. But that new product requires a server and database, so now we have to go out and get a server and database. So, there is a cost there."

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

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

"Their pricing seems very fair. It is more than the other solutions, but the functionality and the support are very much there. You pay for the job scheduler, and then they have certain things that are built into it, such as the FTP processes. If you then want to do JD Edwards jobs, you need an adapter. If you want to do SQL jobs, there is another adapter. Similarly, if you want to do Oracle jobs, there is an adapter. It is like there is the base and then there are the adapters for the jobs that you want to do, but it seems that's also how they pay for each of those adapters and keep them up to date."

"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."

"...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."

"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."

More Tidal by Redwood pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

28%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	29

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

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Workload Automation?

IBM Workload Automation could be improved by reducing its cost. The maintenance charges have increased significantly, and a lower cost would be beneficial.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Workload Automation?

We use IBM Workload Automation ( /products/ibm-workload-automation-reviews ) as a scheduler. We install agents on the application servers and use scheduling to trigger jobs on other servers. Our us...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering IBM Workload Automation?

I recommend IBM Workload Automation as it's a well-established and stable product. However, the cost is a concern. The product features a master-slave setup that ensures continuity during failures....

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 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

Control-M vs IBM Workload Automation

Compared 22% of the time

HCL Workload Automation vs IBM Workload Automation

Compared 15% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs IBM Workload Automation

Compared 12% of the time

Automic Automation vs IBM Workload Automation

Compared 7% of the time

BMC AMI Ops vs IBM Workload Automation

Compared 4% of the time

More IBM Workload Automation Competitors

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 29% of the time

Control-M vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 16% of the time

Automic Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 10% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 8% of the time

Stonebranch vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 5% of the time

More Tidal by Redwood Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Workload Automation

October 2025

Download IBM Workload Automation product report

Buyer's Guide

Tidal by Redwood

September 2025

Download Tidal by Redwood product report

Also Known As

IBM Tivoli Workload Scheduler, IBM TWS

Tidal Workload Automation, Cisco Workload Automation, Tidal Enterprise Scheduler

Overview

IBM Workload Automation streamlines scheduling with automation and dynamic workload balancing. It integrates multiple platforms, offering efficient management across diverse systems, enhancing operational productivity.

IBM Workload Automation provides end-to-end control in managing tasks across varied platforms, supporting event-based scheduling and real-time updates. Its intuitive GUI allows seamless scripting and monitoring, facilitating integration with applications like SAP and Oracle. The inclusion of FTA agents ensures efficient local dependency management, while offering versatile scheduling options. Its capability to provide a comprehensive view, manage CPU usage, and meet service level agreements positions it as a valuable tool for large-scale operations.

What are the most important features?

Automation with Dependencies: Allows integration of complex tasks and workflows across multiple platforms.
Dynamic Workload Balancing: Ensures optimal resource utilization by adapting to changing demands.
Event-Based Scheduling: Initiates processes based on real-time events for timely task execution.
Real-Time Updates: Keeps users informed with instantaneous status changes and alerts.
User-Friendly GUI: Facilitates custom scripting and monitoring with ease.
Application Integration: Supports seamless connectivity with SAP, Oracle, and more.
FTA Agents: Efficiently handle local dependency resolution for consistent workflow operation.

What benefits or ROI should users look for in reviews?

Operational Efficiency: Streamlines workload management and reduces manual intervention.
Improved Resource Management: Balances CPU usage and avoids bottlenecks.
Enhanced SLA Compliance: Assures adherence to service level agreements, boosting reliability.
Scalability: Supports expanding operations with robust scheduling capabilities.
Integration Flexibility: Adapts to evolving technological landscapes with ease.

Industries such as government, banking, and large enterprises implement IBM Workload Automation for automated scheduling, workload balancing, and batch processing. It assists in migrating from legacy systems to web-based services, integrating with numerous applications, and managing extensive daily job lists. Key functions include offshore management and backend data collection, crucial for effective resource tracking. This adaptability enables organizations to efficiently support operations while scaling workloads as needed.

IBM

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

Standard Life Group, Banca Popolare di Milano, A*STAR, ArcelorMittal Gent

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

IBM Workload Automation vs. Tidal by Redwood

September 2025

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