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 #11 with an average rating of 8.0, while Tidal Software by Redwood is ranked #12 with an average rating of 9.2. IBM holds a 6.8% mindshare in WA, compared to Tidal Software by Redwood’s 4.2% 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

3,944 Views
3,628 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Tidal by Redwood

Read 37 Tidal by Redwood reviews

2,404 Views
2,380 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

IBM Workload Automation

Tidal by Redwood

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

IBM Workload Automation and Tidal by Redwood compete in the workload automation category. Tidal appears to have the upper hand due to its seamless integrations and adaptable scheduling, though IBM offers robust customer service and high availability.

Features: IBM Workload Automation offers diverse automation capabilities with dependencies, event-based scheduling, and integration with applications such as Oracle and SAP. It provides dynamic conditional branching and high availability for critical business processes. Tidal by Redwood provides real-time monitoring, scheduling flexibility, and ease of management across platforms, simplifying workflows with its integration capabilities.

Room for Improvement: IBM Workload Automation users report challenges with the interface and monitoring unscheduled dependencies, indicating a need for better cloud capabilities. Tidal struggles with an outdated UI and complexity in setup and integration. While Tidal is seen as flexible, improvements in reporting and real-time insights are suggested. Both products could enhance customization options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Workload Automation supports hybrid and on-premises deployments with high-level customer service, yet support experiences may vary by region. Customers may encounter technical support delays. Tidal by Redwood is noted for effortless on-premises deployments, less frequent support interactions, and responsive follow-up, making it simple to scale operations.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Workload Automation’s pricing model can be costly with sub-capacity licensing, though valued for its reliability. Users may consider alternatives for greater cost efficiencies despite appreciating its ROI. Tidal by Redwood offers flexible, transparent pricing with an enterprise-friendly model, facilitating budget planning without unexpected costs, allowing for scalable operations and robust ROI.

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

Buyer's Guide

IBM Workload Automation vs. Tidal by Redwood

June 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

11th

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

12th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of IBM Workload Automation is 6.8%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tidal by Redwood is 4.2%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

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

"The support from Cisco is very good. I was with them as a company for 40 years"

"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."

"Provides a robust, full spectrum enterprise-wide WLA platform."

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

"IBM Workload Automation provides good performance and monitoring."

"I recommend IBM Workload Automation as it's a well-established and stable product."

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

"The DWC, when configured correctly, is a great GUI tool to provide Self-Service Scheduling capabilities to the user community."

More IBM Workload Automation pros

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

"The best feature is that it allows task scheduling based on particular occurrences, like the receipt of files, database updates, or system notifications."

"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."

"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."

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

"We use the solution for cross-platform and cross-application workloads. That's one of the core reasons we chose it. It's one of a few things in the industry that can be used for cross-platform integration."

"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."

"We use the solution for cross-platform, cross-application workloads. The solution’s ability to manage and monitor these workloads is very easy and accurate. We have file dependencies for running jobs. The job does not start until a file exists on a completely different server, then where the job will run. So, it is cross systems."

More Tidal by Redwood pros

Cons

"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."

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

"The schedule refreshes daily and that's a challenge for us."

"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."

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

"Slow down on the releases a bit. I fully understand that IWA functionality is increasing at an amazing rate, but trying to keep up with the upgrades is rough."

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

"There should be more custom documentation, specifically around Java APIs. There should also be more training. In terms of features, we are currently using only 50% of its features. We don't use all features that are available, but there is always room for improvement in all of the tools."

More IBM Workload Automation cons

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

"To better fit their unique needs, the solution should give more customization options."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"Tidal Software interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly."

More Tidal by Redwood cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

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

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

"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."

"The solution is a little bit expensive."

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

"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."

"BMC is really expensive. The other solutions are about the same price. I think Tidal is even cheaper than the others, such as CA, Stonebranch, and JAMS."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"We've been able to purchase more adapters because the cost of the product has been very reasonable."

More Tidal by Redwood pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

32%

Computer Software Company

10%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

19%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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 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

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Control-M vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 22% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 9% of the time

Automic Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 9% of the time

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Workload Automation

June 2025

Download IBM Workload Automation product report

Buyer's Guide

Tidal by Redwood

June 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 helps companies manage operations, portfolio management, resource collection, and dependency scheduling. It facilitates transitions from legacy apps to web services, executing batch processing for tens of thousands of jobs daily with hundreds of users.

Teams rely on IBM Workload Automation to optimize backend workloads, maintain service levels, and offer support in remote environments. Its interface and job scheduler are appreciated for their value and effectiveness. Users benefit from batch automation, multiple node job triggering, stability, and batch app tracking. It provides a holistic view to resolve technical issues and leverage AI for updates. Its user-friendly interface simplifies workload management. Performance, monitoring, request features for adding functionalities, and workload management are key advantages.

What are the most important features?

Interface and Job Scheduler: Highly valued for managing processes efficiently.
Batch Automation: Facilitates the automation of batch processing tasks.
Multiple Node Job Triggering: Enables triggering jobs across multiple nodes.
Stability: Ensures a reliable and consistent performance.
Batch App Tracking: Allows tracking and monitoring of batch applications.
Holistic View: Helps in resolving technical issues and leveraging AI.

What are the benefits or ROI items to look for in reviews?

Performance: Enhanced system performance and monitoring capabilities.
Workload Management: Effective management of various workload types.
Request Feature: Ability to add new functionalities as needed.

IBM Workload Automation is implemented across several industries for diverse tasks. Companies executing high-volume batch processing, managing complex job dependencies, and transitioning from legacy systems find it valuable. Industries such as finance, healthcare, and manufacturing utilize it to maintain operational efficiency, enhance system performance, and automate critical processes.

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

June 2025

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