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Tidal by Redwood vs VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

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

Tidal by Redwood
Ranking in Workload Automation
14th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Automation Orch...
Ranking in Workload Automation
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of Tidal by Redwood is 4.7%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Tidal by Redwood4.7%
VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator0.3%
Other95.0%
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Steve Mikula - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Vishal Bhatia - PeerSpot reviewer
Automation tasks are streamlined with advanced templates and offers good support capabilities
Some students, especially beginners, may find the learning curve to be steep due to a lack of requisite knowledge in backend languages like YAML, Python, or JavaScript. I have been providing VMware training for over fifteen years. I deal with many other vendors, such as Cisco and Microsoft. I would rate VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator around eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Especially in the newer versions of Tidal, the segmentation of user permissions enables us to give people operator permissions for their jobs, to rerun jobs, but view-only for other groups' jobs. We're able to keep people from hurting themselves or other groups accidentally. The permissioning is really good."
"I like the fact that I have control, and I am able to monitor. If there is an issue, I would be able to respond to any jobs that may fail. With any other scheduler that I know of, a lot of times, when I have a very complex script, if there is an issue in the middle of it, I have to let the whole process fail and then figure out a way to recover from it, whereas Tidal will stop the process, and I can resolve that issue. Once I resolve the issue, I can continue the process. This is very important for invoicing, accounts payable, accounts receivable, or any kind of financial reporting. It allows you to recover from an issue much more effectively than anything else that I have seen."
"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 offers extensive monitoring and reporting features that let users keep track of the status of their workflows and quickly spot any problems."
"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."
"The data management on offer was valuable."
"By leveraging machine learning algorithms, Tidal Automation can use this data to optimize turbine settings and improve overall efficiency and performance."
"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."
"Primarily, customers are looking for workflows and day-to-day actions, as well as advanced templates."
"Primarily, customers are looking for workflows and day-to-day actions, as well as advanced templates."
 

Cons

"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."
"They can do better reporting in terms of production statistics reporting."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I know they are working on it, but there needs to be better reporting. Currently, there are only three or four reports that we can get off of the system. That needs to be improved. They already have a solution to this in the new version. I.e., a schedule of all the jobs running for one day, specifically calling out what dependencies that job relies on. It would be like a flow chart of how the day's jobs would run."
"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."
"The product’s UI is outdated. They should work on this particular area."
"I would like to see improvements related to AI integration, which could make understanding from a language perspective easier."
"Some students, especially beginners, may find the learning curve to be steep due to a lack of requisite knowledge in backend languages like YAML, Python, or JavaScript."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We've been able to purchase more adapters because the cost of the product has been very reasonable."
"The price is reasonable in terms of the product’s functionality."
"Tidal is a low-cost tool and not expensive in comparison to other tools."
"We think the pricing is very fair. We have been happy with the pricing compared to some of the other solutions in the space."
"The new prices that we've received seem reasonable and comparable to the marketplace."
"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."
"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."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise38
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Tidal Automation?
Tidal Automation by Redwood is a user-friendly solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tidal Automation?
The price is reasonable in terms of the product’s functionality.
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator?
Pricing is not a concern for us. We generally do not handle that side of the story.
What needs improvement with VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator?
I would like to see improvements related to AI integration, which could make understanding from a language perspective easier. Features like drag-and-drop, enabling code to be written automatically...
What is your primary use case for VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator?
My company is a training company, so we deliver trainings for Aria Automation. I have been using VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator for about three years.
 

Also Known As

Tidal Workload Automation, Cisco Workload Automation, Tidal Enterprise Scheduler
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
1. VMware 2. Dell Technologies 3. Cisco Systems 4. IBM 5. Hewlett Packard Enterprise 6. Microsoft 7. Oracle 8. Amazon Web Services 9. Google Cloud 10. Intel 11. Accenture 12. Fujitsu 13. Hitachi Vantara 14. NetApp 15. Red Hat 16. SAP 17. Siemens 18. T-Systems 19. Verizon 20. AT&T 21. Vodafone 22. Orange 23. BT Group 24. Deutsche Telekom 25. Ericsson 26. Nokia 27. Samsung 28. Sony 29. Toshiba 30. Panasonic 31. LG Electronics 32. Philips
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