We use Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT as an SFTP server for file transfer.
Senior Integration Consultant at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
The solution can be used as an SFTP server for file transfer, but its scalability could be improved
Pros and Cons
- "Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT supports the PeSIT protocol."
- "The solution's support for the Unix platform and AS2 should be improved."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT supports the PeSIT protocol. The solution's Windows LDAP integration is excellent.
What needs improvement?
The solution's support for the Unix platform and AS2 should be improved. The solution's scalability needs to be improved as it has very limited scalability.
The solution could include some multi-factor authentication (MFA), one-time password, or secondary authentication.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT for six years.
Buyer's Guide
GoAnywhere MFT
October 2026
Learn what your peers think about GoAnywhere MFT. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2026.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT a six out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT a four out of ten for scalability.
How are customer service and support?
I never interacted with the solution's technical support, but their website was pretty robust with knowledge articles.
How was the initial setup?
The solution’s initial setup was simple.
What about the implementation team?
One engineer and a system admin resource were involved in the solution's deployment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT is an inexpensive solution.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT, we evaluated MOVEit. Compared to MOVEit, Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT had a more robust user interface, and the support was more apparent on their website, making it easier to get to.
What other advice do I have?
The solution has quarterly maintenance releases.
Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT is best used in a Windows environment with low utilization. It wouldn't be something I would use in a high-utilization environment.
Overall, I rate Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
IT & Security Manager at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees
Provides a centralized and secure way for our file transfer needs
Pros and Cons
- "It streamlines the files. Anyone can go pick up the file that we give access to. It is great."
- "For us, it is perfect. It is a good solution that we are using, and we are going to continue to do so. However, it should be advertised more as a solution. I did not see it out there beforehand."
What is our primary use case?
We are using it for all our file-transferring needs. We mostly use it for confidential files and larger files. We want to securely send the files that are on the confidential side. We feel it is very secure for sending a file over.
How has it helped my organization?
By implementing this solution, we wanted to have a centralized place for all our file-transferring needs because previously, there were too many ways. It was done by email. It was done through FTP. Everyone was trying to find their own solution. This way, we could centralize it and make sure that everyone is using the same tool.
We use it with Office 365. We have a single sign-on, and we have implemented it with every deployment of a laptop.
It works seamlessly. There are no issues. It has been excellent. It is so easy. It is very user-friendly. There are never any issues. There is a lot of flexibility with it, and we are staying compliant, so it is very important.
It streamlines everything and keeps things centralized. There is also automated scheduling.
For us, cybersecurity is very important, and GoAnywhere MFT keeps us very secure. That is a very good benefit. We have a centralized place for file transfers. People do not think of other options, such as using Dropbox or sending files by email or FTP.
GoAnywhere has saved us time in connecting securely with the third parties we need to collaborate securely with. It is hard to say how much time it has saved, but we do not need to discuss how we are going to send a file securely. We used to waste a lot of time previously.
What is most valuable?
It streamlines the files. Anyone can go pick up the file that we give access to. It is great.
What needs improvement?
For what we are using it for, it is doing the job, so I would not be able to say how to improve it. For us, it is perfect. It is a good solution that we are using, and we are going to continue to do so. However, it should be advertised more as a solution. I did not see it out there beforehand.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using GoAnywhere MFT for the past six months. They gave us a free trial, and we liked it, so we made the purchase.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is very stable. We have not had any issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable.
We have 25 users using this solution. It is one company. We are just 25 people. It is a small company.
How are customer service and support?
We did not require any support. It is very simple. We are only using the file transfer, so it is very simple.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were not using anything before. That is why it is such a great solution for us.
How was the initial setup?
We have the cloud solution, The cloud provider is AWS.
I was involved in its deployment, and there were no problems. In terms of the implementation strategy, we just had a team meeting about it. I informed everyone and then implemented the credentials.
It does not require any maintenance.
What about the implementation team?
I did not need any external help.
What was our ROI?
The best benefit is time and security.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I find it to be very fair. It is very good.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did not evaluate other options. I trust Fortra, and I use them for other solutions. That is why I went to them with a scenario, and they got back to us about using this system.
What other advice do I have?
I would highly recommend this solution. I am a big believer that you get what you pay for.
We do not use GoAnywhere's Secure Forms. We are using this solution for simple file transfers. We are not getting too complex with it. We also do not make use of the GoAnywhere agents or the GoFast feature.
I would definitely rate Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Buyer's Guide
GoAnywhere MFT
October 2026
Learn what your peers think about GoAnywhere MFT. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Sr. Manager - Performance and Automation Engineering at PSCU Financial Services
Key to our workflow and our workload automation strategy, helping us trade and consume files
Pros and Cons
- "File monitors are one of the most valuable features. We have about 400 file monitors running in GoAnywhere. They monitor the NAS locations where files arrive, and they kick off workflows. When a file arrives, GoAnywhere will identify that the file is there, move it to a consumption zone, then reach out to our enterprise scheduler through a REST API call."
- "It has become very important to us over these four years, as it is key in our workflow and our workload automation strategy."
- "There's one persnickety issue about NAS permissions. That is a problem we have run into with GoAnywhere. I would like to see more focus on compatibility with/enforcement of user roles and access permissions across NAS, among other things. We have filed a couple of tickets on that in the past."
- "There's one persnickety issue about NAS permissions. That is a problem we have run into with GoAnywhere."
What is our primary use case?
We use it for trading files with partners over the internet, partners with whom we don't have a VPN connection. And we use it for internal file movement and workflows.
We are using GoAnywhere for enterprise. We have two gateway nodes in both data centers.
How has it helped my organization?
From an automation standpoint, it helps us trade files over the internet with partners with whom we don't have a VPN connection. For the most part, GoAnywhere is used between us and partners that we trade files with. We consume those files with internal, backend processes and we use it for moving files within those backend processes, in the workflow. It has become very important to us over these four years. It's key in our workflow and our workload automation strategy.
The workflow features eliminate the need for custom programs and scripts for file transfers. We write a few Python scripts here and there when we need to get fancy, but we can generally wire things up in GoAnywhere pretty quickly. It saves a lot of time and resources, making that ability pretty critical. We did a migration from SSIS to Informatica over the last two years, and my team wired up about 275 jobs during that time. Without GoAnywhere, that would have been a much more painful file management process.
With just shy of 500 jobs running in GoAnywhere, a conservative number would be half of our scripts, about 250, have been eliminated by centralizing things in this solution. And the automation of file transfers has helped to reduce workload in our organization by 20 percent.
Another thing that has been really important, with the ability to set SLAs on file arrivals, is that we have fundamentally set implied SLAs with our partners. That means that where we didn't really have a written agreement for an SLA on a given file, if over the last year a partner has sent us that file within X amount of time, we set the SLA alert to an hour later. That has meant we've pushed implied SLAs onto our providers.
What is most valuable?
File monitors are one of the most valuable features. We have about 400 file monitors running in GoAnywhere. They monitor the NAS locations where files arrive, and they kick off workflows. When a file arrives, GoAnywhere will identify that the file is there, move it to a consumption zone, then reach out to our enterprise scheduler through a REST API call.
The solution helps centralize the exchange of data between systems, employees, customers, and trading partners. It's very central and that's pretty important. We generally move about 3,000 files a day, between our partners and internal workflows.
My team really likes the intuitiveness of GoAnywhere's user interface. For example, my automation team has a file coming in from a bank, a file that needs to be unzipped, reformatted, re-zipped up, and then put into another folder where another team is going to consume it. Because of all the progressive elaboration—the project started a year ago—the format of the file is not the same. We addressed it with GoAnywhere instead of having the producer of the file change the format. That's how flexible it is for us.
And looking at the comprehensiveness of GoAnywhere's workflow features, we use it pretty extensively for working with files. Stonebranch is our enterprise automation platform, but we don't really do any file work with Stonebranch. We chose to use GoAnywhere, our MFT tool, to move and manipulate files.
The solution also connects to popular ICAP servers and that's pretty important to our security guys when it comes to preventing malware and other malicious content from entering our organization. The connection to popular ICAP servers, so that content is inspected for sensitive information like credit cards, is pretty important. We're a financial institution and a lot of the data we work with has PAN data and card numbers in it, coming in from partners.
What needs improvement?
There's one persnickety issue about NAS permissions. That is a problem we have run into with GoAnywhere. I would like to see more focus on compatibility with/enforcement of user roles and access permissions across NAS, among other things. We have filed a couple of tickets on that in the past.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been on HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT for about four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's rock-solid. I can't remember the last time we had a GoAnywhere outage.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's well-architected. With the frontend gateway servers and the backend servers, you can scale to meet your needs. We're not anywhere near having to address that point, but if we got to a point where we needed to scale, we could just put another gateway server and another application server in play, and that would be able to take on more traffic. It's easily scalable.
How are customer service and support?
The help has always been great. Anytime we have had an issue, the response has been good and they've been on top of it. We're pretty happy with the support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were a Cisco Tidal house before we went to Stonebranch and GoAnywhere. We made the decision to put GoAnywhere in when we bought the new automation platform, instead of going with Stonebranch's file movement platform. We went with GoAnywhere because it met more of our needs, especially when it comes to trading files with partners over the internet. That really wasn't the focus of Stonebranch, which was really just for the workflows.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was a piece of cake. And upgrading the platform and dropping the .jar files has been really painless as well. By comparison, my IBM upgrades take four hours.
What was our ROI?
The return on investment was in the initial purchase, as it was 30 percent less than the other product we looked at.
The ease of use and learnability of the interface also help. It took my guys no time to learn the interface and the product, and to start turning out value, working with it in workflows. The learning curve was short. It didn't take a lot of training. The time to value was great, and that is great ROI.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
GoAnywhere was the most attractively priced product that met our needs. In our PoC it really came down to MOVEit and GoAnywhere, and GoAnywhere's pricing was about 30 percent less.
GoFast is an additional license. We're not using it but we might. We're all going to be hybrid at some point in time and I'm getting my arms wrapped around it. Do I put a file replication solution in place that's bi-directional, like Peer? Or do I put GoAnywhere out in AWS with a high-speed adapter so that I can send files from on-prem to AWS where compute is happening for ETLs?
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We have three MFT platforms in-house. One is IBM Sterling File Gateway and we use that to move about 15,000 files a day. But that's really B2C, with our 2,400 or credit unions. We move files from Fiserv and other vendors, and from PSU, to the institutions through IBM File Gateway.
Before going with GoAnywhere, we looked at Axway, Ipswitch, and MOVEit. We did a PoC with Ipswitch, MOVEit, and GoAnywhere, and went with GoAnywhere. The products did the same thing but GoAnywhere had a better interface than MOVEit, and the price was more attractive. I hear that Ipswitch was bought out and is called something else now.
What other advice do I have?
Make sure you size it properly.
Also, in the grand scheme of things, what I've learned is that you don't have to be on an IBM platform or Ipswitch, or Axway—the big names, the competitors. One of the players in the industry that is a little smaller, like HelpSystems, has a product that gets the job done for less money. We're really not that big as far as revenue goes. We're less than a billion-dollar-a-year corporation, with 2,500 people. But we are a not-for-profit and we work with Fiserv so we have a lot of IBM footprint on the ground. That is not typical of a company that is doing less than a billion dollars a year. Traditionally, the mentality is to just use the big-name products, Big Blue and HPE, but that is just not necessary. That's one of the valuable things that I've learned. GoAnywhere gets the job done for a lot less money than the big traditionals.
Our users include three guys who are automation engineers and two guys who are MFT engineers. We also have a handful of folks, four or five, in the network operations center, who do ad hoc file-sends to credit unions.
Overall, it's a great product.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Consultant at Bridgeway Communication System, Inc.
GoAnywhere MFT is a total powerhouse for automated file transfers, though you'll have to push through a slight learning curve on the interface to really unlock its power.
Pros and Cons
- "The best feature of GoAnywhere is that transfers are straightforward if there are no other requirements from the source and destination. It doesn't require much maintenance."
- "The reporting could be more customizable."
What is our primary use case?
We use GoAnywhere to filter files for our clients and set up SOP connections. Our clients are primarily large corporations, and we have around 10 specialists working with GoAnywhere.
How has it helped my organization?
GoAnywhere has improved productivity through automation from the source to the destination. It has improved build time because the files are transferred to them immediately.
We use the agents for other branches of our client. It's crucial that the agents enable us to extend MFT automation to remote systems because the agent is like a mini-GoAnywhere. The solution has saved time connecting securely with third parties that we need to collaborate with, especially our clients. We're dealing with SaaS, so it helped us secure our files and the cloud files being tested.
What is most valuable?
The best feature of GoAnywhere is that transfers are straightforward if there are no other requirements from the source and destination. It doesn't require much maintenance.
What needs improvement?
The reporting could be more customizable.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Fortra's GoAnywhere for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
as far as my knowledge our clients has 100% renewal rate, possibly due to its core operational reliability, users reports that once the platform is configured properly, workflow crashes and unexpected file delivery failures are rare.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It allows seamless handling massive volumes of concurrent data transfers and complex workflows. It accomplishes this through a combination of horizontal expansion, native resource optimization, and deep cloud integrations
How are customer service and support?
I rate Fortra support nine out of 10. I'm very satisfied with the customer support. They can accommodate us when we need their help.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We had another product before we switched to Fortra. Their customer support couldn't answer our technician's questions fast enough, whereas Fortra gave us the answer we needed in a timely manner.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Fortra GoAnywhere 10 out of 10. I would recommend GoAnywhere, depending on a company's needs. It's appropriate for enterprises who want to securely transfer files from service to service.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
Last updated: Oct 1, 2026
Flag as inappropriateSAP Basis Administrator at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Seamless connectivity, good usability, and knowledgeable support
Pros and Cons
- "The usability is valuable because I am self-taught and have not had any formal training in the product. The help feature is quite handy."
- "The biggest weakness I have seen in the product is scheduling. It is very limited in that aspect. It needs more flexibility and more ways to schedule."
What is our primary use case?
I primarily use it for FTP purposes, sending files in and out within the corporation and through third-party vendors, both inbound and outbound.
How has it helped my organization?
It has been pretty seamless and straightforward for connectivity between my company and a third party. It is one of the easier aspects of using the product.
I could see its benefits after some time. That is because it was self-taught. I learned the functionality, the usability, and all the features as I went along by reading the help functions. There are probably still a lot of features that I have not yet used or know about.
What is most valuable?
The usability is valuable because I am self-taught and have not had any formal training in the product. The help feature is quite handy.
What needs improvement?
The biggest weakness I have seen in the product is scheduling. It is very limited in that aspect. It needs more flexibility and more ways to schedule. It is very strict with no customization options. The monitors are limited in how you can set them up.
Handling errors is challenging as errors are hard to understand. The help guide does not cover error messages well. It is Java-based, so it is hard to understand Java error messages.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it for about four or five years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have not experienced any lagging or crashing.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have not used it to a high level of scalability. What we are running currently is what was installed by a previous manager, and it has been used for about six to seven years without issues.
How are customer service and support?
They are very responsive and very knowledgeable. I would rate them a nine out of ten. Sometimes, they are hard to reach by phone. I get placed on hold for a long time, and I usually hang up and call later in the day or the following day. That is the only down thing I can think about in terms of support. They are hard to get hold of sometimes.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used FileZilla, which is freeware. We have also used WinSCP.
FileZilla is just a simple point-to-point file transfer, whereas GoAnywhere has way more features.
How was the initial setup?
I did not install it in our environment. Another person who is not with the company anymore installed it. I came into play after it was fully installed and configured.
My initial onboarding was difficult for me because it required some level of programming which I am not savvy with. Initially, I reached out to tech support due to the cryptic errors that I was getting.
I do not use it on a daily basis or a full-time basis. It took about a year to be comfortable with it. I am still learning as I go along. There are still times when I wonder how to do something. I am still learning it, but it took me a good decent year to get acclimated to it.
In terms of maintenance, there is patching that comes out almost every month. It is pretty easy to download and apply the patch. It is pretty quick and painless.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate GoAnywhere MFT an eight out of ten. I have not had any formal training on it. I would love that opportunity. Until then, it is self-learning.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Project Assistant at a government with 10,001+ employees
The workflow is nicely defined, making the processes more accessible for beginners
Pros and Cons
- "GoAnywhere centralizes data exchanges, helping to facilitate file transfers between our critical systems."
- "The security could be upgraded to address novel cyberattacks. I'm not sure whether the product's security is being updated periodically."
What is our primary use case?
Batch jobs are defined in GoAnywhere, which interacts with multiple agencies across public safety applications. The files are transferred securely from an IBM middleware environment like WebSphere Application Server to GoAnywhere. From there, they go to the vendors or the file consumers.
We are not dependent on any operating system. We've always worked with all flavors of OS, including AUX, Linux, and Windows. The product is multi-platform and we tend to use enterprise Linux OS, like Red Hat and OpenShift.
How has it helped my organization?
GoAnywhere makes functions easier because we don't need to do all the scripting for managed file transfers. We can do transfers from a user-friendly UI. The solution also centralizes data exchanges, helping to facilitate file transfers between our critical systems. The workflow features enabled us to eliminate manual processes and unsecured file-transfer methods.
GoAnywhere helps the organization do jobs more efficiently. It saves time that the team can spend elsewhere. We can allocate resources to other activities or priority tasks. It also allows us to process much more data and documents.
The product can automate submissions of regulatory documentation, which is crucial for our end-users. We are responsible for setting up the infrastructure that other state agencies use. It's critical for us to transfer a variety of documents across the board.
Automated scripts running through GoAnywhere are essential because we work in public safety, which involves 24/7 transfers. Automation improved our efficiency many times over.
It's difficult for me to quantify how much time we saved by automating scripts because this process has occurred over more than a decade. I'm certain that it saves lots of time, but I can't precisely say how much.
GoAnywhere doesn't completely replace our other solutions. We can eliminate some custom scripts, but other agencies use different FTP solutions, such as IBM Sterling.
What is most valuable?
It's easy to define the jobs in GoAnywhere's user interface. It's one of the easiest to use. It's comparable to other enterprise FTP products like IBM Sterling, but we find this a little more straightforward. The workflow is nicely defined, making the processes more accessible for beginners. It's critical that GoAnywhere enables us to limit access to sensitive data inside our network so that only verified users can access it.
We don't need to write custom programs or have any specialized programming knowledge. The ability to use GoAnywhere without custom scripts saves developers lots of time. We eliminated around 100 custom scripts.
What needs improvement?
The security could be upgraded to address novel cyberattacks. I'm not sure whether the product's security is being updated periodically.
For how long have I used the solution?
I took over the team responsible for GoAnywhere in the last two or three years. My team lead has managed the solution for the last 12 to 15 years.
How are customer service and support?
I rate GoAnywhere's support a nine out of ten. They're excellent.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What other advice do I have?
I rate GoAnywhere MFT a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Senior Solution Lead at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Enables us to develop template workflows and call them from other workflows, saving development time
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is the ability to call a workflow from another workflow. That really gives you an edge by increasing reusability and speeding up development time. You can create a workflow which is a type of template and then call that workflow from any other workflow... It has sped up development time by 80 to 90 percent."
- "Because every new development request requires a certain amount of effort, new development in GoAnywhere is really fast thanks to the template workflow and being able to call another workflow."
- "There are a number of built-in tasks in GoAnywhere. One, in particular, the write to CSV task, is slow. If you have, say, 100,000 records in your row set and you want to write them to a CSV file, it takes a long time. That definitely requires performance improvement."
What is our primary use case?
We are mostly using it for ETL-related workloads. In our organization we have a lot of different systems that need to talk to each other. Files have to be transferred from one system to another. We use GoAnywhere to automate the file transfer processes, whether it involves an SFTP system or a Windows network shared drive.
We also use it for data translation and data load, when we want to extract the data from a database system and create a CSV file and send it to a downstream system.
And we have recently started using Cloud Connectors for things like Microsoft Azure Data Lake and blob storage. Most organizations are moving to the cloud and we have a lot of cloud-related integrations now coming into the picture. GoAnywhere MFT helps to accomplish them.
How has it helped my organization?
With the automation you don't have to worry about doing anything manually. You create a workflow and schedule it. You have various options to schedule your workflow daily, or at a certain date and time, and a repeat frequency. If you have complex scheduling requirements, those can also be done.
The very quick development time is another benefit.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the ability to call a workflow from another workflow. That really gives you an edge by increasing reusability and speeding up development time. You can create a workflow which is a type of template and then call that workflow from any other workflow. That's really helpful for us. It has sped up development time by 80 to 90 percent. All you have to do is pass the parameters from the caller and everything is done by your template.
And after using it for some time and you become very comfortable with the syntax, if you want to quickly develop something you can directly edit the XML. It creates XML for all the workflows and you can directly import and edit them. That also helps with the speed of the development.
The solution is very intuitive because all the help is built-in. When you go to Help there is a developer guide there. You can search any library or function. Also, the tooltips are helpful. You can click on any label and it shows a tooltip that describes what it does. It also provides integrated development, meaning all the development can be done in the GoAnywhere portal itself, from a browser. You don't need any additional tools or an IDE. It's very user-friendly and developer-friendly.
GoAnywhere also has a very good log through which you can track any issues.
In addition, the workflow features are able to fulfill the requirements most of the time. Only certain, very rare scenarios are not covered. But GoAnywhere also provides a custom task feature. Apart from all the built-in tasks, if your workflow demands a special task, and you have the expertise, you can create a custom task. That's a good advantage.
What needs improvement?
They need to increase the number of Cloud Connectors and speed up their development of them.
Also, there are a number of built-in tasks in GoAnywhere. One, in particular, the write to CSV task, is slow. If you have, say, 100,000 records in your row set and you want to write them to a CSV file, it takes a long time. That definitely requires performance improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT for more than eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable. In all the time I've been using it, I haven't seen any deficiencies in terms of workflows or behaviors.
Any memory issues happen because of poor workflow design. Otherwise, It's very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have gone from 40 or 50 workflows to more than 600 workflows now. But we have only slightly increased the memory footprint of the server on which GoAnywhere is installed. We haven't seen any issues. The solution is scalable.
We have around 70 to 80 users of GoAnywhere and, at any point in time, some 10 to 20 active users. Among our 600-plus workflows, there are some running every hour or every minute or daily. On average, they transfer 100,000 files per day.
We have four environments: dev, test, QA, and production. Dev/sandbox is a single environment, while Test, QA, and Production are clustered. We have two nodes for high-availability.
Within our company there is still a lot of demand for GoAnywhere. We are going to increase our use of it by 10 to 20 percent per year.
How are customer service and support?
Their technical support is good. Responses are not really instantaneous, but they respond within their SLA. They could improve their response time.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
What was our ROI?
It's a great value in terms of our overall satisfaction. It helps automate all our processes and reduces development time, so we don't have to invest much in developing. We haven't really seen any issues using it in all this time, or challenges in terms of operations. Overall, it brings us great value.
Because every new development request requires a certain amount of effort, new development in GoAnywhere is really fast thanks to the template workflow and being able to call another workflow. It helps reduce development costs and that's a great value.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing is very organization-friendly. It's a one-time license, not a monthly or recurring model. Compared to other tools it's less expensive.
What other advice do I have?
If your overall requirements are related to ETL and sending files to different systems, and you want to automate these kinds of daily processes, then GoAnywhere would be the best fit. It's one of the best solutions. It's lightweight and doesn't need heavy servers or big hardware to run, and it's very scalable. All these features really add to the GoAnywhere solution.
Overall, the solution is a nine out of 10. The ease of use is definitely 9.5 and the performance is a nine. But in terms of catching up with all the new standards, it's a little behind it. On that, I would give it an eight. It doesn't have connectors to various new systems. For development, it's a 9.5.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Lead Developer at a construction company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Cloud Connectors enabled us to define our Salesforce server, and to put data into objects, without any major development
Pros and Cons
- "Transactions transfer in close to real time. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time because of the volume that we have, but the transactions transfer in seconds to the external platform."
- "We have definitely seen a good return on investment from going with GoAnywhere, and considering the time that it has saved us and the development that we don't need to do, the price is really affordable."
- "We are a little concerned because the maximum number of open connections allowed is 200, and we are pretty much maxed out... if they expanded the number of open connections allowed, we would be better off."
What is our primary use case?
We acquired GoAnywhere MFT to help us with our connection to Oracle. We then had a request from our company to put data onto Azure. It was perfect timing. We started creating the connection and the configuration for Azure using GoAnywhere, and we are now exporting close to 2 million transactions per day into Azure. Any activity happening in our core application is being forwarded to the Azure platform, into a data lake.
We have another project in the pipe to connect Hyphen Solutions BuildPro, which is another cloud service, one that helps us in our field of business, which is construction. We are exploring transferring data to BuildPro using GoAnywhere, and that is going to be XML, mostly.
How has it helped my organization?
We deployed connectivity with our Oracle CRM to download data, but that was a temporary solution because now we're doing it in real time. After that, we went after another project, which was to put data into Salesforce, which is our new CRM. GoAnywhere helped us incredibly because it was pretty simple, using Cloud Connectors, to define the Salesforce server and to put the data into objects without any major development on our side.
The previous transmission we had with Salesforce was scheduled to run every two hours. That was the most we could get. Right now it is taking seconds to get there. Not only are we saving time, but the data is immediately useful to the business. Previously, in some cases, it was delaying a purchase of a house by our customers. For example, sometimes a customer wants to put in a particular flooring or a particular kitchen. If those options were not available, they couldn't complete the purchase. But now, with GoAnywhere, they have the information right there. They can complete it right away.
GoAnywhere helps us to distribute data. We are on the iSeries platform, using JDEdwards and Db2. But because our business is now distributed into cloud applications, such as Salesforce and Azure and Google, we help ops to export the data into those platforms.
The Cloud Connectors are amazing and have saved us a lot of time because we don't have to do any programming. It just puts the data there. We haven't been able to 100 percent eliminate custom programs or scripts, but it has helped save a lot of lines of code. That is immensely important, not only because of the coding issue, but also because of security. If you need authentication or key information, it's better to have it encrypted in GoAnywhere, than having this information in the source program, because anybody can see the source and see the authentication information. GoAnywhere handles that more securely.
The other day we needed to export data into SharePoint. We had not done that before, so we needed some examples. We went to the internet but we couldn't find much information. So we contacted HelpSystems and they gave us a link. We then called our SharePoint administrator and he gave us the information we needed and we can now put data into SharePoint.
Previously, that SharePoint process was manual, one where the user had to run some services every two hours. Now that we have automated it, he doesn't have to do it anymore. It has saved a lot of time.
GoAnywhere has also helped us to allocate staff to other work. By using GoAnywhere, we don't need people or a programmer involved in managing security or server configuration anymore. We set them up in GoAnywhere. I'm the one doing the administration for the tool and I just defined the resource so the developer doesn't need to ask questions like,
"How do I connect? What is the password and the user ID?" As soon as I give the guidelines, that this is the resource, we just create a Project and that's all.
What is most valuable?
Transactions transfer in close to real time. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time because of the volume that we have, but the transactions transfer in seconds to the external platform.
When it comes to workflows we use the Projects and the scheduler. We don't have Monitors or many Triggers at the moment. The Projects are the bread and butter of this application; they are the way you put data into the different platforms. Projects are very straightforward and we can create them pretty fast. We define the resource, which could be SharePoint or Azure or Google or any of those API servers. We then create Projects. We put those into production and after that we see the data flowing. The way we did it for Azure, for instance, which is our biggest one, was that every time a user press Enter on the screen, meaning the user is creating a community or home site, that information is captured through a Trigger. Once we get the information into our program, we call the Project workflow in GoAnywhere and it is the middleware that puts the data into the target server, in this case, Azure. It takes microseconds to complete.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT for about four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
If you define the tool correctly and you give it the appropriate memory and priorities, it works perfectly.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We are a little concerned because the maximum number of open connections allowed is 200, and we are pretty much maxed out. I don't know if they will expand that in the future.
We are extensively using GoAnywhere and we're planning to keep it. To give you an idea, sometimes we have 2.7 million transactions per day, exported from our JDE core to other platforms. And I'm constantly looking for problems to which GoAnywhere can be a solution.
Because of the volume of transactions we have per day, I sometimes get a little concerned that we may run into a scenario where the tool will fall behind our needs. The server where GoAnywhere is installed is a powerful machine, it is the latest iSeries. But it's still 2.7 million transactions or packages to deliver, and that is a lot. Maybe if they expanded the number of open connections allowed, we would be better off.
I'm afraid that when we get the new integration with BuildPro, we may fall behind. We may not be delivering the data as fast as we are now. One of the files we produce, the purchase order, is very dynamic. It's close to 600,000 transactions per day. If the business requires us to send some other table that is as dynamic as that one, we may fall behind. As it is now, the purchase order is sometimes delivered hours after its completion. We don't mind because we don't have a separate application waiting for its data in real time, like we have for Salesforce and SharePoint. But in the future, if the business requires something as big as that, we may not be able to deliver it in GoAnywhere.
How are customer service and support?
The support from them has been amazing. They're always on top of things. We call whenever we need something, and if it's urgent we go through the manager and they immediately reply to us. We have had conference calls with their developers, the most knowledgeable ones, and they are always top-notch. We have no complaints about that.
We do wish they had more centralized documentation, because sometimes it's difficult to obtain it, but eventually we get it. We contact our sales manager and that person helps us to obtain the information from the technical people.
The same type of thing is happening now for Box. We run some processes that create PDF reports and those reports are going to specific users in Box. We are working on that now. We're waiting for information from GoAnywhere on that.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using another solution, from our iSeries platform, to connect with external applications such as Oracle CRM. We started having problems with that because of the Java version and we didn't have any help whatsoever or any support because it was a freebie we downloaded from the internet.
I knew GoAnywhere from my previous company and I recommended it to my supervisor. I told him it would help us with the connection to Oracle. So we acquired the tool and explored it.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was a little complex, not because the tool was complex, but because we didn't have experience doing it.
The user interface of GoAnywhere is pretty straightforward. We took the 12-hour training course but still, sometimes we need to obtain more information. We go to their website and try to get samples. Their communication is outstanding. Whenever we request some examples, "How do we do this?" they reply immediately to us.
There is some maintenance from time to time when there are upgrades, as well as whenever we have an encryption key that needs to be applied. Also, every other week we shut down the application to release memory and to start fresh.
The other day we had to upgrade GoAnywhere and the problem we had was that we had moved our location from Miami to Las Vegas. It was tough because when we started testing GoAnywhere we defined certain settings. We tuned the application. When we moved and we had to reinstall GoAnywhere, we forgot that we were using 12 gigabits of memory. We forgot to do the Java 64-bit. We forgot the priorities of the jobs that were defined. We needed to do the job queue tuning and the class. There were a lot of details that we had forgotten. So we had problem after problem. Hopefully, we will not be moving again anytime soon.
For the Las Vegas move, it took us a couple of hours to install the application. That part was easy. Because we had the resources and the workflows defined in the old server, we just downloaded those via XML and uploaded them to the new server. It was pretty straightforward, except for the things that we forgot. But the installation of the application took two hours, maximum.
What was our ROI?
We have definitely seen a good return on investment from going with GoAnywhere. We have even found it inexpensive, to be honest.
To have a solution like this for the price we're paying makes it cheap. Considering the time that it has saved us, and considering the development that we don't need to do, such as connectors and handling servers, the price is really affordable.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I vouched for GoAnywhere because I had used it where I was working before. We did some research and we got some documentation, as well as information people had written about MFT solutions, and GoAnywhere was at the top. The business side of our company is satisfied that we're doing what needs to be done.
What other advice do I have?
This is the best solution you can get. Do some research, and if you're totally unbiased, you're going to find that GoAnywhere is definitely what you need.
They've been creating Cloud Connectors, according to industry developments. Whenever there's a new cloud service, they create a Cloud Connector. We're using three of them: Box, SharePoint, and Salesforce.
We are trying to replace Robo-FTP, but the information that we're transferring there is critical, it is treasury data for banking, and the business has not yet decided to use GoAnywhere for that. But that was the original plan. We did have some SSH servers to land the data using FTP and that is no longer required because we can put the data directly into Salesforce.
With the tool itself, so far so good. Everything that we needed to do has been done with GoAnywhere. We haven't found anything where we have had to say, "Oh, that's not possible with GoAnywhere." We're good with the product.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Works at a educational organization with 11-50 employees
Effortless setup with excellent support ensures seamless file transfers
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is easy to use, easy to set up, and the support is good."
- "I would like to be able to do MFA and reset the password via email."
What is our primary use case?
The use cases would be to transfer files and send files of large sizes.
How has it helped my organization?
We have not yet collaborated with third parties. We might see benefits in the future when we have SharePoint.
What is most valuable?
Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT is easy to use, easy to set up, and the support is good.
What needs improvement?
I am not able to go in and say 'forgot password.' I need to access the admin portal to change the password from there. I would like to be able to do MFA and reset the password via email.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used GoAnywhere for less than a year. April will mark one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We hardly have any issues with lagging, crashing, or downtime.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable. We utilize it minimally, and it seems easy to scale up.
How are customer service and support?
Their customer service is good, with decent support. They get back to us within a day with answers. Their documentation is also very helpful.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used standard MFT, FileZilla, and just FTP protocol within Windows Server. We switched as we were concerned about security and wanted ease of use and setup.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment was easy. It took us just a couple of days to fully set up.
What about the implementation team?
We used Fortra's implementation team since it came with the package. We had to purchase eight hours of implementation time. From our end, mainly one person was involved in the deployment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is too expensive for what we need. If we could cut it by 50%, that would be great.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We looked at other solutions, however, it was time-consuming, and since Fortra's offers very good products, we did not pursue other options further.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend the solution for secure transfer and easy setup. Despite the pricing, it is a reliable product.
I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Senior Tech Analyst at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Enables easy and secure file transfers but should have more training resources
Pros and Cons
- "Scheduling is valuable. You can schedule a transfer for any time you want. It can be hourly, daily, monthly, or yearly. You can transfer the file on AWS, Azure, or SharePoint."
- "For training, there should be some sites or resources on YouTube or Udemy. They do not have that currently."
What is our primary use case?
GoAnywhere MFT tool is used to transfer files from one end user to another.
Traditionally, you would transfer a file as an attachment to an email. However, that does not always work very well, especially if you want to continuously transfer files. For example, sometimes you need to transfer files every hour. In such cases, traditional ways of file transfers do not work very well. This is where GoAnywhere MFT is helpful. You can just place a file at a location and it automatically gathers the file and transfers it to the destination or wherever you want to transfer it.
How has it helped my organization?
It provides the easiest and safest way to transfer files. There is security and multiple advantages to using an MFT tool like GoAnywhere MFT.
It enables you to easily transfer files and not bother about sending them manually through emails. You can automate it. You do not want to log in and attach files in an email. You can just place them at a specified location, and they are picked up by the GoAnywhere MFT server. If you want to transfer a file to an external vendor, you can either use the vendor's location or your own location to put the file. If the external vendor provides you with a location, you can use that. Otherwise, you can create a folder and provide access to the external vendor. There are two options. It is very easy and secure.
What is most valuable?
Scheduling is valuable. You can schedule a transfer for any time you want. It can be hourly, daily, monthly, or yearly. You can transfer the file on AWS, Azure, or SharePoint. These are the main advantages.
It is easy to use. You just need to create a template and then the sequence is already provided to you. You just have to input the details that you got from the requester. You do not need to put any code, but if you have to do PGP key and encryption, it is a little bit complicated because all users are not aware of all the cases. You have to tell them what exactly you need in a particular case and what you are going to provide them. You need to interact with them.
What needs improvement?
They should have some training courses. Usually, everything is available on YouTube today, but I have not found any videos for this solution. For training, there should be some sites or resources on YouTube or Udemy. They do not have that currently.
Feature-wise, I do not have any areas for improvement. Whenever we work for a company, they have certain restrictions, and we cannot use all the features of any MFT tool. In my previous company, we had a few restrictions, and the feature usage was limited, which made it hard to say if it lacked any features or not. I have not found any issues with most of the features I worked with. I could do whatever was required using GoAnywhere MFT.
For how long have I used the solution?
I used this solution for four years and seven months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
GoAnywhere MFT is very good in terms of stability. You would not find many issues related to stability. If there are any issues, they are rare or once or twice a year.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We can easily scale up and scale down. If they want to use GoAnywhere MFT, most companies get it for a year. People usually do not scale down. They usually scale up because it has many services.
I believe it was being used at multiple locations because we had four servers. If any one of them went down, we had other servers.
How are customer service and support?
I never contacted them. We had an on-site team for that, but I have attended calls with them. They are very prompt. They will schedule a meeting and help you out until the issue is resolved.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In the market, there are multiple MFT tools, but I only have experience working with GoAnywhere MFT. When I joined the company, GoAnywhere MFT was already there. I was trained on that and started working with it.
How was the initial setup?
In my previous company, it was on the cloud. I was not involved in its deployment. It was already being used in my previous company.
If you want to deploy it, you need to contact GoAnywhere. You can raise the ticket and ask them to provide that particular service. They will charge you and provide the service.
I am not sure, but it seems that it does not require any maintenance. We just have to restart it, and we get all the updates and patching activities done.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate GoAnywhere MFT a seven out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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