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ActiveBatch by Redwood vs Appian comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 29, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

ActiveBatch by Redwood
Ranking in Process Automation
6th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Managed File Transfer (MFT) (6th), Workload Automation (6th)
Appian
Ranking in Process Automation
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (5th), Rapid Application Development Software (6th), Low-Code Development Platforms (4th), Process Mining (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of ActiveBatch by Redwood is 0.7%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Appian is 10.2%, down from 10.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Shubham Bharti - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexible, easy to use, and offers good automation
Occasionally, I find myself contemplating if there is room for improvement in the user interface (UI), and envisioning that with certain enhancements. The UI could potentially offer a more refined and user-friendly experience, fostering smoother interactions and facilitating easier navigation for users engaging with the application. New users might encounter a minor setback due to the absence of readily accessible training videos, which could have otherwise proven to be an invaluable resource in aiding their initial familiarization with the platform, potentially hindering their seamless onboarding process and delaying their ability to harness the software's full range of capabilities to its utmost potential.
Devashish Mishra - PeerSpot reviewer
Low resource consumption, easy setup, and stable
To determine whether a platform, such as Appian, is suitable for your domain industry, you must first assess whether it offers any out-of-the-box features relevant to your needs. If it does, utilizing that platform would be the best option since it already has the required functionalities. If the available features do not align with your requirements, consider choosing a platform that can easily build such services. Attempting to modify pre-existing features on a platform is a challenging task, and any upgrades to the platform could pose further issues for users. The solution has high performance but the main issue is the lack of customization after deploying it. I rate Appian an 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

"ActiveBatch can automate predictable, repeatable processes very well. There is no real trick to what ActiveBatch does. ActiveBatch does exactly what you would expect a scheduling piece of software to do. It does it in a timely manner and does it with very little outside interference and fanfare. It runs when it is supposed to, and I don't have to jump through a bunch of hoops to double check it."
"Using this tool, if there are any huge failures, we immediately get an email notification, and the proper team will be informed, at which time they can act accordingly."
"The Jobs Library has been a tremendous asset. For the most, that's what we use. There are some outliers, but we pretty much integrate those Jobs Library steps throughout the process, whether it's REST calls, FTP processes, or file copies and moves... That has helped us to build end-to-end workflows."
"The software offers real-time monitoring and reporting features that let IT teams keep tabs on the progress of their batch operations and workflows."
"ActiveBatch's Self-Service Portal allows our business units to run and monitor their own workloads. They can simply run and review the logs, but they can't modify them. It increases their productivity because they are able to take care of things on their own. It saves us time from having to rerun the scripts, because the business units can just go ahead and log in and and rerun it themselves."
"As far as centralization goes it's nice because we can see all these processes that are tied to this larger process. The commissions, FTP processing, the reporting, the file moves to the business users — all that is right there. It's very easy to read. It's easy to tie it together, visually, and see where each of these steps fits into the bigger picture."
"Approximately ~20 hours of manual effort have been reduced to ~5 hours with the help of ActiveBatch."
"One of the most valuable features is the job templates. If we need to create an FTP job, we just drag over the FTP template and fill out the requirements using the variables that ActiveBatch uses. And that makes it reusable. We can create a job once but use it for many different clients."
"We appreciate the drag and drop functionality and the easy to access plug and play features."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Process Modeling enables creation of business process workflows. You can create complex business workflows in a visual manner, and it is also easy to debug/monitor."
"With low-code, we don't need a lot of coding, and then from the plumbing perspective, there is a complete CI/CD pipeline that exists within Appian that can be leveraged for open deployment."
"It provides us with real-time data on all connected systems in terms of how they're integrated with each other and how they are performing in a workflow manner."
"This is the most complete solution of its kind."
"It's a stable product."
"The Application Designer is very user friendly. There are also lot of plug-ins that you can use and, for the most part, they are free."
 

Cons

"The UI could potentially offer a more refined and user-friendly experience, fostering smoother interactions and facilitating easier navigation for users engaging with the application."
"ActiveBatch is a little complex."
"ActiveBatch UI could use a little more help, and video tutorials would be greatly appreciated for user guides."
"I have faced struggles to understand, set up the tool, and implement it in my early days as a new user."
"The reporting needs improvement. There is a real need for the ability to generate audit reports on the fly. It needs to be a lot easier than what I can do right now. This is a major item for me."
"It could be easier to provide dashboards on how many jobs are running at the same time; more monitoring."
"Some improvements can be made to the user interface."
"Except for the GUI, everything looks good."
"It would be useful if they could create an academy or forum in the future to help active users answer questions they have about the solution."
"The biggest areas of improvement would be in facilitating team development, DevOps, and integration with typical tools used in enterprise development (Jenkins, Subversion, etc.)"
"I would like to see more features for enterprises. They would also benefit from adding documentation and training on their site."
"Appian could improve their customer-facing initiatives."
"Even though the company has made great improvements in online documentation, featuring rich material which includes case studies of real-life use cases, the material could definitely be better in quality and coverage of use cases."
"It is also not easy to learn. Training tutorials could be improved."
"There should be more flexibility for the developers to choose the look and feel of the UI. They should have a better ability to design their widgets and customize them with different colors, shapes, and sizes. That is a limitation that could be improved upon."
"The solution needs more features. For example, a way to connect to our viewing database, to record, and more interface and component design."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you compare ActiveBatch licensing to Control-M, you're looking at $50,000 as opposed to millions."
"The pricing was fair. There are additional costs for the plugins. We have the standard licensing fees for different pieces, then we have the plugins which were add-ons. However, we expected that."
"Currently, we are paying approximately $7,000 yearly, which includes support."
"It allows for lower operational overhead."
"ActiveBatch is currently redesigning themselves. In the past, they were a low cost solution for automation. They had a nice tool that was very inexpensive. With their five-year plan, they will be more enhancement-driven, so they're trying to improve their software, customer service, and the way that their customers get information from them. In doing that, they're raising the price of their base system. They changed from one pricing model to another, which has caused some friction between ActiveBatch and us. We're working through that right now with them. That's one of the reasons why we're why we were evaluating other software packages."
"The price was fairly in line with other automation tools. I don't think it's exorbitantly expensive, relatively speaking."
"I like ActiveBatch Workload Automation's licensing model because they're not holding you down on an agentless model or agent model, where every server needs to have an agent. That's the main selling point of the solution and I hope they stay that way."
"I don't think we've ever had a problem with the pricing or licensing. Even the maintenance fees are very much in line. They are not excessive. I think for the support that you get, you get a good value for your money. It's the best value on the market."
"You can't really test the software properly without actually buying the license first."
"When it comes to pricing, it's definitely not affordable. However, it really depends on the requirements that you're seeking from the solution."
"The license is not very cheap. It's on the expensive side."
"Product pricing compared to some of the earlier vendors, like IBM, CA, and Oracle, is quite well-priced. Although, we do feel that as we increase the number of users and the workload increases, we will have to spend more."
"It is fully managed, and I don't believe there are any additional expenses."
"BPM done right is a huge value proposition for almost any company, and with Appian's low code rapid development model, the ROI can be huge, while the break-even point should be accelerated tremendously."
"The cost is a bit higher than other low-code competitors, OutSystems and Mendix. The price needs to be more competitive."
"It is expensive, but powerful. I would recommend comparing against cheaper licensing products and open source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
29%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ActiveBatch Workload Automation?
Managing the workload and monitoring the tasks were very difficult with manual interventions. Now, by using ActiveBatch, the process is automated and it runs tasks on a scheduled basis.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ActiveBatch Workload Automation?
I'd advise users to start by knowing what the actual requirement is and thoroughly assess the automation needs. New users should take advantage of the demos and trial versions so they get an idea o...
What needs improvement with ActiveBatch Workload Automation?
After upgrades we are facing a few issues and errors triggered, so focusing on this would be appreciated. Some of the advanced features in the user interface are a bit confusing even after referrin...
Which do you prefer - Appian or Camunda Platform?
Appian is fast when building simple to medium solutions. This solution offers simple drag-and-drop functionality with easy plug-and-play options. The initial setup was seamless and very easy to imp...
Is Appian a suitable solution for beginners who have no additional preparation?
Appian is actually pretty big on educating its users, including with courses that reward you with certifications. There is a whole section on their company’s website where you can check out the edu...
Is it easy to set up Appian or did you have to resort to professional help?
We had some issues when we were setting up Appian. It was quite surprising, since this is a low-code tool which, in its essence, means it is meant for business users and inexperienced beginners. So...
 

Also Known As

ActiveBatch
Appian BPM, Appian AnyWhere, Appian Enterprise BPMS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Informatica, D&H, ACES, PrimeSource, Sub-Zero Group, SThree, Lamar Advertising, Subway, Xcel Energy, Ignite Technologies, Whataburger, Jyske Bank, Omaha Children's Hospital
Hansard Global plc, Punch Taverns, Pirelli, Crawford & Company, EDP Renewables, Queensland Government Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning (, Bank of Tennessee
Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. Appian and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.