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ActiveBatch by Redwood vs AutoSys Workload Automation 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

ActiveBatch by Redwood
Ranking in Workload Automation
9th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (9th), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (10th)
AutoSys Workload Automation
Ranking in Workload Automation
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of ActiveBatch by Redwood is 2.6%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AutoSys Workload Automation is 11.0%, down from 17.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload 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.
Antony Askew - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps us manage complex workloads, reduce our workload failure rates, and save us time
The visibility and control features are somewhat limited. This is a recognized weakness, but thee vendor is currently revamping the user interface to address it. While the current UI is a bit outdated, it's undergoing improvement. AutoSys Workload Automation has some areas for improvement, particularly in housekeeping and product maintenance. These tasks are currently quite manual and labor-intensive for our team. Additionally, the reporting and forecasting functionalities could be more robust. One area for improvement with AutoSys Workload Automation is that it comprises several distinct tools configured to work together. This necessitates familiarity with multiple tools for effective solution management. Consequently, it can sometimes lack a sense of cohesiveness as a unified solution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"From a scheduling point of view, it is pretty good."
"Since I started using this product, I have been able to easily track everything as it mainly monitors, alerts, and looks after all the services - even across platform scheduling - which has helped me immensely."
"What ActiveBatch allows you to do is develop a more efficient process. It gave me visibility into all my jobs so I could choose which jobs to run in parallel. This is much easier than when I have to try to do it through cron for Windows XP, where you really can't do things in parallel and know what is going on."
"The REST API adapters and native integrations for integrating and orchestrating the software stack are very flexible."
"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."
"We use the main job-scheduling feature. It's the only thing we use in the tool. That's the reason we are using the tool: to reduce costs by replacing manual tasks with automated tasks and to perform regular, repetitive tasks in a more reliable way."
"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."
"ActiveBatch has reduced work by providing automated workflows across several different applications."
"AutoSys Workload Automation is scalable."
"​We run millions of jobs through it every day using it for financial transactions, banking, credit cards, PeopleSoft, payroll, etc."
"It is very valuable for us when we are trying to arrange or orchestrate jobs into a system. It is helpful for triggering jobs for a scheduled task."
"To me, what's most valuable in AutoSys Workload Automation is its robustness and quickness. The tool can trigger jobs within a few milliseconds, and it can handle large volumes of jobs."
"It gives us flexibility when doing releases. We can make changes for one day in a PDS member, since we stage our jobs by date, and the next day the normal job definitions are run."
"It can run an object on our Windows systems or our Unix systems, and then send messages to the other system when they are complete."
"It has allowed us to automate many of the functions of our operations staff. For instance, we had production control staff spending two hours a day entering date parms into our daily business processes. And now, CA Workload Automation does it for us."
"The capabilities of the product to schedule on multiple platforms, multiple operating systems."
 

Cons

"One thing I've noticed is that navigation can be difficult unless you are familiar with the structure that we have in place. If someone else had to look at our ActiveBatch console and find a job, they might not know where to find it."
"There are some issues with this version and finding the jobs that it ran. If you're looking at 1,000 different jobs, it shows based on the execution time, not necessarily the run time. So, if there was a constraint waiting, you may be looking for it in the wrong time frame. Plus, with thousands of jobs showing up and the way it pages output jobs, sometimes you end up with multiple pages on the screen, then you have to go through to find the specific job you're looking for. On the opposite side, you can limit the daily activity screen to show only jobs that failed or jobs currently running, which will shrink that back down. However, we have operators who are looking at the whole nightly cycle to make sure everything is there and make sure nothing got blocked or was waiting. Sometimes, they have a hard time finding every item within the list."
"The thing I've noticed the most is the Help function. It's very difficult, at times, to find examples of how to do something. The Help function will explain what the tool does, but we're not a Windows shop at the data warehouse. Our data warehouse jobs actually run on Linux servers. Finding things for Linux-based solutions is not as easy as it is for Windows-based solutions. I would like to see more examples, and more non-Windows examples as well, in the Help."
"Any product is going to have some room for improvement, no matter what. I see the company has already ventured into AWS and they're constantly trying to improve the managed file transfer which they have recently improvised. I think they bought a software called JSCAPE and they're trying to improve it, which is good. I am not sure if JSCAPE would be part of the base product but currently, you have to buy a separate license for it, which doesn't make sense. If it was Microsoft, ServiceNow, or integrating with other software vendors, I would understand but JSCAPE is now in-house and I'm not sure if they can justify having a separate license for JSCAPE. I would probably expect them to be packaging JSCAPE into the base product. They did switch over from a perpetual license model to a subscription model, which hurt the company a little bit. Nobody is offering the perpetual model anymore. As long as the transition is fair for both the companies, I think it should be fine and not burn us out."
"Between version 10 and version 12 there was a change. In version 10, they had each object in its own folder. But on the back end, they saw it at the root level. So when we moved over to version 12, everything was in the same area mixed together. It was incredibly difficult and we actually had to create our own folders and move those objects—like schedules, jobs, user accounts—and manually put those into folders, whereas the previous version already had it."
"The product should be improved by providing a customization option."
"It could be easier to provide dashboards on how many jobs are running at the same time; more monitoring."
"ActiveBatch is a little complex."
"The solution could improve by having support for container environments."
"This product needs to improve its graphical user interface."
"An area for improvement in AutoSys Workload Automation is that it lacks advanced features or advanced built-in functionalities found in competitors, for example, an advanced workflow feature. Even the handling or notification from AutoSys Workload Automation isn't the best in the industry. Other products have very good workflow-related functionalities such as ActiveBatch that's missing in AutoSys Workload Automation, so I wish the tool had those features."
"More benefits with the agent upgrades, and that's about it. Other than that we have no complaints with it. It's been awesome."
"Reduce the number of operational files. This would make the job of a system programmer supporting ESP easier."
"The WCC could be improved."
"We have to escalate through channels to get to somebody who knows what's going on. It takes time that we do not necessarily have.​"
"Some support issues need to be addressed, but not through email, through personal contact via phone or WebEx."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Currently, we are paying approximately $7,000 yearly, which includes support."
"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."
"If you compare ActiveBatch licensing to Control-M, you're looking at $50,000 as opposed to millions."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It allows for lower operational overhead."
"I don't have information on the exact licensing cost of AutoSys Workload Automation because that's managed by the tools and financing teams. For agents, it's close to $4,00, but for the server setup, it's usually a one-time license initially, and it's AMC which is paid every year and comes close to $8,000 to $10,000."
"There is an annual license to use AutoSys Workload Automation."
"People need to pay attention to how they use their ESP agents on the distributed platform. That's where some of the cost comes in, based on how many you need or how many you use."
"CA pricing has been a problem, and not looked upon favorably here at all."
"The return on investment would be very high because doing things manually without this product would be extremely expensive."
"It is overpriced."
"The pricing needs to be improved. Some of my client's complained that it was too expensive."
"I certainly think the pricing is worth the value."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Insurance Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
47%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
6%
Insurance Company
5%
 

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...
How does Control-M compare with AutoSys Workload Automation?
Control-M acts as a single, centralized interface for monitoring and managing all batch processes, which is helpful because nothing gets left unattended since it is all visible in one place, and th...
What do you like most about AutoSys Workload Automation?
The most valuable aspects of AutoSys Workload Automation are its performance, scalability, and ease of getting started for new users.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AutoSys Workload Automation?
The solution is costly. The pricing is based on the number of users, which for me, translates to approximately $120,000 to $130,000 for a license period of two to three years.
 

Also Known As

ActiveBatch
CA Workload Automation, CA Workload Automation AE
 

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
Gaumont, Mercantil do Brasil, CCEE, Hanwha Life
Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. AutoSys Workload Automation and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.