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ActiveBatch by Redwood vs BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

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 Managed File Transfer (MFT)
6th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (6th), Workload Automation (6th)
BMC Control-M Managed File ...
Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category, the mindshare of ActiveBatch by Redwood is 1.8%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is 4.5%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed File Transfer (MFT)
 

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.
Alan Arnold - PeerSpot reviewer
Stable, straightforward to deploy, and works as advertised
The most valuable thing is that it works as advertised. We don't take advantage of some of the features like we should because that's not our primary role and responsibility in the environment that we manage. We only want to make sure that a file gets to where it was supposed to go, or we pull in a file and it comes to us correctly. There are some GUI interfaces that we take a look at that tell us the number of transfers and the servers that are being utilized the most for capacity management and performance management. That's about it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We leverage the solution's native integrations regularly. We have to get files from a remote server outside the organization, and even send things outside the organization. We use a lot of its file manipulation and SFTP functionality for contacting remote servers."
"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."
"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."
"It can connect to a number of third-party/legacy systems."
"For developers, it is easy to orchestrate the workflows and the integration has been very easy."
"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."
"Easy to configure and simple to develop new features."
"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."
"Its stability and the feature list are rich compared to other tools in the market."
"The GUI is good if I'm comparing it to other scheduling products."
"I am a partner and an implementer for Control-M. Once purchased by my clients, I implement this solution and provide daily support for this scheduling tool."
"The scalability of this solution is very good. The current solution is used wide spread in my company, but I don't have any plans to expand."
"BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is highly stable. It is enterprise-grade software. Doing a job of 10,000 to 20,000 the solution is very stable."
"It saves a lot of time for maintenance."
"There's another feature called Workload Archiving, where the data for all the jobs can be stored for however many days that we want, which is very useful for any historical analytics."
"The solution is stable."
 

Cons

"A cloud option is not provided as a free feature, making it a costly solution for smaller organizations."
"An area for improvement in ActiveBatch Workload Automation is its interface or GUI. It could be a little better. There isn't any additional feature I'd like to see in the tool, except for the GUI, everything looks good."
"They should offer pricing that is more affordable."
"I can't get the cleaning up of logs to work consistently. Right now, we are not setup correctly, and maybe it is something that I have not effectively communicated to them."
"The product should be improved by providing a customization option."
"I have faced struggles to understand, set up the tool, and implement it in my early days as a new user."
"There are very few documents that provide us with detailed information on the troubleshooting of errors that occur during integration with the existing environment."
"We have faced a couple of issues where we were supposed to log a defect with ActiveBatch. That said, the Active batch Vendor Support is very responsive and reliable."
"An area for improvement in BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is integration. It should be compatible with more solutions. It should have integrations with newer applications as well."
"The structure between the Control-M/Server and Control-M/Agent could possibly be improved."
"We'd like it to be easier to maintain the administrative side."
"Most improvements are related to cloud connectivity."
"There are eight different kinds of dashboards in Workflow Insights, but there could be more because there is third party software that provides more dashboard styles."
"The solution lacks a graphical user interface for reporting."
"Before we transfer files we have to make the connection profile first for MFT. If we did not have to do this and send the transfer files directly, that would be useful."
"Their support can be improved. I would like them to provide support in Spanish and have more knowledge."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"It allows for lower operational overhead."
"If you compare ActiveBatch licensing to Control-M, you're looking at $50,000 as opposed to millions."
"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."
"Currently, we are paying approximately $7,000 yearly, which includes support."
"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."
"BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer has reasonable pricing. What you pay for is the task or job, and as it's a module, it's complimentary, so you save about twenty percent of the job cost."
"Its cost is high for small companies."
"I rate the solution's price a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is low or really affordable, and ten is high or really expensive. It is a really expensive tool."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The license model is based on the number of tasks or jobs required. The price overall is expensive. In my country, we don't have any choice but to use them because no one can match their capability."
"Yearly licenses are based on the number of jobs."
"The licensing is a bit more expensive than other tools, so if a client is focused on the cost, that would be something to consider. The licensing should be cheaper."
"It was a little bit pricey. They were proud of the product. A particular module was not free. However, BMC was able to negotiate that particular module into our whole contract itself without having to negotiate an individual price for that module. All that was included in a one-time negotiation, and we've signed a five-year contract on that."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
9%
Retailer
8%
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
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...
What do you like most about BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer?
It is a highly scalable solution...I rate the product's initial setup a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer?
Negotiate based on task and ask for a better price where non prod tasks could be charged a lower price.
What needs improvement with BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer?
Most improvements are related to cloud connectivity. It would be beneficial to have cloud integration tools for services like AWS and Azure. Currently, batch flows integrate through modules but don...
 

Also Known As

ActiveBatch
No data available
 

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
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