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ActiveBatch by Redwood vs F5 BIG-IQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 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 Process Automation
5th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Managed File Transfer (MFT) (6th), Workload Automation (4th)
F5 BIG-IQ
Ranking in Process Automation
27th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of ActiveBatch by Redwood is 0.6%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IQ is 0.2%, down from 0.3% 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.
Ravindra-Mali - PeerSpot reviewer
Key features like SSL uploading strengthen file handling
From the study material point of view, there are multiple certifications available. The challenge is there is hardly any study material available that can be referred to or used as a study material. Of course, from the knowledge perspective, multiple courses and details are available. However, from a hands-on experience perspective, more resources should be available on the Internet, like labs and lab preparations.

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."
"Easy to configure and simple to develop new features."
"One of the most valuable features of this solution is the versatility of the prebuilt jobs."
"We are able to integrate it into multiple third-party tools like email, backup, tracking systems, SharePoint, Slack alerts, etc."
"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."
"There are hundreds of pre-built steps."
"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 nice thing about ActiveBatch is once we have created a specific job that can be easily be replicated to another job, then minimal changes will have to be made. This makes things nice. Reduction of coding is substantial in a lot of cases. The replication of one job to another is just doing a few minor tweaks and rolling it into production. This decreases our development costs substantially."
"We use this solution on a daily basis, and it is very stable."
"The GUI is fine, at least from an engineer's perspective."
"The most valuable features are load balancing and WAF."
"The customer service is great."
"F5 BIG-IQ is a central management system for the BIG-IP."
"The best aspect of the solution is that we can have everything integrated with a rather large capacity in order to personalize and configure specific rules."
"F5 BIG-IQ has always provided us with great support."
"The reporting feature is quite good."
 

Cons

"It could be easier to provide dashboards on how many jobs are running at the same time; more monitoring."
"There is this back and forth, where ActiveBatch says, "Your Oracle people should be dealing with this," and Oracle people say, "No, we don't know anything about ActiveBatch." Then, it all falls back on me as to what happens. Nobody is taking responsibility. This is the biggest failing for ActiveBatch."
"The help center and documentation are not that helpful."
"Some improvements can be made to the user interface."
"I have faced struggles to understand, set up the tool, and implement it in my early days as a new user."
"ActiveBatch is a little complex."
"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."
"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."
"F5 BIG-IQ is a complex solution, and it cannot manage everything related to BIG-IPs."
"Sometimes the solution does not work."
"F5 BIG-IQ should improve by being a complete certificate management solution because currently, it is only for Venafi. Other automation platforms, should be added."
"Integration with VAS is something that they need to work on."
"The solution's rSeries has been made free, and iSeries should be made free as well."
"The shell, kernel, or Linux has something like a delay, especially with the Virtual Edition, when you are trying to implement it in the cloud and you want to access it remotely with web management. It would be great if they could improve their kernel. It was difficult for me, especially when I got started with BIG-IP. I was struggling to find which commands work with it. If you want to work with it, you have to be a Linux guy."
"The solution should improve pricing. It's expensive in comparison to other American solutions."
"From a hands-on experience perspective, more resources should be available on the Internet, like labs and lab preparations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"Currently, we are paying approximately $7,000 yearly, which includes support."
"If you compare ActiveBatch licensing to Control-M, you're looking at $50,000 as opposed to millions."
"It allows for lower operational overhead."
"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."
"The price was fairly in line with other automation tools. I don't think it's exorbitantly expensive, relatively speaking."
"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."
"F5 BIG-IQ is a cheap solution."
"Users have to pay an annual subscription fee for the solution's iSeries."
"There is only one licensing fee for F5 BIG-IQ and everything is included in the price."
"I would like the product to be cheaper."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
9%
Retailer
7%
No data available
 

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 F5 BIG-IQ?
F5 BIG-IQ is a central management system for the BIG-IP.
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IQ?
From the study material point of view, there are multiple certifications available. The challenge is there is hardly any study material available that can be referred to or used as a study material...
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. F5 BIG-IQ and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,625 professionals have used our research since 2012.