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ActiveBatch by Redwood vs GoAnywhere MFT comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 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 Managed File Transfer (MFT)
6th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (5th), Workload Automation (4th)
GoAnywhere MFT
Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)
2nd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category, the mindshare of ActiveBatch by Redwood is 1.9%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GoAnywhere MFT is 8.6%, up from 5.8% 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.
Earl Diem - PeerSpot reviewer
Key to our workflow and our workload automation strategy, helping us trade and consume files
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is very useful in sending confidential files through FPP servers."
"The automation feature is a very valuable feature as the associates do not have to worry about performing repetitive tasks (i.e. endpoint security scans on a daily basis) that would take several hours to complete on a daily basis."
"Error Handling is one of the best standout features of ActiveBatch."
"Since we are no longer waiting for an operator to see that a job is finished, we have changed our daily cycle from running in eight hours down to about five. We had a third shift-operator retire and that position was never refilled."
"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 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."
"Easy to configure and simple to develop new features."
"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."
"All of it is valuable, but the most valuable would be the ability to release medical records without having a limitation for size and not having to deal with the fax machine."
"When users say, 'I'm building spreadsheets that I would like to be uploaded on a regular basis into the IBM i,' we are able to accommodate that request within a matter of hours rather than the days it would take to create programs to do that. That is very useful. It has eliminated several dozens of scripts for us."
"Its speed is the most valuable because every integration used to take months with old SOA tools, integration buses, and that type of stuff. Now, we do integrations in a matter of days. Security is another valuable thing because every step in the workflow has an audit trace, which is great. This also brings a lot of confidence in automating business process workflows through this type of solution."
"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."
"I like the versatility GoAnywhere provides, allowing transfers through HTTPS and different protocols. It can also transfer through a server and a client."
"GoDrive eliminates the need to use the exchange server for file sharing."
"The solution is easy to learn and user-friendly, which makes it accessible even to those without programming backgrounds and extensive scripting training. Newcomers can quickly get to grips with the platform, and as it's a more object-oriented application, it's easier to use and program."
"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."
 

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."
"The product should be improved by providing a customization option."
"Providing some detailed training materials could be very helpful for new users who have very limited technical information about the tool."
"A nice thing to have would be the ability to comfortably pass variables from one job to another. That was one of the things that I found difficult."
"They should offer pricing that is more affordable."
"Setting up the software was hard."
"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."
"Except for the GUI, everything looks good."
"GoAnywhere's interface could be a little more intuitive."
"There is a function referred to as write CSV, to write a general text file. In this scenario of creating a simple text file, I ran into a situation where, if the product saw a quote or a double-quote in the data, it started wrapping all the text fields in double-quotes. The request I put in asks them to provide a feature that leaves my data alone and does not interpret anything."
"When we restart the agent on each server, it tries to go out to the internet and it takes about a 13-minute timeout before it can move forward. Why is there a 13-minute timeout value when trying to go to the internet? ...If they could limit that timeout or give us a way to modify it so we could have a faster timeout, that would help us at least knock out a half-hour's worth of outage."
"I would like to be able to do MFA and reset the password via email."
"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."
"The reporting could be more customizable."
"I like that you can tweak the interface so much, but it would be nice to be able to tweak it some more. The ability to further tweak the interface would be advantageous, as our end users had some questions about modifications that we could not address."
"I tried to copy a file from an S3 bucket to another storage class. I don't know if it is a limitation from AWS, not the MFT. If I copy a file from the AWS S3 bucket to that storage class, it can't be transferred. It says that I can't remember the exact error, but it cannot be processed. I want MFT to be more compatible with cloud-based applications or services like AWS."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you compare ActiveBatch licensing to Control-M, you're looking at $50,000 as opposed to millions."
"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."
"It allows for lower operational overhead."
"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."
"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 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 would be good for the company to explore a modular approach to selling the product so it could be cheaper and more attractive to users."
"Compared to other tools it's less expensive."
"It is very attractive. In terms of the capacity of the product and functionality, it is a good price."
"Its pricing is fair. It is not the most expensive, and it is not the cheapest. For what we get in our environment, the pricing model works pretty well."
"Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT is an inexpensive solution."
"The product's pricing is reasonable."
"The cost of GoAnywhere versus the value it brings to our data transfer operations is reasonable... The cost is relatively expensive but, back to the car analogy, that's to be expected with a Ferrari."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
9%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Healthcare Company
9%
 

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 Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT?
GoDrive eliminates the need to use the exchange server for file sharing.
What needs improvement with Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT?
The technical support response time has room for improvement.
 

Also Known As

ActiveBatch
HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT, GoAnywhere MFT, GoAnywhere Managed File Transfer,
 

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
McKesson City of Modesto, California Kwik Trip Northwestern University Charter Communications
Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. GoAnywhere MFT and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.