Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs ServiceNow Orchestration comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 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)
ServiceNow Orchestration
Ranking in Process Automation
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 ServiceNow Orchestration is 4.7%, up from 4.2% 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.
ShaheenKapery - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to integrate, stable solution and incredibly good customer service
It is a long setup. It was customized to our company's requirements. Bearing in mind that there is not just an IT team. You've got an IT team consisting of end-users, consulting, and user support sides. Install support, ServiceNow support, application support, and so on. What ServiceNow does is it's really good at getting the tickets to the right person. That's the power of it. There's no issue with it. But you need to set that up in advance. You need to know the structure and who is responsible for each task. The initial setup does take a long time, and the organization might face some issues. But once you've got that resolved, it's amazing.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 software offers real-time monitoring and reporting features that let IT teams keep tabs on the progress of their batch operations and workflows."
"It has helped with scheduling complex jobs with simple scripts."
"From a scheduling point of view, it is pretty good."
"There are hundreds of pre-built steps."
"We are able to integrate it into multiple third-party tools like email, backup, tracking systems, SharePoint, Slack alerts, etc."
"Easy to configure and simple to develop new features."
"The user interface is really incredible."
"The interface of the solution is very user friendly and it is easily accessible via a simple URL. This makes it easier to complete the UI based tasks but using other features require expertise in languages like Java. But along with that, there are limitation in terms of network connectivity testing and administrator faces regular challenges in conducting connectivity tests due to these limitations."
"Great with IT processes and business processes."
"Employee onboarding, de-boarding, and other service-provision features make the process easier and it saves us a lot of time."
"There are a lot of ready to use orchestration custom packs."
"The iTerm suite is also crucial for visibility and optimization."
"It's probably the best product out there."
"Orchestration is commonly utilized by major corporations. The process of linking methods in ServiceNow, known as the RTS chain to parent methods, is executed seamlessly and efficiently. It's quite impressive and significant in its impact."
"The solution effectively automates business processes."
 

Cons

"ActiveBatch UI could use a little more help, and video tutorials would be greatly appreciated for user guides."
"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."
"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."
"Some improvements can be made to the user interface."
"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."
"As more organizations are moving towards a cloud-based infrastructure, ActiveBatch could incorporate more capabilities that support popular cloud platforms, such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud."
"The help center and documentation are not that helpful."
"Except for the GUI, everything looks good."
"The deployment requires awareness among the project staff."
"ServiceNow Orchestration needs to improve multiple aspects in which their event monitoring system is one. The solution lacks event monitoring systems which makes them non-competitive. They need to include improvements in a similar manner that they did in Sweden."
"There can be gaps in integration."
"There should be connectors to cover at least the top industry applications, and they should be easier to configure in a plug-and-play fashion."
"There is still room for more integrations. Or, it would be nice to bundle multiple products together rather than selling everything as a model as that turns out to be a bit costly."
"The automatic remediation needs enhancement, particularly integrating ServiceNow with tools like SolarWinds and Logic Monitor. It is functional, but it needs improvement."
"Frequent upgrades may negatively impact the performance of instances. Therefore, for now, I don't recommend any additional upgrades."
"The flow rate for releases and updates is very, very slow and does not meet customers' objectives for scalability."
 

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."
"The price was fairly in line with other automation tools. I don't think it's exorbitantly expensive, relatively speaking."
"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."
"Currently, we are paying approximately $7,000 yearly, which includes support."
"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 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 is quite expensive because we've had some customers come back and say it's quite pricey because in order for them to go ahead with Orchestration, they must have already been paying for Discovery, service mapping, and a few other things."
"The cost of the solution is based on the number of plugins, conductors and integrations used and is charged annually. The licensing cause has been increasing gradually which makes it difficult to access. Initially offer free features but over the time the charges rise which make it an expensive solution with limited features. Along with that, the integration issues persist and require additional middle where and internet connectivity for effective usage."
"Pricing is custom to every customer."
"This is an expensive product, but it is the best in the market considering the features and lack of competitors."
"ServiceNow doesn't give a clear cost indication. They have different contracts with different organizations and it's all about negotiation, so you don't know how they are doing at the cost level."
"It is not very expensive."
"In terms of price, this solution is at the higher end of what you'll find."
"The solution is costly and orchestrations are very expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Process Automation solutions are best for your needs.
823,875 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
 

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 ServiceNow Orchestration?
The interface of the solution is very user friendly and it is easily accessible via a simple URL. This makes it easier to complete the UI based tasks but using other features require expertise in l...
What needs improvement with ServiceNow Orchestration?
There is a lot of complexity in the platform, but that comes with the scalability. It is a highly complex platform to work on. There are changes in their workflow technology, and the flow technolog...
 

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
experian, BEACHBODY, HealthPartners, Banosoft
Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. ServiceNow Orchestration and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
823,875 professionals have used our research since 2012.