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AWS Step Functions vs AutoSys Workload Automation comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

JAMS
Sponsored
Ranking in Workload Automation
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
AutoSys Workload Automation
Ranking in Workload Automation
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
AWS Step Functions
Ranking in Workload Automation
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of JAMS is 2.6%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AutoSys Workload Automation is 8.4%, down from 15.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Step Functions is 1.4%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
JAMS2.6%
AutoSys Workload Automation8.4%
AWS Step Functions1.4%
Other87.6%
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2770605 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Engineer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Has streamlined complex job scheduling across scripting languages while reducing manual effort
JAMS could be improved with a web client that is accessible and as fast as a normal website, eliminating the need to RDP to the servers to access the JAMS client. A functionality running on the JAMS server to continuously check the JAMS agents would ensure they are working properly. If an agent is not responding, a feature to restart the service from the job server machine would be beneficial. The upgrade process, particularly when switching from V6 to V7, could be clearer in terms of documentation, ideally with screenshots showing exactly what needs to be done on each screen.
PK
Assistant VP at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Experience significant automation with robust integration and user-friendly interfaces
There are areas of AutoSys Workload Automation that have room for improvement. They are implementing good enhancements in the R24 release. The web UI needs some improvement. Cloud integrations are limited to 25 or 30 configurable plugins and integrations to the cloud. They can improve in that area. They have separate tools, not AutoSys Workload Automation, such as Atomic and other SaaS-based solutions that can run inside the cloud. AutoSys Workload Automation can be configured in the cloud, but it requires a substantial number of VMs depending on the load. For on-premises deployment, it is a very good solution. They need to increase their footprint in the cloud and improve the web UI. They are making excellent progress in the R24 release.
reviewer2706945 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Orchestration and integration simplify processes with seamless stability and reliability
I use the Visual Workflow Editor feature of AWS Step Functions. I mainly work through code and then improve it through the visual aspect. There are two ways to do orchestration: through code and through visual. My main task is to develop flows. I have only implemented AWS Step Functions with AWS services, not with any third-party tools. The integration between AWS Step Functions and other AWS services is excellent, working seamlessly with EventBridge, Glue jobs, and databases. I have not encountered any challenges with customers regarding AWS Step Functions that needed me to find a workaround. The pricing of AWS Step Functions is moderate and not particularly costly. AWS Step Functions is affordable for small, medium, and enterprise businesses as an orchestration tool. I have not used any documentation, manuals, or guides for AWS Step Functions as it's very simple to implement. When help is needed, I consult Stack Overflow or AI for commands. Overall rating for AWS Step Functions: 9 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The interface is good, and it's very easy to define and create jobs. If a job is not running or there is an error, the solution will send an email. That's all very good and very useful."
"The most valuable feature of JAMS is its user-friendly interface, especially after upgrading from version six to seven."
"JAMS has improved our productivity immensely because everything flows. I don't think we could operate at our current staffing levels without it."
"The most valuable aspect of JAMS is its robustness."
"Previously, we manually managed file transfers by writing our scripts. The automated MFT feature is great for me and the company. It helps us know where the files are going and enables us to track errors if anything fails. It also makes the connection seamless for third-party vendors."
"It has definitely drastically improved our capabilities to scale our automation. Before JAMS, there were a lot of manual processes. We had a couple of operators who spent all day doing that. A lot of the time with human intervention and human processes, it is as good as the person who may be following a procedure and human error is a big problem."
"The most valuable feature is the easily accessible data in the database because we run a lot of SQL scripting against the database."
"One of the things I like the most, as a SQL DBA, is the fact that we can manipulate tables in the background. Also, the fact that you can have your own views and work with the product the way it fits best is a very helpful feature."
"The ability to create calendars, calendering for batch jobs to run on a scheduled frequency."
"The most valuable feature of AutoSys Workload Automation is batch processing."
"It has helped to simplify cross-dependency between MVS and Open systems jobs."
"Running anything in crontab, you need to put a lot of logic into it to make it work. With this product, you don't have to worry about it. You have the schedule object where you put all the dates or holidays in it, and it does it for you."
"We use technical support all the time. We would be lost without them. They're fantastic. Really good job. We're able to reach the right person to help us out right away."
"We get better reports than we use to have."
"We use CA Workload Automation AE r11.3.6 to automate enterprise-wide scheduling and file transfers using an FTP plugin."
"The CA workload agent has gotten much better. For our organization it's important for us to communicate in a secure fashion between the host and the other platforms, and we are able to do that with our CA product"
"What I like the most about Amazon Step Functions is how easy it is to use."
"AWS Step Functions offers advanced workflows that save time and enhance efficiency by reducing delays and ensuring consistent orchestration among various services."
"It's Amazon, it's scalable."
"It's a general solution that you can adapt to your own needs and is simple to use. We like that it can be integrated with everything in the AWS suite, and that the creation of the pipeline can be done using the graphical user interface."
"AWS Step Functions was stable, and there were no problems that I can recall."
"AWS Step Functions acts as a high-level layer, allowing us to seamlessly integrate with microservices."
"One can rate all the calls and that is a good feature."
"The solution is stable...The solution is easy to scale."
 

Cons

"JAMS lacks source control features. Our previous solution had job control language, but JAMS doesn't. When migrating between versions, JAMS doesn't migrate all the data, like job change history, etc. Also, the scheduler doesn't have a way to make jobs invisible, so you can temporarily turn a job off if you decide not to run it today."
"Improvements could be made in the service desk's knowledge and communication skills among engineers to better address customer needs and ensure issues are fully resolved."
"I would like a simple web interface that I could give to my team to go in and kill jobs or see why jobs died so that we don't have to drill down deeper into the application and know everything about it. It would be good to have a really clean web engine that would say here are the jobs running. We can then click to see the time running and whether any of them fails and other similar things. I know they have one, but it's not very simplistic."
"The documentation is not super... It's not as quick and slick as I'd like it to be."
"There could be a better simulation for banning the termination. You have to simulate every one of the processes in order to have an idea for better planning. This kind of simulation is broken and needs improvement."
"The product does not allow the users to cut and paste the job names from the screen."
"We have had a lot of people working from home who can't always connect to the JAMS server. We use VPN, as most companies do, and we have it set up so that everybody can access the JAMS server. But many times, our people cannot access it... JAMS could do a better job of telling you what the problem is when you try to log in to the server."
"Sometimes the UI is not the most responsive I've ever used. But because it does its job, I don't complain."
"The graphical interface can 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.​"
"​A better graphical user interface, because we have a lot of people using the client utility, and we want to get them away from that.​"
"The solution does not have a friendly subscription model because it forces users to take a five-year subscription simultaneously, charging millions of dollars."
"Performance improvements in the UI would be appreciated."
"AutoSys Workload Automation could improve the integration."
"I am not sure whether it is our limitation or a tool limitation because we haven't yet explored it, but whenever we look for different types of reporting, we have some limitations in getting those. It could be because of the way we have set it up internally in our enterprise, but it would be helpful if we can customize the reporting features and some of the alerts that can go out. When we connect enterprise systems, each one looks for a different use case, and if we can get different types of reporting, it will be helpful."
"Needs better documentation with fully explained examples for some of the job types."
"The solution's pricing could be cheaper. It is cheaper than Airflow."
"One area for improvement is the payload size. Currently, I sometimes have to save data as a file since I cannot pass it within Step Functions, necessitating caching in processes."
"I would like to see more data transformation features in Amazon Step Functions like additional operators and logic."
"The interface can sometimes feel limited, as we're unable to see what AWS is running behind the scenes."
"The solution's data size limit can be improved."
"The price and support are areas with shortcomings where the solution needs to improve."
"If AWS Step Functions keeps adding more integrations, it would be even better."
"There is room for improvement in terms of integration with other products. It would benefit from more integration with different applications or services."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is very fair. We have seen very minimal to no price increases over the years. We are not banging down the door of support all the time either. I would imagine if we were a company that submitted a dozen support tickets a week for the last nine years, then it might be a little different because we would be eating up everybody's time. However, for what we get out of it, the pricing is extremely fair. Back when we were originally looking and brought in JAMS, we were looking at a couple of the other competitive products that were in this space, but the pricing from JAMS was far and away better than what the other competitors could offer for the same functionality."
"JAMS is close to the lower end of the pricing models for enterprise scheduling solutions. They are much cheaper than Control-M, as well as some other products that I've used. I also don't know of another solution where you can actually get true, unlimited licensing, where you can have as many instances and as many agents as you want."
"For what it does, the product is priced very well."
"The product is reasonably priced, and we don't have any add-ons."
"There are no additional costs other than the license for Fortra's JAMS which is affordable."
"JAMS is priced competitively compared to similar solutions and offers flexible licensing options to cater to user needs."
"It was $10,000 for the first year. Then, there is a maintenance cost for licensing every year that we get billed $5,000 for every year."
"Fortra's JAMS pricing structure has deteriorated significantly since its acquisition by Fortra."
"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."
"The pricing needs to be improved. Some of my client's complained that it was too expensive."
"We paid to use the solution monthly."
"The price of this solution is reasonable and there is an annual license required."
"Validate how many agents you need beforehand."
"The solution is expensive."
"The solution's price is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
42%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
5%
Insurance Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise77
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about JAMS?
I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JAMS?
They recently switched to subscription-based pricing, which increased. The price is fair considering the functionalit...
What needs improvement with JAMS?
As far as we are using JAMS version 6, it looks good and there is nothing major to add about it. Everything is functi...
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 b...
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 starte...
What do you like most about Amazon Step Functions?
The integration capability is easy, whereas building state machines is tricky.
What is your primary use case for Amazon Step Functions?
My customer's usual use cases for AWS Step Functions that I've been working with include orchestration, flows, diagra...
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon Step Functions?
I use the Visual Workflow Editor feature of AWS Step Functions. I mainly work through code and then improve it throug...
 

Also Known As

No data available
CA Workload Automation, CA Workload Automation AE
Amazon Step Functions, Step Functions
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Teradata, Arconic, General Dynamics, Yum!, CVS Health, Comcast, Ghiradelli, & Boston’s Children’s Hospital
Gaumont, Mercantil do Brasil, CCEE, Hanwha Life
Alpha Apps, The Guardian, SGK, Bigfinite
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Step Functions vs. AutoSys Workload Automation and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,176 professionals have used our research since 2012.