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AWS Step Functions vs OpCon comparison

 

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

AWS Step Functions
Ranking in Workload Automation
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (12th)
OpCon
Ranking in Workload Automation
10th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of AWS Step Functions is 1.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpCon is 1.8%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alberto Marangon - PeerSpot reviewer
Automate complex workflows with seamless AWS integration
Step Functions provide seamless integration with AWS services, which enhances the speed of application development. The JSON app launched recently allows us to define data execution more easily. The Standard Workflows feature includes error replay capabilities, which are crucial for efficient error management. The Amazon State Language (ASL) in JSON format facilitates workflow automation and accelerates the deployment of Step Functions.
Jose Rivera Hernandez - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps automate all kinds of jobs and it's worth the price because it saves a lot of time and money
One problem that I had with them when we got SMA Technologies is that sometimes the jobs fail, but they automatically restart. SMA Technologies automatically gets a notification that the job has failed, and they restart it on their end, so now, we have the job restarting twice. There were times when we came into the office in the morning, and we had two files because the job ran twice. I do not know if the system can prevent a job from running the second time. If a job has run successfully, or it is running, it should not run again.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Overall, I would rate AWS Step Functions at least nine out of ten."
"If you want to create a workflow to call one Lambda function after another, and other serverless features, it could save you a ton of money. That's for sure."
"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 offers advanced workflows that save time and enhance efficiency by reducing delays and ensuring consistent orchestration among various services."
"What I like the most about Amazon Step Functions is how easy it is to use."
"It's Amazon, it's scalable."
"The JSON app launched recently allows us to define data execution more easily."
"The solution is stable...The solution is easy to scale."
"The greatness of it is the flexibility of the scheduling and the integration of all platforms and processes. We have integrated it with everything from AIX to Microsoft Servers; with pretty much anything that we can."
"It has also helped to streamline our operations. We contract out our collection department so they are no longer housed on our system. They're housed on another platform. OpCon is able to not only pull in our data, but it also, on a daily basis, updates that third-party."
"Having the jobs laid out while attaching dependencies is a nice addition to the program."
"The solution has freed up employees to do more meaningful work as a result of automation. They don't have to sit there and wait for files to download. They don't have to stare at the screen while a process is running. It all runs in the background, doing it for them."
"File Watcher can run jobs when files are made available in a folder."
"Last year, we added a second environment and the OpCon Deploy product. This has allowed us to build a testing environment. This has been a great addition for us as we can work through our workflows without disrupting our production environment."
"The automation part of OpCon is the most valuable for us, with all the core processing. It's really mostly hands-off unless we have failures. In our old days, we'd spend a good part of the day doing processing via manual tasks. We don't have to do any of that any longer."
"There are a lot of valuable features. The version that we're currently casting, Self Service, is going to be the most valuable to us. It is going to allow us to open up the doors, broaden our automation capability and help other business units to be able to automate a lot of the little things that they do from day to day. I'm really looking forward to being able to help other areas with their automation needs. Self Service is really key."
 

Cons

"It wasn't easy to understand the licensing model. It's like if you use just a little, it's cheap, but it becomes more expensive as you use more. It's like a hook that ties you inside the Amazon ecosystem. So, it creates a dependency."
"Setup took about one day. We had some errors to understand in the beginning, but now everything is working good."
"The pricing of the solution can be improved."
"If AWS Step Functions keeps adding more integrations, it would be even better."
"The price and support are areas with shortcomings where the solution needs to improve."
"The solution's pricing could be cheaper. It is cheaper than Airflow."
"The interface can sometimes feel limited, as we're unable to see what AWS is running behind the scenes."
"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."
"We sometimes have a large number of jobs on the SQL Server and we can experience a very light lag in job starts. The lag can be a few seconds. It's never more than one minute, but sometimes we can experience some lags."
"I might like to see a little bit more of a seamless user interface. That would be good. They're moving towards a browser-type interface, rather than the Java application that we currently use. Also, a little bit more built-in self-service would be good, rather than a standalone product."
"The solution has quite a learning curve for beginners. It's challenging. I wouldn't rate it as super-easy to automate processes. It's medium-weight. I've used more complex software, but I've used simpler software."
"I don't really think anything needs to be improved within the functionality. The only struggle I had, when I first started using it, is that it depends a lot on the command line and I didn't have that experience. So more built-in, basic commands or more education on commands would be good."
"The only downside to OpCon is that its features can be complicated and really must be taught. Most of our users don't have training beyond the free Basic Training that SMA provides, so for fresh eyes, it is kind of difficult to understand some of the language used."
"Enterprise Manager is a little clunky which I know they're addressing in the solution's manager."
"There is some difficulty with the ease of use when I don't have some of the templates that were already created. More templates would be great. Non-core featured templates are my biggest struggle."
"Licensing would be the first part I would overhaul. Each time a new licensing paradigm comes out, more features are removed and costs are added. They "add" features that are rarely used and increase charges for the number of jobs run. I'm sure someone in finance got a raise for their brilliance but the end-users won't thank them one bit. Expect price hikes and threats when you hold them to account at every opportunity."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's price is reasonable."
"The solution is expensive."
"It is at a decent price for the work that it does for us."
"If we choose to purchase consulting hours, that is an additional cost. However, we've been lucky enough that we've not used all of our allotted consulting hours. Therefore, that is not something that we have had to purchase a lot of. The last time that we purchased consulting hours was roughly two years ago. We purchased a block of 10 for $2,500. It was $250 per hour."
"The cost is just shy of $20,000. That's for two licenses annually, production, and failover. It is a pricey solution. Comparatively speaking, you can certainly find schedulers which are cheaper. In some cases, you can find ones that are free or use free solutions. However, OpCon is by far the superior quality product, and you pay for that. This also has a cost savings associated with an FTE, so you can more than outweigh the cost of the solution if you were to reduce the staff that you have onsite. Plus, this means that you don't need to have someone during irregular hours."
"The total cost of ownership is about the same to our previous product. The costs are relatively similar."
"The pricing is very reasonable."
"Cost depends on your environment. We are doing stuff now with failover and recovery, so we have boosted our costs."
"While the base pricing is reasonable, the à la carte options are making the overall cost more complicated and potentially problematic."
"The pricing is over $100,000 for our credit union and I believe it's $89,000 for our clients, in total, annually."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
44%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Government
5%
Real Estate/Law Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
I use Step Functions for orchestrating several application workflows. Specifically, I often use Step Functions to automate processes requiring multiple steps and for application orchestration. I fo...
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon Step Functions?
Overall, I would rate AWS Step Functions at least nine out of ten. The technology is robust, but improving the payload size could enhance the product's utility further.
What do you like most about OpCon?
My favorite feature is the dashboard feature, which shows jobs that are running, and completed, any failures, and provides dashboard reporting.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpCon?
I am the one who signs the contract. In the beginning, when I started working here, it seemed very expensive, but after I learned everything that it does, I found it worth the price. I would recomm...
What needs improvement with OpCon?
One problem that I had with them when we got SMA Technologies is that sometimes the jobs fail, but they automatically restart. SMA Technologies automatically gets a notification that the job has fa...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Amazon Step Functions, Step Functions
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Alpha Apps, The Guardian, SGK, Bigfinite
LOHR, Carnival Cruise Lines, Herbalife, Digital Federal Credit Union, Synergent, Frandsen Bank & Trust
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Step Functions vs. OpCon and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.