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GoAnywhere MFT vs MOVEit 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

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
MOVEit
Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)
3rd
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 April 2025, in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category, the mindshare of GoAnywhere MFT is 8.6%, up from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MOVEit is 8.9%, down from 11.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed File Transfer (MFT)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Gijish Vikraman - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides the ability to securely transfer very large files and has great logging capability
We've faced some challenges with MOVEit as well. During the initial setup, we encountered issues with the MOVEit Transfer Gateway component, which operates in the DMZ. It frequently went down, causing disruptions in SFTP connectivity for most of our vendors. As a result, we had to implement extensive monitoring to ensure we received instant visibility whenever the gateway failed, allowing our system admins to respond quickly and restart the service. Another issue stems from the fact that MOVEit is a Java-based product, and it seems to have a memory leak, leading to system slowness and unresponsiveness at times. To mitigate this, we had to schedule weekly restarts to clear out memory, which remains an ongoing process because, without these restarts, we wouldn't have a responsive system. These are two key challenges we’ve encountered with MOVEit Transfer. Regarding MOVEit Automation, a job is typically triggered as soon as a file arrives, and it looks for the file, matches it, and moves it to the destination. However, if the expected file doesn't arrive, say on a Tuesday at 8:00 AM due to a job failure or someone forgetting to place the file, we need better visibility. Currently, MOVEit Automation offers limited capabilities for this scenario. We rely on error codes that indicate when no file was found, and we've built an email alert system around this, but for complex schedules—like jobs running on the 10th of each month—the system becomes ambiguous and occasionally generates false alerts. While MOVEit is not designed as a notification system, better alerting features would be incredibly valuable. I'd also like to see Google Cloud connectivity in future updates. MOVEit has been expanding its connectors, initially supporting Azure, followed by AWS, but connectors for Google Cloud Platform are still missing. Adding this capability would be a great enhancement. Another improvement I'd welcome is the ability to interact with message brokers. Currently, MOVEit handles file transfers and supports HTTP calls, meaning you can invoke APIs or download files over HTTP/HTTPS protocols. However, I’d like to see support for messaging protocols like MQ or AMQP. These protocols would make the platform more versatile, particularly for integrations where we need to pull messages from a queue and create files. IBM offers this capability, and if MOVEit could add it, it would make the product even more feature-rich and useful for our needs.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT supports the PeSIT protocol."
"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."
"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."
"This is a very good product for managing file transfers."
"GoAnywhere stands out for its user-friendly project creation, intuitive testing and troubleshooting, and especially its notification system, which keeps me informed of any issues that need attention, a feature we lacked before."
"The SFTP and encryption functionality works well, and SFTP is the bulk of what we use."
"GoDrive eliminates the need to use the exchange server for file sharing."
"It streamlines the files. Anyone can go pick up the file that we give access to. It is great."
"The automation is generally very simple that helps with operational efficiency. Since we mainly created interfaces and scheduled transfers, the tool itself handled the file transfer automation."
"I admire its ability to transfer really large files. One of the files that we transferred was 70 gigs. We didn't try anything larger than that, but so far, whenever somebody came to us to process a really large file, we were able to do it successfully. It can handle large files. That is one thing that I like about Automation."
"The renaming and timestamp features are great."
"The major advantage is moving files as part of a workflow."
"Offers a large collection of very good path planning algorithms."
"MOVEit's best features were the number of options available, like folder creation, and user-friendliness."
"The most valuable feature of MOVEit is the upload speed."
"The tool’s GUI is very simple."
 

Cons

"Its user interface can be improved. The current user interface is a little basic for some of the use cases. We have to use an external component to enhance it. When we need a more appealing user interface, we use an additional component, and that works okay."
"We are a little concerned because the maximum number of open connections allowed is 200, and we are pretty much maxed out... if they expanded the number of open connections allowed, we would be better off."
"On the platform side, I would like to see some improvements in the dashboarding and telemetry data."
"For us, it is perfect. It is a good solution that we are using, and we are going to continue to do so. However, it should be advertised more as a solution. I did not see it out there beforehand."
"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."
"At present, HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT integrates with an antivirus solution, but it's a bit kludgy."
"When a monitor invokes a project to accomplish something, that gets logged as a job. I've had a little difficulty figuring out where to look to see the monitor's activities itself, to see if the monitor is having a problem. For instance, if an account on a secure FTP server has expired, the monitor that uses that account doesn't announce to us that it's having a problem. I want to work with them on this to get it fixed."
"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."
"With the new other vendors coming up, they come up with certain features, in addition to the file transfer. But MOVEit does not develop their product. That's why we are looking out for other solutions."
"At times, we had connection issues with MOVEit, and it had a tendency to reboot without any reason."
"Communication can be improved between the product owners and users."
"We have had some challenges. Earlier when we were setting it up, a component called gateway, which runs in the DMV, was not working as expected. It was going down very often. That means most of our vendors were not able to connect using SFTP because that service was down. We had to put in a lot of monitoring to make sure if that goes down, there is some visibility instantaneously so that our system admins can go and do a restart."
"Something that I would like to see is better upgrade support. We had looked at getting help with an upgrade, and to do it after hours, it was going to be $6,000. It only takes 15 minutes to do. It'd be nice if the after-hour support was a little more reasonable."
"The product must improve its security features."
"If the transfers are more or the file size is big, it takes more time. It doesn't have much capacity to process multiple files at the same time. It can get stuck or take a lot of time to process the files."
"The initial setup is a bit difficult."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I find it to be very fair. It is very good."
"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."
"Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT carries a higher price tag than other MFT solutions."
"I get the invoices, and its price is fine and appropriate. It is well priced. Even if it was double the price, we'd use it. For us, it is indispensable. We're not going to go anywhere else. There are no additional costs. Its licensing is good. There is just one charge that we get. That's it."
"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."
"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."
"The cost was definitely within reason and it has definitely been worth the cost, based on how much we can automate. It has exceeded my expectations."
"Licensing can be expensive and it depends upon which features you want to buy."
"It's cost-effective."
"When compared to other products I've used, I believe MoveIt is worth the money someone might pay to use it."
"I haven't really priced out many other products like this, but I feel it's reasonable. Their upgrade support after hours was going to be $6,000. I just made the decision to wing it and just do it during business hours and call support if there was a problem."
"Technical support is only available with a paid license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Healthcare Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What do you like most about MOVEit?
The automation is generally very simple that helps with operational efficiency. Since we mainly created interfaces and scheduled transfers, the tool itself handled the file transfer automation.
What needs improvement with MOVEit?
The product must improve its security features. Recently, there have been multiple attacks on the solution. It has ruined the reputation of clients who use the solution. The vendor must ensure that...
What is your primary use case for MOVEit?
We can use the product to transfer files. I work for a bank. The files we transfer have PGP encryption by default. The data we send or receive is encrypted, ensuring that there is no data breach.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT, GoAnywhere MFT, GoAnywhere Managed File Transfer,
Ipswitch File Transfer, Ipswitch Managed File Transfer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

McKesson City of Modesto, California Kwik Trip Northwestern University Charter Communications
Cambridgeshire County Council, Capita Document & Information Services, Enterasys, City of Guelph, Hermes
Find out what your peers are saying about GoAnywhere MFT vs. MOVEit and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.