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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 March 2025, in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category, the mindshare of GoAnywhere MFT is 8.3%, up from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MOVEit is 9.2%, down from 11.5% 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

"The security and vendor management features are helpful in terms of providing access to data."
"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."
"GoDrive eliminates the need to use the exchange server for file sharing."
"Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT supports the PeSIT protocol."
"I like the versatility GoAnywhere provides, allowing transfers through HTTPS and different protocols. It can also transfer through a server and a client."
"The most valuable feature is the Advanced Workflows."
"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."
"The user interface is simple."
"From an administration standpoint, it's very easy to manage, and I feel pretty confident in the security of the product. From an end-user standpoint also, it's very easy."
"The most valuable feature of MOVEit is the upload speed."
"Especially at the time of monitoring, it's a nice way to take a look at the script and take a look at run time, which gives enough information for the files that are getting picked or not."
"The convenience of renaming files and using time stamps to segregate them has been very valuable."
"The log findings and troubleshooting on MOVEit are pretty easy. When you go to the logs, it clearly tells you what time a transfer happened, what time it failed, what is the source path, what is the destination path, and what is the failure reason. It's pretty straightforward."
"Offers a large collection of very good path planning algorithms."
"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."
"The tool’s GUI is very simple."
 

Cons

"There's one persnickety issue about NAS permissions. That is a problem we have run into with GoAnywhere. I would like to see more focus on compatibility with/enforcement of user roles and access permissions across NAS, among other things. We have filed a couple of tickets on that in the past."
"API functionality wasn't part of our initial unit testing because it wasn't necessary then. However, shortly after implementing GoAnywhere, two different vendors approached us to do API transactions. We checked to see if GoAnywhere could do this and found that it was supposed to have that capability, but it broke down."
"Improvement in support or product relies on being ingenious, supportive, and listening to its customer base."
"The product could be improved by being modular. There are more features in the core product than any client needs."
"The solution's support for the Unix platform and AS2 should be improved."
"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."
"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."
"Upgrading was a challenge and I ran into some problems along the way."
"Since I have to monitor two times a day, it would be nice if they have script templates."
"In future releases, MOVEit could add support for some additional protocols. For example, I don't think they supported the SFTP or FTPS protocols at the time."
"The DR solution (DR recoveries) needs to be enhanced."
"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 initial setup is a bit difficult."
"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."
"It would be beneficial to include a feature that allows you to hide items and not be locked out if someone has made too many password attempts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"GoAnywhere's price is justified by its features and the time it saves me."
"It is very attractive. In terms of the capacity of the product and functionality, it is a good price."
"When it comes to secure systems that we have used, the price point can get a whole lot higher. You might end up saving in the short term with other solutions, but are you getting a secure product? Do you feel confident in that? Will you be able to get any support afterward? From my experience, based on the price point and the service that we got, it was a good value for our money."
"Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT pricing is competitive."
"Licensing can be expensive and it depends upon which features you want to buy."
"The product's pricing is reasonable."
"I find it to be very fair. It is very good."
"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."
"It's cost-effective."
"Technical support is only available with a paid license."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
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.
 

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: January 2025.
839,422 professionals have used our research since 2012.