Stonebranch vs Tidal by Redwood comparison

Stonebranch and Tidal Software by Redwood are both solutions in the Workload Automation category. Stonebranch is ranked #10 with an average rating of 9.5, while Tidal Software by Redwood is ranked #19. Stonebranch holds a 4.6% mindshare in WA, compared to Tidal Software by Redwood’s 4.5% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Stonebranch users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Tidal Software by Redwood users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

Tidal by Redwood and Stonebranch are contenders in the job scheduling and automation software category. Tidal by Redwood seems to have the upper hand due to its powerful permissions system and extensive feedback praising its web client.

Features: Tidal offers robust calendaring and job scheduling with complex dependency handling, which effectively manages over 100,000 jobs daily. It also includes advanced segmentation features for user control across platforms. Stonebranch is praised for reliable agents and multi-technology flexibility. Its task operation array supports detailed process control, benefiting digital transformation.

Room for Improvement: Tidal users call for improved reporting, particularly for monitoring failures, along with a more intuitive interface for cloud support and handling long-duration tasks. There's also a need for better learning resources. Stonebranch needs enhancements in FTP tasks and PGP encryption, better integration with internal tools, mobile interface options, and mainframe agent improvements.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Tidal operates mainly on-premises, with responsive and knowledgeable support praised since its transition from Cisco to STA Group. Stonebranch offers exceptional technical support across platforms, with knowledgeable staff and fast responses that extend beyond payment obligations, ensuring smooth tool integration.

Pricing and ROI: Tidal's flexible licensing model is appreciated for unrestricted agent use and budget-friendly enterprise agreements, boosting productivity and saving costs. Stonebranch is seen as competitively priced, offering value with its transaction-based licensing model, helping meet workload management needs within budget and providing a positive ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Stonebranch vs. Tidal by Redwood Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Stonebranch vs. Tidal by Redwood

January 2026

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of JAMS is 2.8%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Stonebranch is 4.6%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tidal by Redwood is 4.5%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
JAMS	2.8%
Stonebranch	4.6%
Tidal by Redwood	4.5%
Other	88.1%

Workload Automation

Featured Reviews

reviewer2770605

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.

Read full review

Saktheeswaran Ravichandran

Lead Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Modern workload automation has unified job scheduling and reporting across regions and platforms

I feel that Stonebranch can be improved in certain areas. Since I have been a Control-M user for a very long time and have also used Dollar Universe in the past, creating a task or job and then creating a schedule with time triggers and other triggers in different objects feels a bit complicated compared to other tools in the market where everything is laid out in a single pane and scheduling is easy. Here, since we have a task and a time schedule and time trigger separately from the task, I am getting a bit confused becoming accustomed to those concepts, but that can be managed more easily.

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Jim Gillingham

Batch Production Manager at a consultancy with 201-500 employees

Its versatility, ease of use, scalability, and cost-effectiveness make it a 10/10 and the best of the breed

The company is not really big. One of the areas that they are working on is improving the process of migrating jobs from the lower environment to the upper environment. They had used a tool called Transporter, which was a little difficult to use, but they've now released a new tool in August, which I've not yet used, to do that. It's probably called Repository or something like that, but it's a tool for migrating jobs from the lower environment to the upper environment. That's where they needed to improve, and it looks like they may have, but I haven't tried the tool yet. They can do better reporting in terms of production statistics reporting.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The alerting in it is really targeted... you can set specific alerting so that if jobs in a given folder fail, certain people are alerted. You can also set security at the folder level, so that only people in those areas can go set them. That means that the alerting and security can be set at a very granular level."

"The most valuable aspect of JAMS is its robustness."

"The most valuable feature is the easily accessible data in the database because we run a lot of SQL scripting against the database."

"The planning capabilities are most valuable."

"The dashboard is intuitive."

"The most valuable feature for us is that it's DR-ready. With respect to disaster recovery, it has the built-in capability for failover to our DR site. If all of the required ports are open, it can be done seamlessly."

"JAMS offers diverse scheduling capabilities for any kind of job, including Linux, PowerShell scripts, and SQL, enabling automation of jobs, which has proven beautiful after three years of usage."

"I appreciate JAMS for its readily available templates that allow me to create and deliver stand-up presentations within minutes quickly."

More JAMS pros

"We lean a lot on the multi-tenancy that they offer within the product, the ability to get other people to self-manage their estate, versus having a central team do all the scheduling."

"Stonebranch performs well, and the graphical representation is excellent. Overall, it requires more technical effort from our teams, but the solution is intuitive, so anybody can use it."

"Previously, we lacked an integrating tool between platforms, but now we use Stonebranch as a single platform for centralized automation and monitoring, which gives us better visibility and faster responses in case of delays or incidents, thereby improving our SLOs."

"The tasks are incredibly capable, and as long as you name them with a nice, uniform naming convention, they are very useful. You can create some interesting workflows through various machines, or you can just have it kick off single tasks. All in all, I really like the Universal Task. You can do some mutually exclusive stuff, such as an "A not B" kind of thing. It has a lot of capabilities behind the scenes."

"Stonebranch is a very handy tool, especially if you want to orchestrate your product and are looking for something very scalable and stable; Stonebranch is very useful."

"We like that it has GUI and is not just a command line."

"I can name the aliases on the agent, so if we need a passive environment for an agent, that's one of the nice features. If our primary goes down, I can bring up the passive one and I don't have to change anything in the scheduling world. It will start running from that new server."

"The features are upgraded, and every six months they're releasing patches."

More Stonebranch pros

"Tidal Automation’s most valuable feature is customization. It can work and connect with any app."

"It is intended to enable large-scale automation environments, making it appropriate for companies with complicated processes and big data volumes."

"The feature that I find to be valuable, as I'm working with other folks, is the ability to cross-schedule across platforms, and the flexibility that comes with that."

"The job dependency is something that you cannot have in a regular, simple cron job or simple scheduler dependency. The event-driven jobs are core for us, as we really need that. Therefore, we really need Tidal with its ability to run thousands of jobs per day."

"The first, big thing that we got out of using Tidal Workload Automation was having a centralized view of the status of all of our batch processes across all these systems... We can look into the schedule at any given time and see if things are running on track or if they are falling behind. We can also see if something failed."

"We wouldn't be able to do many of the complex scheduling that we do today without it. For us, it is a mission-critical app. Because if it doesn't work or has a problem, then SAP doesn't function. It is that critical. So, it's an essential tool for us to manage and run SAP jobs."

"One of the most useful features is being able to set up a schedule and create dependencies. The calendar can kick off processes at certain times, based on dependencies that you specify, like time, or whether another process has finished. Dependencies are the most useful thing."

"Tidal Workload Automation Software provides the ability to quickly adapt to changing business requirements."

More Tidal by Redwood pros

Cons

"One thing that I know that the JAMS people said that they were working on that would be huge for us is a search capability so that you could search for tasks. It may be available in version 7 or in a future release of 7. I think that's on their roadmap. But right now, for us to do a search, we have to search through database queries."

"The client is horrible. Every time JAMS puts out a survey on what they can improve, I always say, "The client: When you are setting up jobs, it is quite horrible." The response has been, "Well, we are just using the Windows foundation," and I am like, "Why isn't it only your product?" We can get around it now that we know its quirks, but it is not the most user-friendly of tools out there. The UI is completely unintuitive. We had to go and open up a support ticket with JAMS just to get something back. It is not user-friendly at all."

"Fortra is getting much better with documentation and examples, but there is still room for improvement."

"The tabs in the JAMS file transfer could be clearer. It would help us demonstrate to our client that JAMS not only automates jobs but also does fast transfers, and it's an alternative that supports and filters different kinds of platforms. Filtering file transfers will be highly beneficial to them."

"The documentation is not super... It's not as quick and slick as I'd like it to be."

"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."

"The monitoring of the JAMS product and its performance is an area of concern for me."

"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."

More JAMS cons

"It can't handle negative written codes."

"It can be hard to manage the task monitor."

"The Universal Controller is decent for the money it costs... It needs some work to have full features, compared to other products that are out there, specifically IBM's Workload Scheduler."

"I feel that Stonebranch can be improved in certain areas."

"Stonebranch Universal Automation Center could improve the analytics."

"It's not available on the cloud, so they should take that due to safety, security, and scalability."

"I think the only aspect that could be improved in Stonebranch is having more beginner-friendly documentation."

"I have a request regarding our agent on the mainframe. It may time out when communicating to the Universal Controller, when the mainframe is extremely busy. That can cause a task which is running at that time to not see the results of the job that ran on the mainframe. It happens sporadically during times of really busy CPU usage. We're expecting that enhancement from them in the fourth quarter."

More Stonebranch cons

"The biggest improvement they need to work on is doing better QA checks before they release new patches and service packs. We do find that you can't trust getting the new product right away, as they have to get some bug fixes out. They do tend to have some bugs in the first iteration."

"From an administrative point of view, I wouldn't give really high marks to the solution. I actually entertained getting the JAWS application at one point. One of the shortcomings with the scheduler is the reporting capabilities. At least at the time, JAWS was the best that they had for a third-party integration. I think they've got things in the pipeline to help alleviate that gap."

"The solution needs more advanced reporting and data visualization capabilities to enable deeper analysis of job performance and trends."

"I don't know if Tidal wants to get into the business of monitoring long-running jobs, but that could be a feature for the future: a job launching and monitoring tool. Using Tidal for monitoring doesn't seem like a good fit, but if they could offer something that did that as an add-on or include it, it might be helpful."

"My complaint about their pricing model is that every year or every time technology changes or somebody has a new requirement, it usually means that I can schedule that with Tidal, but I would need another adapter. So, every time there is a change, I need a different adapter that I don't have. That's why it is harder to plan for Tidal growth because you have to buy a new adapter every time."

"Some users have complained that the initial setup process is complicated and time-consuming, while others have suggested that the software could offer more freedom in customizing processes."

"Their software installation and update process could use some improvements. I'm pretty sure they're working on that, but that's definitely an area where it could be streamlined a lot. There's still a lot of manual work that you have to do with the schedule when you deploy masters or do the agents."

"For the most part, the drill-down and the logging are really good. But if we take an Informatica job, for example: We have the ability, and the operators have the ability, to actually drill down and see, at a session level, where the failure is. There is, unfortunately, no way to extract that into an actual output email or failure email. It's not that that information is not available, but extracting it into an email would be a nice-to-have."

More Tidal by Redwood cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"All licensing models are a little overpriced, but JAMS offers a good value, especially given their support response times and ability to handle unforeseen issues like the SFTP transfers. I hope to find more use cases to get a better bang for our buck."

"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."

"It's certainly a lot cheaper than Tivoli and Control-M. In comparison to them, you get a lot more bang for your buck. You get pretty much the whole functionality and more, in some cases, when compared to Control-M, but at a fraction of the price."

"JAMS is relatively inexpensive, with additional costs only incurred for tags, other services, and optional support renewals."

"Fortra's JAMS pricing structure has deteriorated significantly since its acquisition by Fortra."

"I haven't been involved in the financial side for several years, but we buy one host and unlimited agents, and we get a reasonable price for that. We're happy with the amount we pay and the scalability it provides."

"For what it does, the product is priced very well."

"JAMS is priced competitively compared to similar solutions and offers flexible licensing options to cater to user needs."

More JAMS pricing and cost advice

"I don't have pricing information, but I do know it's cheaper than our old legacy system. Other than the standard licensing fees there are no additional costs."

"Outside of licensing fees, there aren't any other costs."

"Stonebranch is cheaper than Control-M, so many companies are using Stonebranch."

"The price of the solution is at a medium level compared to the competition."

"When we reviewed this solution against other vendors, Stonebranch blew everybody out of the water in terms of cost."

"The solution’s licensing model in terms of its flexibility and transparency regarding costs is pretty good. A person can buy the license, and if you decide to stop support, you can do that but still have the product. So, it's not like you're paying constantly to keep that license alive. Certainly, you want to keep support going too. Once you buy it, you own it. It's not like I have to keep paying somebody to keep using it."

"Tidal is a low-cost tool and not expensive in comparison to other tools."

"We pay maintenance annually through Blue House of about $9,000. That's for our two environments: production and test."

"We are satisfied with the pricing of Tidal. It's in the moderate range and it feels very achievable for us."

"Our annual maintenance cost is competitive for what we have and what they do."

"We think the pricing is very fair. We have been happy with the pricing compared to some of the other solutions in the space."

"Their pricing seems very fair. It is more than the other solutions, but the functionality and the support are very much there. You pay for the job scheduler, and then they have certain things that are built into it, such as the FTP processes. If you then want to do JD Edwards jobs, you need an adapter. If you want to do SQL jobs, there is another adapter. Similarly, if you want to do Oracle jobs, there is an adapter. It is like there is the base and then there are the adapters for the jobs that you want to do, but it seems that's also how they pay for each of those adapters and keep them up to date."

"Our licensing model for Tidal is on an annual basis. It is very good and works well for us. Tidal's licensing is very transparent and simple. It lets you know, for the amount you use, that's the price that you pay. So, we buy X number of licenses, and we know that this is where we are. I'm very happy with that. I saw the licensing modules on other platforms, and I didn't like them. Other companies and solutions would calculate the connections, adapters, and instances. I think that's the reason that BMC was pretty expensive: They just didn't understand what our needs are."

More Tidal by Redwood pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

24%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	19

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	1
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	25

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	38

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about JAMS?

I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JAMS?

My thoughts on the pricing of JAMS are that I won't say it is cheap, but it is cost-efficient, and that should be acc...

See all answers

What needs improvement with JAMS?

An area that has room for improvement is related to the AWS RDS and database part, where they said that is in progres...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Stonebranch Universal Automation Center?

My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Stonebranch has been that it is a very affordable tool, ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Stonebranch Universal Automation Center?

Stonebranch can be improved by making it more familiar to other tech geeks. We can add various other features such as...

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What is your primary use case for Stonebranch Universal Automation Center?

My main use case for Stonebranch is for job scheduling and to see the workflows and for troubleshooting any failures....

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Comparisons

Control-M vs JAMS

Compared 16% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs JAMS

Compared 9% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs JAMS

Compared 8% of the time

Automic Automation vs JAMS

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs JAMS

Compared 5% of the time

More JAMS Competitors

Control-M vs Stonebranch

Compared 25% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Stonebranch

Compared 18% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Stonebranch

Compared 9% of the time

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs Stonebranch

Compared 7% of the time

ESP Workload Automation Intelligence vs Stonebranch

Compared 3% of the time

More Stonebranch Competitors

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 21% of the time

Control-M vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 12% of the time

Automic Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 7% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 7% of the time

ESP Workload Automation Intelligence vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 2% of the time

More Tidal by Redwood Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

JAMS

February 2026

Download JAMS product report

Buyer's Guide

Stonebranch

January 2026

Download Stonebranch product report

Buyer's Guide

Tidal by Redwood

January 2026

Download Tidal by Redwood product report

Also Known As

No data available

Stonebranch Universal Automation Center

Tidal Workload Automation, Cisco Workload Automation, Tidal Enterprise Scheduler

Interactive Demo

JAMS Software

Demo not available

Stonebranch

Demo not available

Tidal Software by Redwood

Overview

JAMS is an automation and job scheduling solution designed for workflow optimization, catering to businesses large and small with flexible licensing and integration options.

Offering both Core and Advanced packages, JAMS supports a range of environments from small teams to large-scale operations. Its standout features include integration with platforms like PowerShell, SQL, and SAP, coupled with capabilities such as dependency management and natural language scheduling. JAMS simplifies job management, centralizes workflows, and boosts productivity with its robust automation features. Customizable workflows and insightful logging make it adaptable for diverse needs, supported by responsive customer service ensuring seamless operations.

What are JAMS's key features?

Automation & Scheduling: Flexible automation helps manage complex job schedules efficiently.
Integration: Connects seamlessly with platforms like SQL Server, SAP, and Python for diverse applications.
Centralized Job Management: A unified interface for handling thousands of jobs daily.
Dependency Management: Supports complex workflows with efficient dependency tracking.
Insightful Logging: Provides detailed logs and notifications for precise task execution.

What benefits should users look for in JAMS reviews?

Enhanced Productivity: Automates repetitive tasks, freeing up resources for strategic initiatives.
Scalability: Flexible licensing models grow with business size and needs.
Efficient Workflow Automation: Streamlines job orchestration across environments.
Responsive Support: Helps ensure smooth operations with quick troubleshooting.

In industries, JAMS is employed for automating workflows and managing batch jobs. Organizations utilize it for SSIS, SQL Server tasks, file transfers, and integrating with vendor systems, achieving efficient file automation and data management. Scheduler enables precise execution of thousands of tasks daily, enhancing operational efficiency.

JAMS Software

Stonebranch specializes in enterprise automation, excelling in workload scheduling and batch processing across platforms like Linux, Windows, iSeries, and zSeries. This platform offers robust automation, enhancing operational efficiency and supporting digital transformation.

Stonebranch's platform-agnostic capabilities allow organizations to manage and integrate workloads seamlessly. Its Universal Controller is central to task management, offering a web-based interface for flexibility. Users appreciate its stability, with reliable agents facilitating workflow creation without specialized skills. Efficient file transfers and scheduling tools minimize maintenance, supporting diverse tech environments. Though Stonebranch is beneficial, users look for improvements in graphical workflow visibility, finalized API functionalities, and enhanced connectivity with tools like Microsoft SRS. Enhancements in training materials and cloud availability are also desired.

What are the key features of Stonebranch?

Ease of Automation: Simplifies workflow creation with user-friendly interfaces.
Integration Capabilities: Supports diverse platforms, ensuring seamless task management.
Platform-Agnostic Support: Compatible with Linux, Windows, iSeries, and zSeries.
Universal Controller: Centralizes task management for enhanced control.
Reliable Agents: Ensures stable deployment and operation.
Web-Based Interface: Offers flexibility in environment and access.

What benefits should you consider in Stonebranch reviews?

Operational Efficiency: Reduces manual effort with automated processes.
Digital Transformation: Enables complex tasks without specialized skills.
Flexibility: Supports multiple environments and web accessibility.
Centralized Management: Universal Controller simplifies oversight.

Stonebranch finds applications in sectors requiring enterprise automation. Organizations leveraging Linux, Windows, iSeries, and zSeries utilize it for workflow automation, file management, and integrating distributed workloads. It supports tasks like data extraction and analytics, managing thousands of daily operations to enhance visibility and minimize manual interventions.

Stonebranch

Tidal Software is a leading provider of enterprise workload automation solutions that orchestrate the execution of complex workflows across systems, applications and IT environments. With a comprehensive portfolio of products and services, Tidal optimizes mission-critical business processes, increases IT cost efficiencies and satisfies legal and regulatory compliance requirements. Hundreds of customers around the world count on Tidal for modernizing their workload automation and driving their digital transformation. Tidal Software is headquartered in Chicago with offices in Houston, London, Minsk, Belarus and Chennai, India. For more information, visit tidalsoftware.com.

Tidal Software by Redwood

Sample Customers

Teradata, Arconic, General Dynamics, Yum!, CVS Health, Comcast, Ghiradelli, & Boston’s Children’s Hospital

Nissan, Coop, United Supermarkets, Groupon, CSC, Orbitz, Johnson & Johnson, BMW, Qantas.

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Stonebranch vs. Tidal by Redwood

January 2026

Free Report: Stonebranch vs. Tidal by Redwood

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