We performed a comparison between ActiveBatch Workload Automation and Control-M based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: ActiveBatch Workload Automation is highly praised for its versatility and ease of use. Users appreciate the prebuilt jobs, scheduling, monitoring, and alerting mechanism provided by the software. It is also commended for its scalability and intelligent automation features. Control-M stands out in areas such as Managed File Transfer, credentials vault, integration capabilities, Role-Based Administration, collaboration, and forecasting. Users find the software to be particularly useful for these functionalities.
ActiveBatch improvements include managed file transfer, subscription model transition, cloud aspect, interface, crashes, triggers, monitoring dashboard, price, documentation, help center, setup process, email alerts, lag/stability issues, customization options, and customer support. Control-M needs enhancements in microservices, API integration, web interface, testing/quality assurance, reporting, customization, upgrade process, distributed architecture, third-party tool integration, FTP job logs visibility, and QA testing.
Service and Support: ActiveBatch Workload Automation has been praised for its customer service, with users appreciating the helpful, reliable, and responsive support team. Control-M has received mixed feedback. Some customers have praised the prompt and knowledgeable support team, while others have faced slow response times and a lack of proactive assistance.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for ActiveBatch Workload Automation was smooth and uncomplicated. Nevertheless, there is a minor requirement for additional instructional material when importing files. Control-M had a direct setup procedure, although a few users mentioned a learning curve and the necessity to manually convert jobs and scripts.
Pricing: ActiveBatch Workload Automation is highly regarded for its flexible and reasonably priced setup cost. Users appreciate the ease and speed of the process. Control-M's pricing and licensing elicit varied opinions, with some users considering it costly and perplexing.
ROI: ActiveBatch Workload Automation has proven to be highly effective, leading to substantial financial gains for users. It has resulted in a significant boost in net revenue. Control-M offers a more cost-effective solution, improving overall efficiency and providing advanced automation features.
Comparison Results: ActiveBatch Workload Automation is the preferred product over Control-M according to user reviews. It is praised for its simplicity and ease of use during setup. ActiveBatch offers more versatility and ease of configuration, with prebuilt jobs and a user-friendly interface. Its pricing is considered reasonable and competitive, especially for smaller companies.
"The nice thing about ActiveBatch is once we have created a specific job that can be easily be replicated to another job, then minimal changes will have to be made. This makes things nice. Reduction of coding is substantial in a lot of cases. The replication of one job to another is just doing a few minor tweaks and rolling it into production. This decreases our development costs substantially."
"It has helped with scheduling complex jobs with simple scripts."
"The automation feature is a very valuable feature as the associates do not have to worry about performing repetitive tasks (i.e. endpoint security scans on a daily basis) that would take several hours to complete on a daily basis."
"ActiveBatch provides summary reports and logs for further analysis and improvements in monitoring servers, which is very handy."
"Managing the workload and monitoring the tasks were very difficult with manual interventions. Now, by using ActiveBatch, the process is automated and it runs tasks on a scheduled basis."
"The user interface is really incredible."
"Since we are no longer waiting for an operator to see that a job is finished, we have changed our daily cycle from running in eight hours down to about five. We had a third shift-operator retire and that position was never refilled."
"Using this tool, if there are any huge failures, we immediately get an email notification, and the proper team will be informed, at which time they can act accordingly."
"I think the administration part is much more valuable than any other feature."
"The ability to dynamically predict batch run time is so valuable."
"The web interface is handy. It's easy to use, and Control-M provides you with the necessary materials to understand the features and perform various tasks."
"In the client, it provides a unified view for me. I can alter the view that I want to see jobs and conditions. This is nice to have. The fact that you can see everything in one space is very important, especially these days where everything is about data and monitoring as well as because we are working from home on a global basis. So, I can monitor jobs in real-time, along with any failures or anything that might be stuck. The real-time monitoring and the ability to see everything in one place is important for us because we operate 24/7."
"The integration with ServiceNow is good. When a job ends and there are problems with it, we automatically open an incident in this platform, and the number of the incident is forwarded to Control-M. This means that we have a record of it with the log of the job."
"My organization has been able to script scheduled jobs in Control-M to potentially replace legacy products that are at end of life or end of service. The previous backup applications that were being used for specific files, folders, or applications were no longer being supported, therefore being able to use Control-M to replace that has been very valuable."
"Workload Archiving is a very good feature for us. It helps with our customer requirements in terms of reporting and auditing... Previously, when we didn't have any archive server, we managed the data in Control-M with man-made scripts, and we would pull the data for the last 365 days, or three or four months back. Since we installed the archiving, we have been able to pull the data, anytime and anywhere, with just one click."
"Maintaining and monitoring of workloads have been and continue to be the most valuable feature in our environment."
"A cloud option is not provided as a free feature, making it a costly solution for smaller organizations."
"The help center and documentation are not that helpful."
"ActiveBatch is a little complex."
"The user interface can be improved so that it is more appealing and accessible to new users."
"The documentation is very limited, and it can be improved."
"The thing I've noticed the most is the Help function. It's very difficult, at times, to find examples of how to do something. The Help function will explain what the tool does, but we're not a Windows shop at the data warehouse. Our data warehouse jobs actually run on Linux servers. Finding things for Linux-based solutions is not as easy as it is for Windows-based solutions. I would like to see more examples, and more non-Windows examples as well, in the Help."
"They should offer pricing that is more affordable."
"The interface is not that user-friendly and is a little tough to navigate."
"You need to pay for extra features if you need them."
"Its installation can be better. Currently, we have to install it manually. The file transfer feature can also be improved. It is not very easy to transfer a file from business to business. In terms of new features, they can include new technologies. It can have API integration."
"Some of the documentation could use some improvement, however, it gets you from point A to point B pretty quickly to get the solution in place."
"The report form and display function are weak; they are not very powerful."
"Control-M reporting is a bit of a pain point right now. Control-M doesn't have robust reporting. I would like to see better reporting options. I would like to be able to pull charts or statistics that look nicer. Right now, we can pull some data, but it is kind of choppy. It would be nicer to have enterprise-level reporting that you can present to managers."
"The initial setup was complex, because I wasn't used to it."
"An issue we have run into in our lower environments is that Control-M can log you out frequently."
"Finding documentation on the website can be a bit confusing."
ActiveBatch by Redwood is ranked 6th in Process Automation with 35 reviews while Control-M is ranked 4th in Process Automation with 110 reviews. ActiveBatch by Redwood is rated 9.2, while Control-M is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of ActiveBatch by Redwood writes "Flexible, easy to use, and offers good automation". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Control-M writes "We have seen quicker file transfers with more visibility and stability". ActiveBatch by Redwood is most compared with AutoSys Workload Automation, Tidal by Redwood, Redwood RunMyJobs, VisualCron and IBM Workload Automation, whereas Control-M is most compared with AutoSys Workload Automation, IBM Workload Automation, Rocket Zena, ESP Workload Automation Intelligence and Automic Workload Automation. See our ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. Control-M report.
See our list of best Process Automation vendors, best Managed File Transfer (MFT) vendors, and best Workload Automation vendors.
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