We performed a comparison between Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT and Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Managed File Transfer (MFT) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."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 security and vendor management features are helpful in terms of providing access to data."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to call a workflow from another workflow. That really gives you an edge by increasing reusability and speeding up development time. You can create a workflow which is a type of template and then call that workflow from any other workflow... It has sped up development time by 80 to 90 percent."
"Another nice feature is that you can invoke a native program from GoAnywhere. That helps you because you don't have to get fancy with agents. If a native program runs on the server that GoAnywhere is running on, like sed or perl, you can use it,"
"This is a very good product for managing file transfers."
"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."
"We like that GoAnywhere helps to centralize the exchange of data among our systems, employees, and customers."
"The most valuable feature is the Advanced Workflows."
"Offers secure file transfers with a fast and efficient protocol for very large files."
"The product has been very stable."
"The most valuable feature is that it provides 100% reliability for file transmission. It ensures that files get delivered in a secure manner. When you use Connect:Direct, your file 100% gets delivered to the next delivery location. If the log shows that a file got delivered, it will have all the transmitted data without truncation or other data issues."
"Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is a solution that is on the market for a very long time. There is an integrator that has been developed and evolves every year. On the roadmap, there is always a new integration. For example, it's one of the solutions in the market that out of the box can handle EBICS protocol. The file processing is done very well. By default, there are a lot of configurations that can be customized."
"Automation is the most valuable feature."
"Security is the most valuable feature of this product."
"The Security Plus feature of this solution is excellent, and allows you to send encrypted files very securely to remote destinations."
"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."
"If the hostname has a dash in it then it does not work."
"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."
"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."
"There is a function referred to as write CSV, to write a general text file. In this scenario of creating a simple text file, I ran into a situation where, if the product saw a quote or a double-quote in the data, it started wrapping all the text fields in double-quotes. The request I put in asks them to provide a feature that leaves my data alone and does not interpret anything."
"It would be helpful to have a way to actually have a job run without notifying the email addresses you have set up and without posting to the actual FTP... when you need to make a small change to a job that is deployed to production, and test that change, you have to go back and reset everything. It's not really a great way to test."
"The security could be upgraded to address novel cyberattacks. I'm not sure whether the product's security is being updated periodically."
"At present, HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT integrates with an antivirus solution, but it's a bit kludgy."
"Technical support is the number one concern."
"User interface is not user friendly."
"Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct could improve by adding some of the functionality that some other vendors have. For example, GoAnywhere has call agents, which are small clients that can be installed on the endpoints and can be handled by the central point on the server. If I want to do this with the IBM solution, I have to sell a lot of account addresses. The price could be unprofitable for the customer. There is some small functionality that could be implemented and could be easily done to improve this solution."
"Sometimes we face issues and can't figure out the cause of failures."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"This solution cannot be deployed on a root_squash NFS, which limits superuser privileges."
"They have File Agent, which is an additional utility and a component of Connect:Direct, for automated file transmission. In that utility, there is some issue with the file name. There is a limitation on the file name, and that is being fixed by IBM."
"The user interface could be more user-friendly."
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Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT is ranked 7th in Managed File Transfer (MFT) with 27 reviews while Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is ranked 9th in Managed File Transfer (MFT) with 7 reviews. Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT is rated 9.2, while Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT writes "Key to our workflow and our workload automation strategy, helping us trade and consume files". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct writes "Good automation features but needs improvement in the monitoring dashboard ". Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT is most compared with MOVEit, IBM Sterling File Gateway, JSCAPE by Redwood, Kiteworks and Axway AMPLIFY Managed File Transfer, whereas Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is most compared with IBM Sterling File Gateway, Kiteworks, MOVEit, Aspera Managed File Transfer and Axway AMPLIFY Managed File Transfer. See our Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT vs. Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct report.
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