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BMC Logo
28,077 views|10,237 comparisons
98% willing to recommend
SMA Technologies Logo
2,388 views|930 comparisons
96% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Jul 11, 2023

We performed a comparison between Control-M and OpCon based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

Features: Control-M offers a range of valuable features such as Managed File Transfer, credentials vault, integration capabilities, Role-Based Administration, file transfer integration, collaboration dashboard, scheduling, configuration ease, reporting, workload archiving, and forecasting. OpCon shines in its flexibility, integration capabilities, self-service, automation of manual tasks, GUI, database functionality, deployment concept, testing environment, self-service solution manager, on-demand access, file watcher, MAS feature, reliability, process linking, and automation capabilities.

Control-M can be improved by enhancing its microservices and API integration, addressing bugs in the web interface, developing a lighter web version, improving reporting capabilities, streamlining the upgrade process, and integrating with third-party tools. OpCon needs improvement in the functionality of its web-based interface, upgrading process, documentation, and accessibility through a mobile app.

Service and Support: Control-M's customer service has a range of opinions, with some customers appreciating the quick and knowledgeable support team, while others feel that the support could be more proactive and faster. OpCon's customer service and support have been consistently praised, with customers commending the technical support team for their timely responses and effective solutions.

Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Control-M is typically considered simple and user-friendly, aided by informative guides and videos. Nevertheless, a few users noted that manually converting jobs and scripts introduced complications and delays. OpCon's initial setup may be intricate, but with the support of SMA consultants, the procedure becomes more seamless.

Pricing: Control-M is seen as costly, particularly for smaller businesses, whereas OpCon is acknowledged as a pricier but high-quality option. Control-M's pricing is dependent on the number of jobs or endpoints, while OpCon offers tiered pricing based on usage.

ROI: Control-M is a valuable solution that enhances efficiency, minimizes maintenance windows, and offers cost-efficiencies. OpCon saves time, decreases errors, improves productivity, and provides cost benefits.

Comparison Results: Control-M is the preferred choice when comparing it to OpCon. Users find the initial setup of Control-M to be straightforward and easy, with a clear understanding of the architecture and installation process. Control-M's Managed File Transfer feature is highly praised, as it eliminates the need for manual file transfers and offers a unified view for monitoring and orchestrating workflows and data pipelines.

To learn more, read our detailed Control-M vs. OpCon Report (Updated: May 2024).
771,157 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It is an enterprise tool that integrates with all the applications in our organization. It has made our life easier because we don't need to wake up at midnight and do monitoring, etc. It does everything. It also sends precautionary alerts. If a job or activity is running for more than the specified time, it alerts the application team. So, our teams do not need to sit in front of a laptop or any open application to watch the jobs. They can do their other regular activities while Control-M takes care of all the jobs. It notifies them when there is job completion, delay, and error.""It is simple to create, integrate, and automate data pipelines and to ingest data from different platforms. It integrates well between platforms.""Self Service for repeatable, low impact workload automation processes.""It has multiple features. You can plan your execution in Control-M. It provides one single window where you can define workflows regardless of geographic boundaries and platforms. A batch process can be executed from this single window. It provides insights into your processes. Your business people will know what process they are running and what is the state of the process. Instead of knowing that they're not going to meet the SLA the next morning, the business people immediately know the changes in their process. Control-M is very easy. I can tell a non-technical person that this is how it works, and he would be able to easily understand it. Business people can understand the methodology of Control-M and the intuitive features that it has. It has a fantastic graphical user interface and is easy to understand. You just have to drag and drop but in a very intuitive way. Monitoring features are also good. It has different color coding schemes, which can help you to understand the status of your workflow. An operator who is not that technical and is just monitoring the status of the application can see by color-coding the status of a process. If anything goes wrong or a process is stuck, it gives you a hint. You can just right-click and see the logs and the output. Even if the system is not right there in the data center and is located somewhere else, you can monitor it right from there and see the workflows.""It has absolutely saved us time. It has made us more efficient. As far as the processing between systems, we don't have as many people. They have been able to focus on other efforts, because we have been able to automate more stuff with Control-M.""The product has improved dramatically over the years; it offers a lot in terms of features and capabilities and integration with third-party tools. A wide range of models available with the product is critical in reducing manual and mundane work such as custom script writing. This saves significant amounts of time and, by association, money for the organization.""The most valuable features are the GUI console, stability, and workflow.""The multiple scheduling options allow you to do anything you want, whenever you want, and however you want. You can easily be in control when things happen."

More Control-M Pros →

"We particularly like the fact that it's graphical because it is Windows-based. Before, we were text-based on the mainframe. You can also produce flow charts. Because it's point-and-click, its ease of use is very nice.""The most valuable feature is being able to schedule tasks so that they reliably occur each day, each week, each month, or sometimes several times a day... The scheduler works as it should.""It allows us to organize everything into a process flow throughout the day for our different tasks that we have to run. So, it keeps everything organized. It is easy to monitor and adjust, if we need to.""The image scanning and anti-malware features are really valuable.""The most valuable feature is the self-service because it has made it possible to provide simple and quick solutions in the handling of certain tasks.""The most valuable features are its integration into Windows, into VM, and into AIX, as well as SQL.""I have been pleased with the support that we can get from the European partners. I think they are very good. All the time, when we have a question, they have an answer. It is very reassuring to have that support every day. Then, you can concentrate on your job and OpCon is just there to work. For us, it's perfect.""Among the numerous valuable features, one standout capability is the implementation of self-service buttons."

More OpCon Pros →

Cons
"I would like to have a web version of Control-M to replace the client. Currently, our support and jobs-creation teams are using the client and that needs to be installed on a PC. It's very heavy, consuming a lot of resources compared to the web portal. I know that they're trying to improve the client with the latest version, but for me, there hasn't been enough improvement yet.""We've also had a few database bugs within our organization. I think we are migrating to OpenJDK rather than just regular Java and that has since shown some issues with our Control-M instance, timing out and causing our jobs to stop running. We are still working with BMC to fine-tune that and get that resolved.""The biggest improvement they could have is better QA testing before releases come out the door.""Reporting in Control-M could use improvement.""I would like to see more auditing capabilities. Right now, it has the basics and I've been trying to set those up to work with what our auditors are looking for.""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.""They can improve their interface.""The performance could be better. Control-M Enterprise Manager tends to slow the system down even on a server with a six-core processor and 32 gigabytes RAM. The console is Java-based, so maybe OpenJDK 16 or 17 would be a performance improvement."

More Control-M Cons →

"I would like to have an interface with PowerShell. PowerShell has a lot of functionality. We use it a lot because we're a Windows shop. Having a built-in tool or interface with PowerShell would go a long way.""More functionality within self-service would be greatly appreciated.""What can get complicated is if you're doing anything more than just the built-in jobs. If you're using the more advanced features, troubleshooting becomes extremely complicated.""The FICS integration is a little bit clunky. We've had some tickets with their support team, and sometimes they couldn't figure it out, but that probably has more to do with FICS than with OpCon.""The image-scanning features need improvement.""The initial setup was fairly complex.""The ability to retrieve information from logs in variables to display relevant information would be helpful.""I'd like to see the product include a view where you can see everything about a specific job on a single screen."

More OpCon Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Compare to other tools Pricing and licensing was more. It should be decrease."
  • "BMC does NOT have a great licensing model from my perspective."
  • "we are more looking for a better cost/license/performance model because BMC, while we could say it's the best, is also the most expensive. That is what we are probably most annoyed with. We are paying something like €1,000,000 over three years for having 4,000 jobs running. That's expensive."
  • "We have account based licensing. There are two or three types of licensing. One of them is based on the number of jobs, so we a license close to 4,000 jobs per day. The cost is based on the different modules, which we buy from them. If we a buy a hardware module, which we are presently using and integrating, that is an additional cost, but I'm not sure of the amount. Each module comes with a different cost."
  • "As we increase the number of tasks or jobs on the system, there are concerns about cost."
  • "We have a five-year contract with task-based licensing."
  • "This product saves hours in a day based on my experience working here versus other companies with manually operations."
  • "It works on task-based licensing."
  • More Control-M Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "This solution is certainly not the cheapest, but we win in time."
  • "Yearly, it's around $30,000."
  • "Our licensing is on a yearly basis."
  • "Our license is for 1000 jobs. Including support, the license and upgrades are 2000 euros a month."
  • "Yearly, we're paying about $62,000. OpCon has an all-inclusive feature and module license, but you pay per task."
  • "Our annual maintenance costs are $45,000. The initial cost is separate."
  • "On a yearly basis our cost is between $25,000 and $30,000."
  • "Annually, we pay $29,000. This is for a blanket policy that covers everything, like licensing and support."
  • More OpCon Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Control-M acts as a single, centralized interface for monitoring and managing all batch processes, which is helpful because nothing gets left unattended since it is all visible in one place, and… more »
    Top Answer:First of all, the shift from manual to automation has been valuable. We have a tool that can automate.
    Top Answer:They are expensive. If we were a small company, it would be complicated because we have to have strong sales and operations to be able to afford a tool of this level. Being a large company, the… more »
    Top Answer:My favorite feature is the dashboard feature, which shows jobs that are running, and completed, any failures, and provides dashboard reporting.
    Top Answer:While the overall cost is reasonable, I'm interested in exploring options for making the managed automation solution, specifically the mass solution, more cost-effective.
    Top Answer:I would like OpCon to implement a reporting feature on the dashboard that displays historical data for specific jobs. Ideally, this feature would allow us to view the past seven days or the next seven… more »
    Ranking
    1st
    out of 51 in Workload Automation
    Views
    28,077
    Comparisons
    10,237
    Reviews
    21
    Average Words per Review
    1,562
    Rating
    9.0
    9th
    out of 51 in Workload Automation
    Views
    2,388
    Comparisons
    930
    Reviews
    7
    Average Words per Review
    1,269
    Rating
    9.4
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Control M
    Learn More
    Overview

    Control-M simplifies application and data workflow orchestration on premises or as a service. It makes it easy to build, define, schedule, manage, and monitor production workflows, ensuring visibility, reliability, and improving SLAs.

    • Accelerate new business applications into production—by embedding workflow orchestration into your CI/CD pipeline
    • Scale Dev and Ops collaboration, with a Jobs-as-Code approach
    • Simplify workflows across hybrid and multi-cloud environments with AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform integrations
    • Deliver data-driven outcomes faster, managing big data workflows in a scalable way
    • Take control of your file transfer operations with integrated, intelligent file movement and visibility

    OpCon is a robust and flexible platform capable of scaling up to meet the needs of clients running 140,000+ daily jobs across multiple environments and operating systems. Our proven migration framework helps clients painlessly transition from outdated or cost inefficient platforms thanks to our deep organizational expertise, REST API, and extensive library of legacy connectors. We have a variety of consulting options available for clients and offer no-cost training for the life of the contract.

    Sample Customers
    CARFAX, Tampa General Hospital, Navistar, Amadeus, Raymond James, Railinc
    LOHR, Carnival Cruise Lines, Herbalife, Digital Federal Credit Union, Synergent, Frandsen Bank & Trust
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm34%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Retailer9%
    Healthcare Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm29%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Insurance Company7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm78%
    Insurance Company9%
    Government4%
    Manufacturing Company2%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm34%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Insurance Company8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business11%
    Midsize Enterprise9%
    Large Enterprise80%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise9%
    Large Enterprise76%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise46%
    Large Enterprise30%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise10%
    Large Enterprise73%
    Buyer's Guide
    Control-M vs. OpCon
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Control-M vs. OpCon and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    771,157 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Control-M is ranked 1st in Workload Automation with 110 reviews while OpCon is ranked 9th in Workload Automation with 56 reviews. Control-M is rated 8.8, while OpCon is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Control-M writes "We have seen quicker file transfers with more visibility and stability". On the other hand, the top reviewer of OpCon writes "Gives us the ability to schedule dependent jobs across different mainframes". Control-M is most compared with AutoSys Workload Automation, IBM Workload Automation, Rocket Zena, ESP Workload Automation Intelligence and CA 7 Workload Automation Intelligence, whereas OpCon is most compared with AutoSys Workload Automation, IBM Workload Automation, Automic Workload Automation, UiPath and Tidal by Redwood. See our Control-M vs. OpCon report.

    See our list of best Workload Automation vendors.

    We monitor all Workload Automation reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.