Control-M vs SaltStack comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Control-M
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (3rd), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (2nd), Workload Automation (1st)
SaltStack
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (14th), Network Automation (7th)
 

Featured Reviews

Nagarajan Sankarammal - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 20, 2022
A highly capable, feature-rich solution with excellent third-party integrations
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. As a Control-M user for over 15 years, I see it as very straightforward to create, integrate, and automate data pipelines. Even in the beginning, when Control-M was more of a data architecture product, it was easy to pick up. I've seen multiple people adapting very well in terms of adapting and enabling the capabilities of the solution for business; it's straightforward. Ideally, agent lift modes of connectivity would be established on different platforms. We can get applications integrated directly with Control-M. That's a recent feature. There are ready-made platforms and plugins which allow us to see templates for workflow orchestration in third-party and custom in-house applications. It's a straightforward solution, and this is an area where Control-M excels. Our customers are pleased being with Control-M, despite some minor hiccups, which happen with any solution. They have been happy with the product for years, and it's an enterprise-wide batch workflow orchestration tool. That's how it is established in our organization and what our users are satisfied and familiar with. The process execution speed is excellent and has constantly improved over the years. The bottom line is Control-M is a mission-critical solution, it's integral to our organization.
BF
Oct 13, 2023
A strong and flexible solution that helps with configuration management
We use SaltStack for configuration management, where we maintain configurations of 150 servers. It also helps with file integrity monitoring.  We monitor the configurations against CIS standards. We run CIS benchmarks and maintain configurations with higher CIS values for each server.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If a job fails, that development team is notified right away, which improves reliability. Previously, it was on the operators to notify the developers that their job failed, erred, or aborted. Now, it's all automated."
"Control-M is excellent when it comes to building, scheduling, managing, and monitoring production workflows. Those workflows are of very high importance to our operations."
"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."
"We are using Control-M for day-to-day operations only. It is helpful for us in our day-to-day operations. It is a key in our financial sector. We are automating via Control-M in our treasury operations, including any evening updates. Control-M makes things easier and faster by helping our treasury operations go without any interruptions."
"Maintaining and monitoring of workloads have been and continue to be the most valuable feature in our environment."
"First of all, the shift from manual to automation has been valuable. We have a tool that can automate."
"Control-M has helped us resolve issues 70% to 80% faster. It provides us with alerts instead of having someone go to that particular server and check the logs to determine where the issue is. We can simply click on the alert information, then everything is in front of us. This provides us with time savings, human effort savings, and process savings."
"Most valuable feature would be the ability to detect and notify when a process has not completed successfully."
"The ability to programmatically describe the desired state of a single, or an entire fleet of servers, on-premises, and in a cloud environment."
"I want to build automation that is intelligent, part of the fabric of our environment, and is somewhat self-sustaining. I think SaltStack can help me do this."
"We monitor the configurations against CIS standards. We run CIS benchmarks and maintain configurations with higher CIS values for each server."
"It is a highly stable solution."
"The automation functionality has been most valuable. With a click of a button, we are able to automate provisioning, the build of new hardware and apply patches. These are all extremely important and differentiated tasks that can be automated in SaltStack."
"The product’s most valuable feature is its ability to provide environmental security."
"SaltStack has given us the ability to deal with systems at scale and rectify issues at scale."
 

Cons

"The stability could be improved. I ran into an issue with a recent Control-M patch. The environment would become unstable if security ports were scanned. This is an area they need to improve on, but ultimately it's a relatively small improvement."
"The report form and display function are weak; they are not very powerful."
"Integration with some applications and platforms is complex and requires development. We have done some integration with the application integrator, but it was more like a manual solution. This is an area that can be improved."
"They can improve their interface."
"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."
"We develop software. More frequently, we are working with microservices and APIs, using our integration tool, MuleSoft. While Control-M is really a good tool to integrate with other tools, it is important for them to continue improving their microservices and API."
"When it comes to supporting cloud services, Control-M is a bit slow. We are not advancing with the technology because we don't have the modules that can interact or use the new application services provided by the cloud technologies."
"The Control-M API does not support SQL database-type jobs, where a job has been configured to use the SQL catalog to locate SSIS."
"A hardened set of tests would be much appreciated."
"SaltStack's features are minimal."
"It is difficult to set up."
"There is a little bit of pain when it comes to libraries and what is needed to run the product."
"Its configuration process could be better."
"Web UI."
"This solution could be integrated with more hardware for an improved offering."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a five-year contract with task-based licensing."
"The pricing and licensing could be better. However, when I compare Control-M pricing with JAMS, Control-M is still better priced than JAMS enterprise."
"This is an expensive product compared to other solutions, although I think that it is a good one. We are in a good position with licensing, as we can run 10,000 jobs."
"Pricing can be steep, but you get what you pay for."
"The annual licensing within BMC Control-M is on a per task basis. Three- and five-year contracts are also offered. The customer usually buys a bundle of tasks, e.g., 5,000 tasks, then my team configures Control-M for their usage."
"Initially, our licensing model was based on the number of jobs per day. That caused some issues because we were restricted to a number. So at our renewal time we said, 'We want to convert from number of jobs to number of endpoints.' That cost us extra money but it gave us additional capabilities, without worrying about the number of jobs."
"As we increase the number of tasks or jobs on the system, there are concerns about cost."
"This is now from my previous years as support for banks and big companies. If it's not enterprise scale, I find that it's too expensive for smaller companies. You really have to be quite big and need to have a dedicated support staff to run it, then you'll be fine. What we've seen at smaller companies, it's too expensive because they want to automate everything. Now, stuff that can literally run once a day for the rest of their lives is costing them $3 a job a day. It becomes too expensive, eventually. They are not seeing the return on investment because it's not business critical. Nobody is going to die or they're going to lose money if that job didn't run exactly at 11 minutes past 4:00. It's definitely for bigger enterprise companies, especially banks or healthcare providers. We have had an instance where Control-M was unavailable due to external factors for 20 minutes and there was a loss of almost a million euros because the solution involved logistics."
"So much can be done with the Open Source side, and especially for smaller shops. I personally think the pricing for Enterprise is hard to justify."
"It is an open-source product."
"The solution is free of cost."
"SaltStack is an open-source product."
"The pricing for this solution is roughly 20% lower than the competitive products in the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
9%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Control-M compare with AutoSys Workload Automation?
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 th...
What do you like most about Control-M?
First of all, the shift from manual to automation has been valuable. We have a tool that can automate.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Control-M?
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 cos...
What do you like most about SaltStack?
We monitor the configurations against CIS standards. We run CIS benchmarks and maintain configurations with higher CIS values for each server.
What is your primary use case for SaltStack?
We use SaltStack for configuration management, where we maintain configurations of 150 servers. It also helps with file integrity monitoring.
 

Also Known As

Control M
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

CARFAX, Tampa General Hospital, Navistar, Amadeus, Raymond James, Railinc
IBM CloudTD BankScotiaBankLinkedIneBayLiberty MutualTargetHyattCyxteraNetAppFacebookLyft
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