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ACF2 vs BMC AMI Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 8, 2026

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

ACF2
Ranking in Mainframe Security
5th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Database Security (15th)
BMC AMI Security
Ranking in Mainframe Security
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Mainframe Security category, the mindshare of ACF2 is 11.8%, up from 9.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BMC AMI Security is 8.3%, up from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mainframe Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ACF211.8%
BMC AMI Security8.3%
Other79.9%
Mainframe Security
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1077621 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Examiner at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
A reliable, scalable product for security and auditing of our mainframe environment
It is a good product. It has been used for years. As long as it is configured correctly, it is a very stable product. It depends on how an institution or a company configures it. It depends on an institution's risk appetite. You need to make sure it is configured as per the concept of least privilege, and the logging features, detection and control mechanism, and other things like that are enabled. If you configure it to give access to the public, then there could be compromises. You should also have someone who independently checks it to make sure that it is configured keeping security in mind. If it has been configured for a while, when there are enhancements to the product or when you enhance it, you need to make sure that security is also looked at, and it is configured according to an institution's security policies. I would rate it a nine out of 10.
Kalpesh Pawar - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Head Cloud Services at Softcell Technologies Limited
Centralized automation has strengthened mainframe security and reduced compliance effort
The best features of BMC AMI Security are real-time threat detection and automated response. Real-time threat detection and automated risk response help my team by reducing manual monitoring effort. The faster incident response gives us lower MTTR. Automated alerts plus policy-driven actions enable immediate containment without waiting for SOC intervention, and it improves our security posture at scale. Continuous detection plus auto-remediation ensures consistent enforcement across all customer environments, minimizing drift and insider risk exposure. The feature that stands out for my team is strong policy automation plus standardization, helping ensure consistent RACF controls across all clients and reducing operational overhead. The tight fidelity SMF visibility enables precise monitoring and faster RCA at the user dataset level. Since implementing BMC AMI Security, it has positively impacted my organization by reducing MTTR and manual effort. Automated detection plus response eliminates manual log analysis and accelerates incident containment. It has also improved our compliance posture with continuous monitoring and auto-generated audit reports, ensuring consistent adherence across all customer environments. I have observed specific metrics since implementing BMC AMI Security. MTTR has been reduced by 40 to 50 percent due to real-time alerts plus automated responses. The compliance effort is reduced by 50 to 60 percent with automated reporting and continuous control validation. Additionally, manual monitoring effort has been decreased by 40 percent.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I love their support. The support is great. They are number one."
"By providing a high level of access control to the z/OS systems, ACF2 allows us to maintain tight controls on dataset and system access and helps us keep unauthorized users from accessing PHI or PII data."
"I am deeply impressed with the quality and depth and breadth of security and functionality in CA’s ACF2 and Top Secret products."
"It is a good product."
"Know that this tool is a great tool, a good tool to use, because you can quickly automate, quickly provision, and deprovision new users, which is essential when you are bringing new people onboard."
"We use this tool to quickly assign privileges to different users as soon as they come in."
"The most valuable feature is strict and reliable access control to CICS Resources."
"Excellent real-time reporting that saves time and resources."
"I have seen a return on investment of 120 percent over three years, reduced downtime by 50 percent with faster detection directly impacting availability and SLA compliance, and achieved operational cost reductions of up to 60 percent with lower operational overhead needed."
 

Cons

"I would like my team and me to be able to use simple browsers, like Chrome, to be able to access mainframe data and provision users using the browser."
"They can work on its ability to work in a distributed environment."
"It needs longer rules. The max rule is 32K."
"Initial setup could be complex if you rely on contractors to help with implementation."
"Reporting can sometimes include false positives."
"It needs longer rules. The max rule is 32K."
"The user access review could also be improved. It produces a lot of false positives."
"They can work on its ability to work in a distributed environment. It's a mainframe product. As many companies move to the cloud, depending on what cloud models they choose, such as a public, hybrid, or private cloud, it should be deployable. I am not sure if it can be deployed on those platforms. It has been there since the '50s or '60s, and it's still scalable. It has survived all these years, and it's scalable to many platforms, but I don't know about the cloud."
"BMC AMI Security can be enhanced by improving the analytics and AI modules."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Insurance Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
No data available
 

Also Known As

CA ACF2
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Sky, Rogers Communications
Macquarie, HCF, Telefónica Colombia, Ministério da Educaçāo
Find out what your peers are saying about CyberArk, IBM, Broadcom and others in Mainframe Security. Updated: March 2026.
885,728 professionals have used our research since 2012.