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Appian RPA vs Control-M comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 13, 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

Appian RPA
Ranking in Process Automation
21st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (14th)
Control-M
Ranking in Process Automation
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
184
Ranking in other categories
Managed File Transfer (MFT) (2nd), Workload Automation (1st), AI IT Support (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of Appian RPA is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Control-M is 3.5%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Control-M3.5%
Appian RPA0.8%
Other95.7%
Process Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Kunal Sharda - PeerSpot reviewer
Director & Key Managerial Personnel at Newlight Technology Solutions Private Limited
Partnering with comprehensive automation for increased efficiency
The best feature of Appian RPA is that it is highly integrated into the Appian platform itself. It is very easy to configure that in the end-to-end Appian automation solution. The second notable feature is that Appian RPA gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of how you want to design the robotic tasks. It has a very detailed orchestration console which provides details about the entire runtime and the logs of Appian RPA where you can find in detail what the robot did on the virtual machine. Appian provides dashboards where users or admins can log in and see how the robots are performing various robotic tasks. It is very detailed and gives substantial insight into how Appian RPA is functioning or is operational. It also lets you drill down into specific details at each task level.
RP
Batch Admin at NBC Universal
Brings data together from multiple platforms and optimizes cross-environment orchestration
The features of Control-M that I like the most include the ability to easily integrate or bring in different platforms into Control-M. For instance, AWS, mainframe, TWS, and something that's running on Autosys can all be brought into Control-M, converted to how Control-M runs it, and then the batch can be executed. This centralizes various applications in Control-M, which doesn't just have to handle batch processes, but also other tasks like reporting on required data. I find this functionality very useful and the setup is impressive, with more advancements yet to come. With Control-M, my company has achieved several measurable improvements since I started. The metrics indicate that the number of failures has dropped, and we have addressed the issue of excessive false alerts that I encountered when I joined. Previously, we received an overwhelming number of alerts daily, but now we manage to maintain that at a normalized level, perhaps around five to fifteen alerts, depending on running core batches and their setup.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I find the pricing of Appian RPA reasonable because it is user-based, and we can experiment with it."
"Appian RPA is super easy to use, offering low code, no code capabilities."
"The best feature of Appian RPA is that it is highly integrated into the Appian platform itself and is very easy to configure in the end-to-end Appian automation solution."
"The best features include the solutions with the recent AI version; the recent updates are impressive, as they allow for automatic jobs, which help improve our productivity."
"The monitoring tool is very good. It's very easy for expert and entry-level users to use on short notice."
"It is a highly scalable solution...I rate the product's initial setup a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy."
"Control-M improved our organization significantly."
"The most valuable feature is the reporting function. It allows us to pull up reports for specific information that the end-users are looking for."
"We are now able to deliver data to our data warehouses and dashboards promptly."
"Control-M has enabled new capabilities and business processes that were not possible before, and with advancements in integration, various data sources can be tied together to meet user and application team needs."
"If they have ad hoc requirements, then they can theoretically schedule their own file transfers with the Self Service. We are trying to push as much work back to the customers or developers that have that requirement, because they prefer to help themselves, if possible. We try empowering them and enabling them through Control-M, especially for file transfers, because it is a much broader base of the business then just with batch scheduling. Typically, with SAP batch scheduling, it would work with dedicated teams. With file transfers, the entire business is involved. There are business users, end users, etc. It definitely needs to be as simple as possible and as managed as well as possible. They need to manage it themselves, if possible, because our team is not growing but the number of customers, applications, and jobs are growing. We need to hand back some of the responsibility to the customer for them to resolve and action it."
 

Cons

"There are many competitive products in the market right now, for example, UiPath and Automation Anywhere. These competitive products are now coming up with features which Appian RPA currently does not have."
"In my opinion, Appian RPA can be improved."
"There are not any areas that need improvement off the top of my head."
"A Control-M on-prem license is based on the number of jobs, which is the number of tasks a particular customer wants to have. These tasks have to be run within 24 hours window. For example, if you have a license for 100 jobs, you can run a maximum of 100 jobs in a 24-hour window. If your operations could not run 10 jobs, and they ran only 90 jobs, they just carry over to the next day, but the next day, they will have 110 jobs. Control-M asks you to buy those 10 more licenses because you were out of compliance in terms of the number of licenses. This is something that needs to be indicated in Control-M GUI so that customers know the number of licenses they're going to use in this time window. Their support and documentation should be improved. I am not that satisfied with their customer support. Sometimes, they don't have the answers. Their documentation is very poor. It is not well written, and it is not in a very logical manner. You can use it on Unix, Linux, Windows, and AIX, but it needs some improvement on iSeries. It needs a built-in mechanism inside the system to give you an option to restore from the last point of failure. If a process crashes, the Control-M needs to have a mechanism in iSeries where the process can be restored from the last point of failure."
"There are areas for improvement, especially with the transition from the thick client to the web GUI. While Control-M's main game-changer is its GUI, the current web interface is less user-friendly than the thick client."
"Pricing is often perceived as high, and the licensing model can be unclear."
"Its cost can be more competitive. One of the main things customers look at is the cost. It's not affordable. The cost is very high, according to my customers."
"One feature I would like to include is in the middle of the monitoring domain. In the monitoring domain, if I have to update a number of jobs, the only way to do it is by manually clicking on each job. I would like a feature that allows me to do a mass update in the jobs, which I feel is still lacking."
"BMC is already improving in artificial intelligence and integration with cloud. AI can improve and is definitely an area where BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer continues to enhance."
"The community and the networking that goes on within that community need improvement. We want to be able to reach out to an SME, and say, "Hey, we are doing it this way. Does that make sense?" Ideally, they come back. and say, "Yes, it does make sense to do it that way. However, if you want to do it this way, then it is a little more efficient." We understand that one solution framework doesn't fit everybody. Depending on the breadth of the data and how broad it is, you may have different models for one over the other."
"After we complete FTP jobs, those FTP jobs will be cleared from the Control-M schedule after the noon refresh. So, I struggle to find out where those jobs are saved. Then, we need to request execution of the FTP jobs again. If there could be an option to show the logs, which have been previously completed, that would help us. I can find all other job logs from the server side, but FTP job logs. Maybe I am missing the feature, or if it is not there, it could be added."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"You're going to spend a lot of money upfront, but the benefits you're going to get out of it are going to quickly pay for it."
"There are two different types of licenses available. The first is based on the number of jobs that we run per day, and the other is based on the number of agents that we install. My current project has a contract for five years."
"This solution is very expensive compared to others in the market. Previously it was the only solution in our country to offer this kind of functionality. However, technology has caught up and many competitors offer the same at a lower price."
"I switched to this solution within the last year. I switched from the servers payment package to the job payment package, and it is very expensive."
"The pricing of Control-M is reasonable."
"Control-M isn't cheap, but this is an enterprise model."
"It is an expensive solution."
"It is not bad. The company can afford it, and it pays for itself. We have those jobs running automatically."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Insurance Company
15%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise141
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Appian RPA?
I didn't handle payments or costs. We recommended infrastructure stacks to our clients, who implemented them, and we provided ongoing consulting services.
What needs improvement with Appian RPA?
In my opinion, Appian RPA can be improved. We are planning to conduct a proof of concept on volume because we are still not entirely certain about how well the record type feature performs on Appia...
What is your primary use case for Appian RPA?
We have been working with Appian RPA along with the entire workflow case management suite. Recently, Appian released their AI, which achieved general availability in August 2025. This is a document...
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?
From what I know about pricing, I would probably put Control-M in the expensive category, but you do pay for what you get; you are paying for a premium product.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Jidoka RPA
Control M, BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer, BMC Australia CTM
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

empark, talan, liverpool, ayesa, aeromexico, teknei
The Bank of East Asia, LINE Bank Taiwan, Coop, Air Europa, Carrefour, Itau Unibanco, Snam, Embraer, ANZ Bank, EDP, Dominio's, Tampa General Hospital, W&W Informatik GmbH, Veterans General, Up Sí Vale, Sky Italia, REWE digital GmbH, Raymond James, Railinc, Navistar, Management Science Associates, Colruyt, CARFAX, Banpara, Aspiag Service, Amadeus, AG Insurance, ING Bank Slaski
Find out what your peers are saying about Appian RPA vs. Control-M and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.