AppWorx Workload Automation vs Control-M vs Stonebranch comparison

AppWorx Workload Automation

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93% willing to recommend

Control-M

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between AppWorx Workload Automation, Control-M, and Stonebranch based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about BMC, Broadcom, JAMS Software and others in Workload Automation.

To learn more, read our detailed Workload Automation Report (Updated: September 2025).

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Workload Automation

September 2025

Helped 867,349 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of AppWorx Workload Automation is 1.5%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Control-M is 19.1%, down from 26.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Stonebranch is 4.7%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Control-M	19.1%
Stonebranch	4.7%
AppWorx Workload Automation	1.5%
Other	74.7%

Workload Automation

Featured Reviews

Srikanth Gubba

Senior Developer at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Automation boosts efficiency with a user-friendly interface

Currently, I have switched to negotiating through third-party vendors for licensing, which has made it more expensive. Broadcom should address this by dealing directly with customers again. Licensing fees have increased as they charge based on executions rather than user agents, causing higher costs. Technical support also involves third-party interactions, complicating direct assistance from Broadcom.

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Mark_Francome

Senior System Specialist at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Easily connects to different platforms and ties everything together in a centralized screen

Areas of Control-M that have room for improvement include the reporting feature. The reporting on Control-M hasn't changed much over the years, although it is in a different internal format. It used to be Crystal Reports, and now they've upgraded that. It would be better if that was really flexible where you could define your own reports. You can customize it a little bit, but when people come in with complex questions, you should be able to use that tool and access anything in the database. Control-M has two internal databases that are core to the product. You can go in and do your own SQL queries against the database, but this reporting tool should really be able to do everything that you can do with SQL, and give you good information. Instead, you end up having to export to spreadsheets and then change and update them. It can be very labor-intensive to get this information out. Other than the reporting, they've addressed most things over the years. Control-M is a tool that's been around for more than 30 years, so they have actually fixed most issues that you would encounter. They have a request for enhancement process that most users have sent requests to, but it doesn't move very quickly. The other challenge is they're supporting so many different platforms; BMC just wants it to be a trouble-free release. When users request new features, such as improved reporting, BMC's priority remains maintaining a clean-running system.

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Siddharth Matalia

Senior Technical Specialist at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Good GUI and has helpful support but needs a mobile app

This was a migration project where we provided our database, the previous one, and there was a tool that automatically converted the awarded job into Stonebranch. All the conversion was done from the Stonebranch side, and we got a person as well from Stonebranch during migration. There was a person who worked with us a decade back for the AutoSys install as well. He was well aware of our environment, so he helped us a lot. It was easy. It was not that complex. It is much more GUI. That said, we are looking for how the various automation can be done since, through command lines, you can create a number of jobs. While you are creating a single job, it takes 15 minutes with the GUI, however, if you go for the command line, within two or three minutes, your job gets completed. We have built our own solution for automation using some REST API and all those various integrations. It is working for our organization right now. However, we are requesting some kind of solution from Stonebranch. They should have been providing that to us already. For deployment, three or four people were engaged with the setup on their side. To manage everything, they provided us with a person who required help to manage it. Eventually, since it was a cloud platform on their side, if there is some configuration necessary, which they do it. They get a notification, and they fix it very immediately if there is an issue. The response time is very good from their side, and we don't have to worry about maintenance.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Atomic Applications Manager is user-friendly and accommodates around 100 users who can monitor and run their jobs effectively."

"We have a lot of nightly jobs that need to be run. Therefore, we perform a lot of calculations and processes during nighttime hours."

"Scheduling is a good feature."

"It has improved my organization through automation of back office and infrastructure procedures, and by integrating and orchestrating key business applications spanning multiple technology stacks."

"The interface is good."

"AppWorx Workload Automation's simplicity and powerful functionality are its most valuable features for us."

"The automated solution is the most valuable piece. Otherwise, we would have to be doing everything manually on every server."

"It is really a robust product."

More AppWorx Workload Automation pros

"A large bank in South Africa would have more than one million jobs to be run each and every night. If something goes wrong in the middle of a million jobs, it can be very complicated if you're managing that via scripts or manually. Control-M solves that problem."

"The ability to dynamically predict batch run time is so valuable."

"The Control-M interface is good for creating, monitoring, and ensuring the delivery of files as part of our data pipeline. There's a wealth of information in both the full client, as well as the web interface that they have. Both are very easy to use and provide all the necessary material to understand how to do various tasks. The help feature is very useful and informative and everything is very easy to understand."

"The most valuable features of Control-M are automation and orchestration. It allows a different schedule, and we can manage thousands of jobs. It ensures we can complete them on time accurately. This automation reduces our manual intervention, significantly reducing error."

"Speeds up processes and automated tasks."

"Control-M provides us with a unified view, where we can easily define, orchestrate, and monitor all our application workflows and data pipelines. It also provides the ability to filter. So, if I don't want to see everything, I can also narrow it down or open ViewPoint. This is very important since we have thousands of jobs to monitor. If we did not have this ability, it would be very difficult to see what is going on."

"Our ability to integrate with many different solutions has been invaluable. The new approach of the automation API and jobs-as-code is also valuable."

"The most valuable features are the Advanced File Transfer and the manage file transfer. They make transferring files securely seamless. It's very easy to set up, get deployed, and have it transferred to and from vendors. As long as we can get our firewall rules implemented at a decent time, it's very easy and seamless to get important files transferred in a secure manner."

More Control-M pros

"The Universal Agent is the most valuable feature. Being agent-based and being able to go across multiple technology stacks, which is what our workflows do, Stonebranch gives us the ability to bridge those disparate technologies. It enables us to remove the dependency-gap with the agent so we know the status of the workflow at each step."

"The most valuable feature is the reliability of the agents, because we need them accessible and we need to run stuff. The agent technology and compatibility are top-notch."

"I love the Universal Controller. It's been great for us. We host it on-premise... It's High Availability, meaning there's failover from one server to the other if one goes down."

"The features are upgraded, and every six months they're releasing patches."

"Stonebranch performs well, and the graphical representation is excellent. Overall, it requires more technical effort from our teams, but the solution is intuitive, so anybody can use it."

"The support is good from Stonebranch Universal Automation Center."

"The tasks are incredibly capable, and as long as you name them with a nice, uniform naming convention, they are very useful. You can create some interesting workflows through various machines, or you can just have it kick off single tasks. All in all, I really like the Universal Task. You can do some mutually exclusive stuff, such as an "A not B" kind of thing. It has a lot of capabilities behind the scenes."

"I like the dashboard and the various workflows."

More Stonebranch pros

Cons

"As a general process automation and integration tool, it has been superseded by other offerings, notably the Workload Automation suite."

"The internal security model can be complex when configuring multiple user groups."

"The current setup process can be a bit much for users."

"The graphical interface is pretty cool but not the best so it could use some improvement."

"Currently, I have switched to negotiating through third-party vendors for licensing, which has made it more expensive. Broadcom should address this by dealing directly with customers again."

"It is difficult to integrate with the Active Directory (AD)."

"Reporting, forecasting and intelligence could be improved."

"Currently, I have switched to negotiating through third-party vendors for licensing, which has made it more expensive. Broadcom should address this by dealing directly with customers again."

More AppWorx Workload Automation cons

"Its installation can be better. Currently, we have to install it manually. The file transfer feature can also be improved. It is not very easy to transfer a file from business to business. In terms of new features, they can include new technologies. It can have API integration."

"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."

"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."

"There can be some complexities with the UI part, especially with the advanced features."

"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."

"Finding documentation on the website can be a bit confusing."

"The company has been working with BMC on the MFT. There are still some things about MFT which don't work the way that we want with our needs. So, we would like to see that improved."

"In general, it is a very good product, and we are very happy with it. It meets all of our expectations."

More Control-M cons

"I would rate Stonebranch somewhere in the middle for ease of setup. It wasn't too straightforward for us because our infrastructure is complex."

"There is room for improvement with its connectivity with the Microsoft SRS system. It is very weak. They keep telling us it works with it, and technically it does, but it does not provide a lot of visibility. We have lost a lot of visibility migrating to Stonebranch, compared with just running tasks on the SRS server. That's really about the only thing that is a sore point for us."

"I have a request regarding our agent on the mainframe. It may time out when communicating to the Universal Controller, when the mainframe is extremely busy. That can cause a task which is running at that time to not see the results of the job that ran on the mainframe. It happens sporadically during times of really busy CPU usage. We're expecting that enhancement from them in the fourth quarter."

"It's not available on the cloud, so they should take that due to safety, security, and scalability."

"One hiccup we've had is due to the fact that we have other internal scheduling tools. We're able to talk to them, but we have trouble with some of the networking between them, so we're still trying to work out the kinks there."

"The Universal Controller is decent for the money it costs... It needs some work to have full features, compared to other products that are out there, specifically IBM's Workload Scheduler."

"Occasionally, we have an agent that doesn't come back up after patching. That doesn't happen very often... It's really just a restart of the agent and it comes back up. But that might be one thing that could be improved."

"It can't handle negative written codes."

More Stonebranch cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price for annual licenses is a bit expensive so pricing is rated a two out of ten."

"The cost model is based on the number of orchestrated systems used."

"We are satisfied with the pricing."

"Licensing options are fairly straightforward."

"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 cost-benefit is covered, but it is not within the level of cheap solutions."

"It depends. It's packaged in such a way that you can buy the base model without all of the fancy stuff. You can try and keep your price similar to competitors. I guess it's natural throughout the world. It doesn't matter whether you're buying cell phones or something else. The best cell phone will always be more expensive."

"We have a license till 2024. We are good and satisfied with it."

"For the tooling that you get, the licensing is acceptable. It has competitive pricing, especially with all the value that you get out of it. There are additional costs with some of the additional modules, but they are all electives. Out of the box, you get the standard Control-M experience and the standard license. They're not forcing some of the modules on you. If you decide that you do need them, you can always purchase those separately."

"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."

"Its cost is a little bit higher than other solutions such as AutoSys or DAC. For the demo, there were some plans, such as start plan, scale plan, etc. Pricing was based on the plan."

"In our environment, pricing depends on the total number of maximum jobs that can run, which is fine. Therefore, if the number of jobs increases, then the licensing fees will increase."

"Cost-wise, it is good."

More Control-M pricing and cost advice

"When we reviewed this solution against other vendors, Stonebranch blew everybody out of the water in terms of cost."

"I don't have pricing information, but I do know it's cheaper than our old legacy system. Other than the standard licensing fees there are no additional costs."

"Outside of licensing fees, there aren't any other costs."

"Stonebranch is cheaper than Control-M, so many companies are using Stonebranch."

"The price of the solution is at a medium level compared to the competition."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

University

Financial Services Firm

26%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

25%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	24
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	112

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	1
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	22

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AppWorx Workload Automation?

Compared to other tools, it is now expensive. Licensing now depends on execution counts as opposed to agent counts, l...

What needs improvement with AppWorx Workload Automation?

Currently, I have switched to negotiating through third-party vendors for licensing, which has made it more expensive...

What is your primary use case for AppWorx Workload Automation?

In general, I use Atomic Applications Manager to manage our unique servers in our cloud infrastructure, specifically ...

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 b...

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?

Pricing for Control-M depends on the licensing model, with different options such as the per-agent model or the per-j...

Automic Automation vs AppWorx Workload Automation

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Comparisons

Compared 49% of the time

Tidal by Redwood vs AppWorx Workload Automation

Compared 9% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs AppWorx Workload Automation

Compared 9% of the time

More AppWorx Workload Automation Competitors

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Control-M

Compared 13% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Control-M

Compared 8% of the time

Automic Automation vs Control-M

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs Control-M

Compared 6% of the time

Rocket Zena vs Control-M

Compared 4% of the time

More Control-M Competitors

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Stonebranch

Compared 17% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Stonebranch

Compared 11% of the time

ESP Workload Automation Intelligence vs Stonebranch

Compared 6% of the time

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs Stonebranch

Compared 6% of the time

JAMS vs Stonebranch

Compared 3% of the time

More Stonebranch Competitors

Product Reports

AppWorx Workload Automation

September 2025

Download AppWorx Workload Automation product report

Download Control-M product report

Control-M

September 2025

Download Stonebranch product report

August 2025

Also Known As

CA Automic Applications Manager

Control M

Stonebranch Universal Automation Center

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Broadcom

BMC

Demo not available

Overview

AppWorx Workload Automation automates your Ellucian’s Banner or Fiserv DNA processing. This innovative, best-in-class task scheduling solution accelerates your processing, provides visibility and control over business processes, and mitigates risk in both environments.

AppWorx Workload Automation Can:

Automate banner processes without writing scripts
Automate testing
Document process flows and procedures
Maintain a history and audit trail of production runs
Automate migration from development to test to production environments
Reduce training
Eliminate human errors associated with manual tasks

Benefits of AppWorx Workload Automation For Your Ellucian’s Banner

Automate recurring business processes, such as administration and record-keeping, while complying with state and federal reporting requirements.
Batch jobs are processed accurately.
If there are any inconsistencies or job failures, Automic for Banner immediately sends email notifications to the appropriate personnel.
Significantly improve your return on investment.
Automating batch processing and report generation.
Eliminating server overload by using a combination of features (AppWorx provides queues to control the number of jobs that can be submitted to a server at any given time, can spot duplicate runs of the same reports, and can delay impromptu reports submitted by individuals until all regularly scheduled reports are processed, etc.).
Eliminates the need for developers to write shell, PERL, or batch scripts to automate scheduling.
Automatically keeps a history of every job run, the parameters that were used, and the output generated at each step. These records are readily available for viewing online and can be printed for reference.
Export and import utilities make migration an error-free, repeatable process. Database logins, printers, and libraries can be mapped when you are moving process flows to a new environment. Mapping eliminates potentially erroneous code changes.

Benefits of AppWorx Workload Automation For Your Fiserv DNA Processing

Run DNA jobs directly, eliminating the need to copy and release queues for each batch cycle.
Automatically run DNA jobs at the optimum time using sophisticated scheduling.
Run multiple DNA jobs at the same time in parallel from one batch station.
Eliminate potential data entry errors by automatically retrieving parameters from your enterprise databases.
Automatically check the results from one step to ensure data integrity before continuing to the next step.
Alert production analysts to problems the instant they occur.
Coordinate processing steps across all software applications.
Automatically distribute output files to vendors.
Perform all operations from one GUI client.

Reviews from Real Users

“The most valuable feature for me is the scheduling,” says an enterprise application architect at a retailer who has been using the solution for close to 10 years.

A manager at a tech services company adds that “The interface is good. The compliance-related features are very good.”

Broadcom

Control-M by BMC is engineered to manage hybrid cloud workflows, offering orchestration capabilities starting at $29,000 annually. Aimed at helping growing teams, it efficiently supports cross-environment scheduling and automation needs.

Control-M offers robust cross-platform scheduling, automation, and integration with applications such as SAP and Informatica. Users appreciate its ease of use with a graphical interface, centralized management, and monitoring capabilities. Advanced features, including Managed File Transfer, automated error handling, and real-time alerts, enhance productivity. The ability to unify workflows and support diverse environments makes Control-M a trusted tool in many sectors. While improvements in reporting flexibility and API integration with tools like ServiceNow are needed, addressing performance issues during upgrades could enhance its value. Offering improved support for new technologies and cloud environments is beneficial, with cost-effectiveness being a consideration.

What are the key features of Control-M?

Cross-Platform Scheduling: Facilitates seamless task management across various OS environments.
Automation: Provides efficient workflow automation for complex processes.
Third-Party Integration: Ensures smooth integration with applications like SAP and Informatica.
Graphical Interface: Simplifies job management and monitoring with user-friendly design.
Managed File Transfer: Enhances data transfer processes with structured handling.
Real-Time Alerts: Offers notifications for immediate response to workflow issues.

What benefits should organizations expect from Control-M?

Increased Efficiency: Streamlines operations and reduces manual workload.
Enhanced Productivity: Automation and monitoring features boost operational output.
Improved Compliance: Supports SLA achievement and regulatory requirements.
Operational Agility: Provides flexible and adaptable task management across platforms.

Control-M is leveraged in industries like finance for enterprise scheduling and data management, supporting mainframe, Linux, Unix, Windows, and cloud platforms. It contributes to workflow orchestration and workload automation, improving operational efficiency and enhancing IT infrastructure across those environments.

BMC

Stonebranch automates enterprise-level workload and task scheduling across platforms like Linux, Windows, and mainframe, managing thousands of daily tasks for improved efficiency and visibility.

Stonebranch enables organizations to streamline job scheduling by replacing older systems with a robust solution that automates complex workflows, batch processing, and secure file transfers. Its compatibility with multiple platforms and enhanced visibility aid teams in efficiently managing business processes, database interactions, and IT workflows. Equipped with a Universal Controller and Agent, it provides seamless integration across diverse systems, empowering users with greater control over their tasks. While it fosters digital transformation, there are opportunities for enhancements in areas like graphical workflow overviews and API functionality.

What features does Stonebranch offer?

User-friendly interface for intuitive navigation
Robust agents ensuring reliable task execution
Comprehensive workflow automation tools
Platform-agnostic compatibility for diverse systems
Secure file transfer capabilities
High scalability for growing needs
Effective error handling features

What benefits should users expect?

Improved efficiency in task management
Streamlined processes reducing operational complexities
Enhanced visibility and control over workflows
Seamless integration with existing systems
Support for digital transformation initiatives

Organizations in industries such as finance and healthcare implement Stonebranch for its ability to automate complex processes, manage mainframe and distributed environments, and securely transfer sensitive data. Its platform-agnostic nature caters to the demanding needs of these industries, providing a reliable backbone for essential operations.