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Automate vs Control-M comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
8.1
Automate enhances IT by saving resources, improving productivity, and achieving ROI with reduced costs and increased efficiency quickly.
Sentiment score
6.6
Control-M automates operations, reduces costs, and improves efficiency, offering swift ROI and enhanced service levels for large enterprises.
Fortra's Automate has effectively replaced the workload of an entire employee, saving us significant time and money.
It has reduced our expenditures in terms of purchasing more products and employing more technicians.
I've seen a good return on investment with Automate, as it streamlines processes and improves my productivity.
The main return on investment with Helix Control-M has been a reduction in downtime and minimization of manual interventions, which has improved our operational efficiency.
You can run a million batch jobs or tasks at night when all of your highly skilled people are at home sleeping.
By implementing automation tools, you can minimize human errors and improve efficiency.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Automate's customer service is highly rated for quick, knowledgeable support and effective communication, despite a complex knowledge base.
Sentiment score
7.2
Control-M's customer support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, despite occasional slow responses, offering strong resource availability.
They don't always understand the processes I'm trying to implement.
I would rate the technical support as a nine out of ten because it is quite fast and courteous.
They are very responsive and have been able to resolve any issues I have encountered.
They quickly evolve with changing technology trends, easily adopt new features, and incorporate them into the product.
The support is accurate, and BMC is always ready to help with queries and complex incidents.
The technical support is very polite, helpful, and available 24/7.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Automate is flexible and scalable, offering high availability, load balancing, and competitive pricing, making it effective for large organizations.
Sentiment score
7.6
Control-M efficiently scales across enterprise levels, managing extensive jobs, though costs may impact its otherwise robust capabilities.
The scalability of Automate also scores a ten out of ten.
It is easy to increase one bot or one studio without needing to buy another orchestrator, which can be quite expensive.
Automate is stable for my needs and is highly scalable, allowing the same workflow to serve numerous tasks effectively.
Our license doesn't limit our ability to configure Control-M as needed, allowing us to easily create new agents or environments.
It can absorb more workload wherever needed.
As the workload on Control-M increases, its scalability is much higher.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
Automate is stable and reliable, with minimal glitches, but performance may be impacted by server connectivity and resource dependency.
Sentiment score
7.7
Control-M is highly stable and reliable, handling large workloads efficiently with minimal downtime or disruptions.
The stability of the solution is a ten out of ten.
It has very robust features, and it is not prone to instability.
The stability of Fortra's Automate is excellent.
The downtime is higher compared to AWS.
The testing and development phases need to be more rigorous before releasing patches.
Once properly implemented, the system becomes very stable, which is one of its strongest attributes.
 

Room For Improvement

Automate needs improved stability, user interface, integration, documentation, and security, with enhanced community support and OCR capabilities.
Control-M needs better flexibility, reporting, integration, scalability, UI, cloud and AI support, documentation, and streamlined upgrades.
This is a significant concern, especially with critical workloads where visibility into errors is essential.
I would prefer not having to log in to update a ticket; being able to respond via email would be beneficial.
Integration with Amazon S3 is somewhat lacking.
They could provide more documentation and tutorials to make the initial setup easier to understand.
We've experienced main problems with MFTE where having one setup means when an error occurs, the entire service goes down.
Documentation should be maintained for all versions since they provided the application.
 

Setup Cost

Automate offers cost-effective pricing per bot with both perpetual and annual licenses, providing flexibility and competitive enterprise solutions.
Control-M's complex pricing reflects robust features valued by enterprises, justifying the premium cost despite competitive alternatives.
Competitors are often more expensive than Automate.
It offered what we wanted at a good, competitive price.
It does a lot but also costs a lot.
The licensing cost is very high, and they often consider switching to IBM Workload Scheduler or other options.
Control-M tends to be more expensive compared to other solutions, but users get great value from it.
Control-M is among the highest-priced solutions in the market.
 

Valuable Features

Automate boosts efficiency with user-friendly automation, seamless integration, robust scheduling, cost-effective licensing, and minimal technical requirement.
Control-M offers user-friendly GUI, extensive integration, efficient scheduling, real-time monitoring, mobile access, and centralized workload management features.
Automate's non-reliance on additional orchestrators makes it quite cost-effective.
In my opinion, the best feature Automate offers is the scheduling.
Automate's compatibility with existing IT infrastructure has impacted our business operations positively by providing smooth integration with other software that we use, such as Gmail, Jira, and Microsoft 365 apps, which gives us a unified platform instead of having to keep switching from one software to another, saving a lot of time and streamlining the whole workflows.
Automation is more advanced, deployment is fast, and version control has been simplified.
The user interface is comprehensive and lets me view all my jobs on one page, monitor everything, and access the job history.
It is easy to integrate Control-M with technologies for data ops or DevOps processes as things change, and it is not complex compared to other workload automation tools available in the market.
 

Categories and Ranking

Automate
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (5th)
Control-M
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
138
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (2nd), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (4th), Workload Automation (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Automate and Control-M aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Automate is designed for Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and holds a mindshare of 2.0%, up 1.1% compared to last year.
Control-M, on the other hand, focuses on Process Automation, holds 4.7% mindshare, up 4.1% since last year.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Automate2.0%
UiPath Platform17.9%
Microsoft Power Automate17.7%
Other62.400000000000006%
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Process Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Control-M4.7%
Camunda23.9%
Temporal7.6%
Other63.800000000000004%
Process Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Jane Rachma Kiniti - PeerSpot reviewer
Automate has streamlined workflows and increased efficiency with powerful automation
The best features of the solution are the flexible automation features, it is rich with beautiful connectors, and it is easy to use with little to no coding knowledge required to get started, so anybody can use the tool. The intuitive interface of Automate has an intuitive design, which makes it easy to learn and use even without a strong technical background, and it has a drag-and-drop interface, which makes everything so easy and straightforward. The error handling capabilities in complex automation tasks are powerful, as it handles all types of tasks, whether complex or simple. I've never faced any problems even when dealing with complex tasks, so everything is super smooth and highly reliable, even when dealing with big tasks, as it has never slowed down. Automate's compatibility with existing IT infrastructure has impacted our business operations positively by providing smooth integration with other software that we use, such as Gmail, Jira, and Microsoft 365 apps, which gives us a unified platform instead of having to keep switching from one software to another, saving a lot of time and streamlining the whole workflows. The automated analytics have helped improve our business processes since it has increased our efficiency by automating our everyday tasks, freeing up time for us to focus more on strategic activities such as analyzing data and developing new business strategies. It is also cost-saving. By minimizing manual labor, it decreases human errors that can lead to costly mistakes. By automating the tasks, it helps to save costs, and it also improves our accuracy by reducing these errors to ensure that tasks are done almost perfectly.
Mark_Francome - PeerSpot reviewer
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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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Performing Arts
6%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise114
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about HelpSystems AutoMate?
We use it for specific cases, mainly secure file transfers, which are vital for us. And it works for us.
What is your primary use case for HelpSystems AutoMate?
My main use case for Automate is automating my everyday tasks, such as reporting, task assignment, and updating projects.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?
The pricing for Automate is affordable, even for a small organization, and it's well-packed and affordable.
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.
 

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate
Control M
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aldergrove Financial Group, Preferred Health Professionals, Mindbeam Technologies, First Credit Union in British Columbia, Vestcom International, Prime Liberty Benefits, University of Tampa, CNLBancshares, World Precision Instruments, BJ's Restaurants, Globe Pequot Press, Accudata Technologies, Norton Healthcare, Pacific Toxicology Laboratories
CARFAX, Tampa General Hospital, Navistar, Amadeus, Raymond James, Railinc
Find out what your peers are saying about UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Microsoft and others in Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Updated: September 2025.
872,655 professionals have used our research since 2012.