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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 boosts efficiency and reduces costs with easy deployment, allowing quick returns without extra IT staff.
Sentiment score
6.8
Control-M boosts ROI by automating tasks, reducing costs, improving efficiency, and enhancing data management 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 praised for prompt, effective support, despite occasional language barriers and a challenging knowledge base.
Sentiment score
7.3
Control-M's support is praised for effectiveness and resources, though some users face delays and require issue escalation.
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 technical support is very polite, helpful, and available 24/7.
If something fails at 3 AM in the morning, you need to fix it and get it back up and working really quickly.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Automate is scalable, enabling easy expansion with flexibility and load balancing, though some concerns about complexity and cost exist.
Sentiment score
7.6
Control-M is scalable and adaptable, efficiently managing complex operations across industries, despite occasional server load and cost concerns.
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 v.11 is mostly stable and reliable, but resource-intensive, with occasional errors and crashes depending on task type.
Sentiment score
7.6
Control-M is praised for stability and reliability, with minimal issues often linked to external factors and resolved quickly.
It has very robust features, and it is not prone to instability.
The stability of Fortra's Automate is excellent.
The stability is good and consistent, with no fluctuations in functioning.
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

Intelligent automation faces issues with usability, integration, and support, needing improvements in user interface, customization, and community engagement.
Control-M users desire better reporting, lower costs, improved interfaces, enhanced integrations, simplified upgrades, and offline capabilities.
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 flexible and cost-effective pricing, allowing multiple processes per bot, making it competitive against UiPath and Blue Prism.
Enterprise buyers face high costs with Control-M, but many find its comprehensive features a worthwhile investment despite complex licensing.
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 offers user-friendly automation with seamless integration, intuitive features, and cost-effective scalability, enhancing productivity and efficiency.
Control-M enhances workflow management with intuitive interfaces, robust automation, and seamless integration, improving flexibility, efficiency, and productivity.
Automate's non-reliance on additional orchestrators makes it quite cost-effective.
In my opinion, the best feature Automate offers is the scheduling.
I find the ease of use from a programming perspective very valuable.
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
29
Ranking in other categories
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (5th)
Control-M
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
132
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (2nd), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (3rd), 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 1.0% compared to last year.
Control-M, on the other hand, focuses on Process Automation, holds 4.6% mindshare, up 4.1% since last year.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Automate2.0%
UiPath Platform18.7%
Microsoft Power Automate17.3%
Other62.0%
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Process Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Control-M4.6%
Camunda24.8%
Temporal7.4%
Other63.2%
Process Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Ibukun Shweta - PeerSpot reviewer
Automation optimizes scheduling, but improvements needed in error reporting and script execution
In my particular use case, for session management, it would be better if I could get a more granular view into connectivity issues to servers. Sometimes, although your flows or tasks are running as scheduled, connecting to the servers can hit a snag without alerts or error logs to check. Some servers might need patching or could be affected by network issues or latency. The workflow sometimes gets stuck without clarity on the errors. An explicit error report would be helpful, especially when the connection fails unexpectedly. It's complex to analyze problems that might arise from firewall issues or other anomalies that could hinder the flow from executing as expected. The depth of these connection challenges would benefit from better debugging capabilities. As for improvements, if Automate wasn't designed primarily for script execution, that's understandable. However, for Linux, I would prefer to see less complexity in workflows to achieve a natural completion of scripts. There are features, such as 'wait for terminal output,' that should more intuitively detect completion based on the shell prompt. Improving those aspects would make Automate more efficient for my needs. Regarding error reporting, I think Automate should offer better error reporting when connecting to servers. Currently, there are many instances where I see empty logs, indicating that, while tasks are scheduled, commands are not executing successfully. This is a significant concern, especially with critical workloads where visibility into errors is essential.
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
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Performing Arts
6%
Financial Services Firm
26%
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 Enterprise7
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise112
 

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?
The main purpose is for automation. That has been the purpose why I have been using it so far.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?
Regarding pricing, it is very friendly. I would not say that it is really cheap or very expensive, but it fits within our budget.
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?
Pricing for Control-M depends on the licensing model, with different options such as the per-agent model or the per-job model. BMC is phasing out the per-agent model in favor of per-job licensing, ...
 

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: August 2025.
867,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.