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Automic Automation vs Control-M vs IBM Workload Automation 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
7.0
Automic Automation boosts efficiency by automating workflows, reducing human interaction, cutting costs, and improving compliance and task alignment.
Sentiment score
7.4
Control-M improves efficiency and cost savings by automating tasks, reducing errors, and enhancing integration with existing applications.
Sentiment score
5.2
IBM Workload Automation is valuable for complex setups with trained teams, despite maintenance costs and slower performance on simpler networks.
Automic Automation has helped reduce workload failure rates by fifty percent.
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.
It has reduced the total cost of ownership by 30% to 40%.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Automic Automation's support is knowledgeable but inconsistent; transition to Broadcom affected availability, despite positive user feedback on improvements.
Sentiment score
7.4
Control-M support is responsive and knowledgeable, offering 24/7 assistance with high satisfaction, timely solutions, and valuable resources.
Sentiment score
8.3
Opinions on IBM Workload Automation's support vary; some praise it, while others face delays and inconsistent service.
They react quickly when it is urgent.
They are highly knowledgeable in their product area and very easy to work with.
If you put the tickets in for which you need help right away, they get back to you right away.
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.
The immediate acknowledgment and solutions provided by BMC's support team make it stand out compared to other tools.
I would rate their support between eight and nine out of ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Automic Automation excels in scalability, efficiently managing diverse workloads and environments, with high user satisfaction in performance and flexibility.
Sentiment score
7.6
Control-M efficiently manages growing job counts across enterprises, offering straightforward scalability despite some cost and cloud integration concerns.
Sentiment score
7.0
IBM Workload Automation is preferred for scalability in complex scheduling, with minor challenges at higher scales, especially in time zones.
We have small clients running a thousand tasks per day and big enterprises running one million or two million tasks per day.
The solution effectively supports our existing user base and is equipped to scale further.
It does not perform real-time scalability in our environment, but because of the way we have built it, it can scale well past any thresholds with no issues.
It can absorb more workload wherever needed.
As the workload on Control-M increases, its scalability is much higher.
I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Automic Automation provides reliable stability with minimal disruptions, high user ratings, and quick resolution of issues in well-tuned environments.
Sentiment score
7.7
Control-M is highly stable and reliable, efficiently handling large workloads with minimal issues and strong Unix platform performance.
Sentiment score
8.8
IBM Workload Automation is viewed as reliable and stable, with minor issues resolved swiftly, boosting user confidence.
The stability of the solution is excellent.
In a well-tuned environment, it runs very smoothly.
So far, I have not encountered any issues related to instability such as lagging, crashing, or downtime.
The downtime is higher compared to AWS.
The testing and development phases need to be more rigorous before releasing patches.
The stability of the Helix Control-M solution is good.
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek improved reporting, stability, UI, compatibility, and documentation in Automic Automation, citing complexity and integration challenges.
Control-M users seek enhanced analysis, flexibility, and integration while desiring cost-effective, streamlined interfaces and better API documentation.
IBM Workload Automation requires interface improvements, enhanced automation, better support, and lower maintenance costs to improve user experience.
It does not work as well for activities that require real-time input/output, but it works very well for batch, ETL, or similar cases.
Pricing is a major issue for some clients due to changes in Broadcom's pricing model, causing some to seek alternative solutions.
A feature that provides a dependency chart or tree diagram would be very helpful.
They could provide more documentation and tutorials to make the initial setup easier to understand.
There should be an automation system for developers to set it up more easily and quickly.
What they've done about scheduling, other people are still trying to figure out.
The maintenance charges have increased significantly, and a lower cost would be beneficial.
 

Setup Cost

Automic Automation's pricing flexibility is praised, yet Broadcom's licensing model and rising costs prompt consideration of alternatives.
Control-M's pricing is high, with complex licensing, but offers robust features that larger enterprises may find valuable.
IBM Workload Automation is costly but offers flexible pricing models with cloud advantages and justifies expense with reliability and features.
Broadcom decided to change the way of licensing by moving to the number of jobs runs and then they say that clients have to pay three million because they run one million jobs per day.
Due to the increased pricing, some of them are thinking of reducing tasks in Automic to have fewer executions.
The pricing has been increasing significantly over the years, raising operational costs instead of reducing them.
The licensing cost is very high, and they often consider switching to IBM Workload Scheduler or other options.
Pricing is generally affordable, though some features cost a bit more.
The best cell phone will always be more expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Automic Automation offers a user-friendly interface, cross-platform integration, robust scalability, and flexible workflow automation with real-time notifications.
Control-M offers robust orchestration, automation, and integration features, enhancing productivity and minimizing manual efforts across large-scale environments.
IBM Workload Automation excels with dynamic scheduling, multiplatform integration, user-friendly GUI, real-time updates, and effective monitoring.
A standout feature is the comprehensive versioning, allowing easy rollback to previous states.
Designing workflows is made easier by the graphical user interface, simplifying complex tasks.
It supports high availability by operating multiple servers concurrently, which means users do not experience outages or the need to log in again, even if some servers are updated.
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.
Control-M provides workflow orchestration, including scheduling, deploying, managing, and monitoring workflows.
One valuable feature of IBM Workload Automation is the ability to combine different applications and platforms to organize jobs together, creating dependencies.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of Automic Automation is 7.2%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Control-M is 21.4%, down from 26.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Workload Automation is 6.9%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Peter Grundler - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps to move away from manual tasks and offers wide platform support and web-based interface
Customers want to move away from manual monitoring and checking processes. Automating these processes helps in time-saving and reduces human error. When you automate business processes, it reduces mistakes. It eliminates the risk of manual errors such as typos. There is a 20% to 30% reduction in human error. It fulfills all the needs when it comes to visibility and control across various operating platforms. It is the perfect product for managing processes that span multiple operating platforms. Automic Automation has the widest platform support compared to other products, such as Control-M, Tivoli from IBM, or Stonebranch. It definitely helps with compliance processes. We have had a lot of customers for two years with a focus on compliance, and it works. They were successful. Due to the fact that our customers can automate a lot of things, it reduces operating costs. It is hard to give a number because the savings are different for each customer. If a customer never had any automation, there could be about 80% savings after implementing Automic Automation, whereas for a customer who already has automated tasks, the difference will be less by adding Automic Automation. They might see 5% to 10% more savings. Automic Automation helps improve our ability to meet SLAs. In the recent versions, SLA management has been integrated, which previously was an external component. Because a lot of customers used it and asked Broadcom to implement SLA management into the workload engine, Broadcom included it. We see more and more customers running their SLA management via the Automic Automation product.
Ujjwal Sachdeva - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient automation and boosted workflow but needs better integration methods
Control-M is a bit faster compared to other solutions. The job and coding are easier. Also, my DevOps and Ops teams work collaboratively with it, enhancing its efficiency. The workflow is much easier compared to the ACS services we were using. Automation is more advanced, deployment is fast, and version control has been simplified.
Ilhami Arikan - PeerSpot reviewer
With an easy setup phase in place, agent-based installation can be done in minutes
Sometimes we have issues with the solution's stability. So, stability can be improved. Reporting and visibility of the solution need improvement. These days, we need more visibility. We need to access the logs and databases easily. You need to keep track of the running number of logs, like which ones are executed, completed, etc. So if there would be a good reporting dashboard, then it would be good. There's room for improvement in the solution since it is a challenging thing when we want to use the solution's technology with our new technologies. For example, if we need to use TWS on our OpenShift platform, the solution's API is not capable enough. So the product itself needs to be aligned with new technologies.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
18%
Computer Software Company
12%
Insurance Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Automic Workload Automation?
It is easy to manage complex workloads and use electronic workflow automation.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Automic Workload Automation?
The pricing was client-wise, but they are changing it to execution-wise pricing. So, we are in negotiation.
What needs improvement with Automic Workload Automation?
The support and knowledge of incident management could be enhanced. There have been unresolved issues persisting for ...
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?
Its cost can be more competitive. One of the main things customers look at is the cost. It's not affordable. The cost...
What needs improvement with IBM Workload Automation?
IBM Workload Automation could be improved by reducing its cost. The maintenance charges have increased significantly,...
What is your primary use case for IBM Workload Automation?
We use IBM Workload Automation ( /products/ibm-workload-automation-reviews ) as a scheduler. We install agents on the...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Workload Automation?
I recommend IBM Workload Automation as it's a well-established and stable product. However, the cost is a concern. Th...
 

Also Known As

Automic Dollar Universe
Control M
IBM Tivoli Workload Scheduler, IBM TWS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ING, Adidas, 84.51, ESB
CARFAX, Tampa General Hospital, Navistar, Amadeus, Raymond James, Railinc
Standard Life Group, Banca Popolare di Milano, A*STAR, ArcelorMittal Gent
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC, Broadcom, Redwood Software and others in Workload Automation. Updated: June 2025.
859,533 professionals have used our research since 2012.