Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

BMC AMI DevX vs CA Datacom comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 14, 2025

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

BMC AMI DevX
Ranking in Database Development and Management
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Software Configuration Management (1st), Debugging (6th), Mainframe Application Development (1st), Test Data Management (6th), Mainframe Testing Tools (1st), Data Masking (7th)
CA Datacom
Ranking in Database Development and Management
24th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.6
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Database Development and Management category, the mindshare of BMC AMI DevX is 2.1%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CA Datacom is 1.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Development and Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
BMC AMI DevX2.1%
CA Datacom1.5%
Other96.4%
Database Development and Management
 

Featured Reviews

Brian Westerman - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of R&D at Syzygy Inc.
Helps to make mainframe data management process easier and saves manhours
We plan to replace BMC Compuware File-AID due to its price. Two years back, we paid 11,000 dollars. However, the current price is 27,900 dollars. The price has increased to at least eight times its initial cost. We would need to pay around 60,000 dollars to have all three products together. We also encountered issues during version updates.
it_user489183 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Admin at a logistics company with 10,001+ employees
Scalability and the online maintainability of definitions are definite advantages for us
We've had it for so long, so it's status quo. But we've added all sorts of functionality to our applications and there are no issues with databases. Anything developers request, we're able to accomplish. Also, we deal a lot with government regulation - and not to talk about what the company does - but anything that they require of us, because we transmit data back and forth with them, we're able to do that with no problems. And there have been a lot of changes over the past five years that our government dictated regarding what we actually end up doing. So, we're able to be extremely flexible with that.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Test data management capabilities are good."
"From a user perspective, the GUIs make it easier for people to see and interact with files on the mainframe."
"It's a modernized development portal and helps reduce the learning curve for younger people coming in to work on the platform,"
"It does our CICS NEWCOPYs and our Db2 binds for us, whereas before, that was a manual process. It takes a lot of the workload off of the operations folks and off the DBAs."
"It helps our staff work by speeding up their documentation process."
"Once we got the configurations and deployment rolled out, it was very stable. I haven't had any major issues with Eclipse or the Topaz Workbench plugins."
"We can develop in parallel today on ISPF, but it's giving us the advantage of the newer interface into the mainframe programming languages that younger programmers can use and are familiar with, rather than using the ISPF green screen."
"I like the ability to flow through the source and see what happens to the data as the statements are executed. If there is a fault, it will track the event, and we can then look back to see why it may have caused the fault. You can also reverse engineer your test. You can set it so that you can go backward as well as forward in your test. This is something that I haven't done here at my company. Compuware Xpediter is one of the best debugging tools for mainframe software development. We have currently licensed only the COBOL language for Xpediter, but I know they have other languages, including Assembler, PL/I."
"Scalability is definitely one thing. The size of the database can grow without any issues. We've got one database table that's got over a billion rows in it; quite a bit of data, and it handles access like a champ."
"Nowadays, CA is doing a lot of improving as far as online maintainability of definitions, which is a huge improvement over the past. I'm able to do a lot of changes without any outage."
"It definitely ​cuts down on our support costs. I do not get woken up in the middle of the night very often for a problem with Datacom."
"It is a solid product."
"The initial setup is fairly straightforward for a mainframe product."
 

Cons

"The solution could be improved by being better integrated with the open world. In the next release, I would like to have the ability to work in an open environment whilst remaining integrated with the legacy environment."
"It's a very complicated tool."
"When you're setting up the parameters for how ISPW will work in your shop, there are a lot of questions that have to be answered... BMC Compuware should have more in-depth explanations about what the choices in each question mean. If you pick A, what does that mean has to happen? What does that impact? If you pick B, what does that mean? What does that impact?"
"Technical support has gotten better over the years, though there's always room for improvement."
"One thing I would really like to see some improvement on is the promotion diagnostic messages. It invokes utilities "under the covers" to copy components, and it does not echo back any of the error messages from those utilities."
"One area for improvement with this product could be in providing clearer guidance and tools for disaster recovery planning and execution."
"Their technical support could be better. There were times where, when we reported bugs, they would fix one bug but add another one. That's probably because of their support model. A lot of organizations are developing software using Agile rather than the Waterfall method, so things are happening all over the place. You get things quicker, but sometimes one fix will break another one or add other bugs."
"It often doesn't play well with other plugins in the environment."
"The only minor issue that we have had with Datacom is in the installation guide: Some of the sizings for the databases have not really worked out for us, so we had to go in and resize them."
"For the "no-outage maintainability" of things, they are making improvements as we speak, but there is definitely still room for more of that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In general, Compuware tools are very competitive."
"I like the seat-based licensing much more than MSU-based licensing, and that the cost has been competitive."
"The price point is great."
"In terms of pricing, there isn't an extra charge for the parts of it we use. It comes with the licenses we purchased for other products, so no complaints there. The licensing is built in with the other products that you purchase from Compuware."
"It has saved our developers time and effort when working on documentation, which is now more readable and fluent."
"The only thing I would mention related to the licensing and/or the pricing, is that they have some visualization features in there that are licensed by concurrent users. We're starting to trip up on that. We're looking to probably increase the number of concurrent licenses that we have. But those types of licensing strategies, where they license by concurrent users or the number of seats is confusing for some people. They don't understand why it works sometimes and doesn't work other times."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Database Development and Management solutions are best for your needs.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
34%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Compuware File-AID?
The product has made our mainframe data management process easier. It has helped us save manhours. The tool's most valuable feature is the ability to edit tape files. Its ability to clone files is ...
What needs improvement with Compuware File-AID?
We plan to replace BMC Compuware File-AID due to its price. Two years back, we paid 11,000 dollars. However, the current price is 27,900 dollars. The price has increased to at least eight times its...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

File-AID, Data for Db2, Code Debug, Data Studio, Workbench for Eclipse, Code Pipeline
DATACOM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Helvetia, The IMT Group, Hapag-Lloyd, Royal Bank of Canada, Chunghwa Telecom
Blue Hill Data Services Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC AMI DevX vs. CA Datacom and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.