No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

BMC AMI DevX vs DbVisualizer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 15, 2026

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
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Software Configuration Management (1st), Debugging (9th), Mainframe Application Development (1st), Test Data Management (6th), Mainframe Testing Tools (1st), Data Masking (6th), AI Software Development (200th)
DbVisualizer
Ranking in Database Development and Management
17th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Database Management Systems (DBMS) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 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 DbVisualizer 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 Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
DbVisualizer1.5%
BMC AMI DevX2.1%
Other96.4%
Database Development and Management
 

Featured Reviews

PM
Developer at Selfemployed
Good for large amounts of data and has a variety of use cases but can be complex to use
It's a very complicated tool. Sometimes the customer wants better, faster transaction times. They want the solution to move as fast as possible. We're trying to scale and grow our application with more servers to get the level of speed desired. Everything from small processes to big batch processing needs to be faster.
JD
CTO/Managing Member at Pantheon Tech
Consolidates tools and streamlines cross-platform database work
There is not a lot that I have to complain about with DbVisualizer. Over the years, as I have mentioned, they have continued to enhance the interface and the databases that are supported, but I do not think there is a lot of room for improvement. Most improvements will come from changes in the marketplace, such as new database features that need to be interacted with or perhaps more support for new data types and databases that are going to be supporting AI. Some of that, as we have seen thus far, is not necessarily the game changer that we would have thought. Integrating a co-pilot for SQL queries would be an interesting feature in the future.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the features that the developers like is that they can retrieve what they need with the tool. They don't have to go through some process or request something be done by another team. They can get the programs they need, compile them, retrieve the JCL and alter the JCL if they need to, and put these programs wherever they need to go for their testing."
"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 beneficial in application development."
"From a user perspective, the GUIs make it easier for people to see and interact with files on the mainframe."
"Topaz workbench is one of the most integrated into Eclipse that I've seen from the mainframe vendors."
"My guess is this would have taken twice as long, or we would have had many more issues without using Xpediter."
"The visual ability to see potential downstream impacts to changes being made assists our developers in understanding the impact associated with their change."
"The smart editor helps because it will code-complete for me. I can see code working a lot faster and I'm able to get things coded in less time."
"Compuware Xpediter is one of the best debugging tools for mainframe software development."
"Actions like exporting grids to Excel or other tools is a very easy task."
"DbVisualizer is invaluable to me because it allows me to work from enterprise database systems like Oracle to more emerging database providers like CockroachDB, and can scale to anything up or down from SQLite or standard PostgreSQL."
"Timed queries that add their result to the result grid for every execution are helpful."
"For over 10 years I have been a frequent DbVisualizer user, it is very comfortable and has some features not found in any other SQL tool."
"Timed SQL execution and real-time graphs are the killer features."
 

Cons

"I'm waiting to see what 19.2 for Topaz looks like, but I have a problem with the JES Explorer right now. It limits you to a certain prefix for job names and there are some groups that have multiple prefixes that they'd like to see all at once in their job names, because of how they work in a group. And they can't see that in the JES Explorer."
"The area for improvement is related to the testing tools that are available for unit testing or acceptance testing."
"Topaz Workbench often doesn't play well with other plugins in the environment."
"There are some features that are not well documented, so documentation could use a little help, on things like setting up deployment and which structures in the database correspond to which tables."
"DB2 is a hard tool to grasp. It's hard for users to learn how to use it."
"Technical support has gotten better over the years, though there's always room for improvement."
"DB2 is a hard tool to grasp. It's hard for users to learn how to use it. It's not easy to see how it works."
"It often doesn't play well with other plugins in the environment."
"One thing I would like to see changed is having the JDBC drivers in a fixed location outside of the application package."
"One thing I would like to see changed is having the JDBC drivers in a fixed location outside of the application package."
"Sometimes, I feel that the startup time takes a bit more time than needed."
"Sometimes, I feel that the startup time takes a bit more time than needed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In general, Compuware tools are very competitive."
"The price point is great."
"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."
"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."
"I like the seat-based licensing much more than MSU-based licensing, and that the cost has been competitive."
"It has saved our developers time and effort when working on documentation, which is now more readable and fluent."
"The pricing for DbVisualizer is fair."
"A license with a few years of support is a good and valuable option."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Database Development and Management solutions are best for your needs.
885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise16
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BMC Data Management for IMS and DB2 on zOS?
BMC Data Management improved our data recovery process by simplifying it.
What needs improvement with BMC Data Management for IMS and DB2 on zOS?
One area for improvement with this product could be in providing clearer guidance and tools for disaster recovery planning and execution. As someone involved in managing infrastructure, understandi...
What advice do you have for others considering BMC Data Management for IMS and DB2 on zOS?
From my perspective as an infrastructure guy, the most valuable aspect of BMC's data management solutions was their ability to optimize CPU cycles, improving IMS performance without directly impact...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DbVisualizer?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is straightforward. It is a subscription model with lower costs in the out years from initial purchase.
What needs improvement with DbVisualizer?
There is not a lot that I have to complain about with DbVisualizer. Over the years, as I have mentioned, they have continued to enhance the interface and the databases that are supported, but I do ...
What is your primary use case for DbVisualizer?
My main use case for DbVisualizer is data analysis, but also increasingly performance monitoring and tuning of databases due to the broad support for multi vendors in the tool. A specific example o...
 

Also Known As

File-AID, Data for Db2, Code Debug, Data Studio, Workbench for Eclipse, Code Pipeline
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Helvetia, The IMT Group, Hapag-Lloyd, Royal Bank of Canada, Chunghwa Telecom
Tesla, Google, Facebook, Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank, Apple, BMO, Deutsche Bank, Netflix, Disney
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC AMI DevX vs. DbVisualizer and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.