BMC AMI DevX vs DbVisualizer comparison

BMC and DbVis Software are both solutions in the Database Development and Management category. BMC is ranked #20 with an average rating of 7.7, while DbVis Software is ranked #24. BMC holds a 1.3% mindshare in DDM, compared to DbVis Software’s 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of BMC users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of DbVis Software users who would recommend it.

BMC AMI DevX

Read 19 BMC AMI DevX reviews

4,088 Views
164 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

DbVisualizer

Read 2 DbVisualizer reviews

248 Views
248 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

BMC AMI DevX

DbVisualizer

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2025

BMC AMI DevX and DbVisualizer compete in database management. Data suggests DbVisualizer has the upper hand due to its broader feature set, despite its higher price, while BMC AMI DevX is favored for cost-effectiveness and support.

Features: BMC AMI DevX focuses on mainframe application development with customization capabilities, flexibility, and easy integration with existing systems. DbVisualizer is noted for cross-platform compatibility, a wide range of database support, and advanced features suited for diverse environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: BMC AMI DevX integrates seamlessly into mainframes with reliable support. DbVisualizer offers a simple installation process and comprehensive support, allowing rapid issue resolution.

Pricing and ROI: BMC AMI DevX is competitively priced, providing strong ROI for cost-conscious organizations. DbVisualizer justifies its higher price with comprehensive features and long-term value, enhancing ROI through its capabilities and multi-database support.

To learn more, read our detailed Database Development and Management Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Database Development and Management

September 2025

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Helped 867,676 peers since 2012

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

20th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Configuration Management (1st), Debugging (8th), Mainframe Application Development (1st), Test Data Management (7th), Mainframe Testing Tools (1st), Data Masking (8th)

DbVisualizer

Ranking in Database Development and Management

24th

Average Rating

9.6

Reviews Sentiment

8.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Database Development and Management category, the mindshare of BMC AMI DevX is 1.3%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DbVisualizer is 1.3%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Database Development and Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
BMC AMI DevX	1.3%
DbVisualizer	1.3%
Other	97.4%

Database Development and Management

Featured Reviews

Brian Westerman

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.

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Ronald Rood

Principal Technical Consultant at CIBER

Good for monitoring specific processes, built-in SSH tunneling support, easy-to-create graphs, and a clean GUI

The most valuable feature is the timed SQL execution that collects the outputs from each run in the grid. This supports ad-hoc monitoring, be it technical or application-level monitoring, and it can be done if there is an SQL for it. I like that graphs can be created by using the grid as input. This helps by giving a quick insight and can readily answer questions such as whether we are going quicker or slower. It makes it easier to see using the slope of a graph compared to a series of just numbers. There are a lot of choices in graph types. This product has built-in SSH tunneling support. The multi-platform and multi-vendor support are helpful as we run on Macs, Linux, and Windows machines. We support many different databases and applications. The extensibility is very good. There are things we regularly do that can be built into the tool using local profiles. For ad-hoc monitoring, you can define bookmarks. If they are there, they collect their data for each execution in the grid. Bookmarks are very helpful, as they act as a memory of all collected and saved queries. Actions like exporting grids to Excel or other tools is a very easy task. You can copy/paste with or without headers, and it is quick and easy. The developers understand that not every feature has to be available at all times and they use context-sensitive menus everywhere, giving a clean GUI, instead of a button or menu entry for every feature that really clutters the interface.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"Test data management capabilities are good."

"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."

"The most valuable feature of Topaz is Xpediter. It's more flexible than Xpediter through MVS."

"I have worked with DB2's great features in the last five years. The IDAA feature transformed the vision of warehousing, business analytics, and big data at my bank. Besides the mainframe, I saw that this solution was evolutionary. It gives real-time information."

"The visual ability to see potential downstream impacts to changes being made assists our developers in understanding the impact associated with their change."

"I like the ability that it has to format copy books in a presentable manner. So, you will be able to see the starting offset in length of each field within the layout."

"I think the most valuable features are code management, code deployment, and code generation. The fact that those three features are included makes BMC Compuware ISPW a robust product. If one of those features was missing, it would be less robust and less interesting. But because it has those three features, it is a very good solution for code development and management."

More BMC AMI DevX pros

"Timed queries that add their result to the result grid for every execution are helpful."

"Actions like exporting grids to Excel or other tools is a very easy task."

Cons

"It would be good if the vendors would work together or at least have some collaboration between them, so they would know what would work and what wouldn't work. Right now, the way things are working, they're relying on the customer to make everything work."

"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."

"I'm always looking for improvement in things like the documentation, to make things a little bit easier and simpler to understand, a place where people can go to troubleshoot issues."

"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."

"It often doesn't play well with other plugins in the environment."

"It would be nice to have an audit trail to see what mainframe developers are using what."

"The area for improvement is related to the testing tools that are available for unit testing or acceptance testing. I know they have some out there that we are not licensed for at this time, but it seems like some of the Eclipse tools that are used for other programming languages, they're all just built-in and they're a little more intuitive to the developers. Making those testing tools as intuitive as possible, and as integrated as possible into the workbench, would be really beneficial."

"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."

More BMC AMI DevX cons

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price point is great."

"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 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."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

37%

Insurance Company

12%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Large Enterprise	16

No data available

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 ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Compuware File-AID?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Compuware File-AID?

We use the solution clone test files.

See all answers

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Comparisons

Endevor vs BMC AMI DevX

Compared 33% of the time

IBM File Manager vs BMC AMI DevX

Compared 16% of the time

IBM Debug for z/OS vs BMC AMI DevX

Compared 10% of the time

InterTest vs BMC AMI DevX

Compared 10% of the time

IBM Developer for z/OS Enterprise Edition (IDzEE) vs BMC AMI DevX

Compared 6% of the time

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Toad for Oracle vs DbVisualizer

Compared 100% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Test Data Management

August 2025

Download BMC AMI DevX product report

Buyer's Guide

Database Development and Management

September 2025

Download DbVisualizer product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

Overview

BMC AMI DevX is a comprehensive solution enhancing code management and testing efficiency. It offers debugging capabilities within financial applications and integrates data management seamlessly, serving major banking sectors with reliable performance.

AMI DevX is tailored for banking industries, optimizing application debugging in COBOL and enhancing data handling in robust financial systems. It simplifies mainframe data management with real-time insights, improving efficiency through editing and cloning functionalities. The tool's integration with Compuware File-AID for IMS and DB2 ensures streamlined development processes. Challenges include a steep DB2 learning curve and initial setup complexities, with technical support inconsistencies and steep pricing impacting affordability. Despite this, its valuable features significantly support large banking operations.

What features make BMC AMI DevX valuable?

Line-by-Line Code Debugging: Allows precise identification and rectification of issues.
Variable Change & Line Skipping: Flexibility in testing without recompiling.
Database-Independent Testing: No need for loading databases during testing.
Real-Time Data Insights: Enhances decision-making with immediate information.
Data Warehousing & Analytics: Facilitates comprehensive data analysis.
Integration & Formatting: Streamlines development by simplifying data processes.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Improved Efficiency: Streamline data management and editing capabilities.
Robust Debugging: Effective in both online and batch COBOL program debugging.
Enhanced Financial Application Support: Superior handling in grants and loans applications.
Comprehensive Testing: Enables creation of clone test files for thorough testing.

In large banking sectors, BMC AMI DevX is integral for grants and loans-related applications. Its robust nature supports financial systems, offering debugging for COBOL, updating data in Compuware File-AID for IMS, and integrating DB2. Users implement this for exceptional data management and application reliability.

BMC

One tool for all databases and OSes
DbVisualizer is the ultimate database tool for developers, analysts and DBAs. It runs on all major OSes and connects to all major databases.

DbVis Software

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

Buyer's Guide

Database Development and Management

September 2025

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