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BMC AMI DevX vs IBM App Connect 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

BMC AMI DevX
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Software Configuration Management (1st), Debugging (9th), Database Development and Management (19th), Mainframe Application Development (1st), Test Data Management (6th), Mainframe Testing Tools (1st), Data Masking (6th), AI Software Development (200th)
IBM App Connect
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Integration (12th)
 

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.
Emirhan Guven - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Leader, Software Development at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees
Transforms data efficiently and navigates licensing challenges with ease
The transition between version 12 and version 13 presents some challenges. While version 12 had approximately 10 features, version 13 includes around 200 features with cloud platform compatibility. The learning curve for developers moving from version 12 to 13 could be smoother. When using new components, better context explanations would be beneficial. In version 13, accessing new features requires connecting through a web browser, which can be challenging to understand. The explanation of new features could be more user-friendly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The debugging is really the most important feature, enabling us to be able to step through."
"From a user perspective, the GUIs make it easier for people to see and interact with files on the mainframe."
"We had parallel development before, but the way ISPW implements it is better. It has more control and oversight of the process, whereas before, it was like the Wild West. Everybody could have their own package with their own version of the component in it... ISPW is constantly aware of it. It notifies when someone else is using or has a different version of that component."
"We have seen an improvement in the rate and level of quality at which we deploy changes."
"It speeds up processes, makes things easier, more efficient, and from a mainframe perspective, the way the mainframe is utilized has become that much easier."
"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."
"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."
"The plugin ISPW integrated into Eclipse is a really valuable functionality for developers who already use it."
"This solution is used as the integration hub between the internal application of any enterprise."
"They give excellent technical support."
"We always have ROI when we use IBM products."
"It has an efficient design flow."
"The most valuable feature is the security."
"This latest version is very scalable, flexible and user-friendly."
"The solution is a good product in the integration space and a leader in the market."
"Because it has a graphical developer interface, we can quickly develop solutions that are connecting to anything on the cloud, without having to build those connectors ourselves."
 

Cons

"Their technical support could be better."
"DB2 is a hard tool to grasp. It's hard for users to learn how to use it."
"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."
"The ISPW plugin could be improved to add some functionality which is already in ISPF panels and not in the plugin."
"The ability to incorporate or convert REXX into macros that are usable under the Topaz software is not there, and the REXX macros that I have developed over 40 years of work are useless, so I have a toolbox I can't use or deploy using the Topaz technology, while I can use it under MVS."
"It often doesn't play well with other plugins in the environment."
"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."
"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."
"IBM App Connect should improve security features."
"The licensing cost for IBM App Connect is very high."
"Finding developers for the product is difficult since it is a niche solution. I know the OpenShift environment is running well for the microservice environment. We had some issues with the other environment we tried to implement. It can be easily implemented internally, but we have some problems in practice."
"IBM App Connect occasionally crashes for various reasons, requiring problem-solving intervention."
"I've been using IBM App Connect for about twenty-five years, and while I like it, there are some areas for improvement. The trace policy is ridiculous, and the biggest issue is the cost—it's expensive. People would use it much more if the price point weren't so high."
"The user interface of IBM App Connect can be a little bit more user-friendly, I would say because the first-time developer is onboarded while using IBM App Connect, he or she may get a little intimidated or daunted looking at all the options available or the pipelines, et cetera."
"It is not easy to deploy. It requires someone with a high level of knowledge in the solution to deploy it, not just anyone can do it."
"Critical issues are resolved quickly by technical support, but there is a delay in response to items related to the product, deployment, or low production environments."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"In general, Compuware tools are very 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."
"The price point is great."
"It has saved our developers time and effort when working on documentation, which is now more readable and fluent."
"The solution's pricing isn't cheap, but you can get good discounts based on your competitive deal."
"The price could be better."
"The licensing cost for IBM App Connect is very high."
"IBM App Connect's pricing is high compared to other products."
"App Connect is not cheap."
"The cost depends upon the consumer."
"Initially, App Connect was quite expensive because the cost was based on the number of processors we used. However, it's now based on containers, which means we can be more specific about our consumption and get a better price."
"It is very expensive if we want to scale."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
9%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise21
 

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 do you like most about IBM App Connect?
I like the adapters. The adapters help us achieve scalability. If you want to connect to SAP, there's an adapter. Salesforce? There's an adapter. You want to connect to another system? There's like...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM App Connect?
Configuration time varies by implementation. For insurance companies with simple JDBC connections, the process is straightforward. However, companies requiring multiple configurations for ODBC, JDB...
What is your primary use case for IBM App Connect?
IBM App Connect serves as our integration platform, allowing us to connect application systems and data without heavy load or heavy coding. In my current organization, we use the AWS cloud, and IBM...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Helvetia, The IMT Group, Hapag-Lloyd, Royal Bank of Canada, Chunghwa Telecom
United Way of Allegheny County, Saint-Gobain CPS, Ricoh, SunTrust Banks Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC AMI DevX vs. IBM App Connect and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,376 professionals have used our research since 2012.