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BMC AMI DevX vs IDERA ER/Studio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 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
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 (7th), Mainframe Testing Tools (1st), Data Masking (8th)
IDERA ER/Studio
Ranking in Database Development and Management
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Database Development and Management category, the mindshare of BMC AMI DevX is 1.3%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IDERA ER/Studio is 2.7%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Development and Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IDERA ER/Studio2.7%
BMC AMI DevX1.3%
Other96.0%
Database Development and Management
 

Featured Reviews

Brian Westerman - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Aaron Cutshall - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for data modeling and has a scripting language to write your own scripts
The solution has streamlined our data modeling processes quite a bit. It's a central focus in our data modeling and data cataloging efforts. The tool's reverse engineering capability to bring in existing database structures and create models from them has benefitted our data architecture needs. With the tool's data dictionary capability, we're able to maintain consistency in our models, name use, and actual data domains. The solution's reverse engineering helps with understanding legacy databases. In fact, I've been asked to reverse-engineer several more legacy databases so that we can have them modeled and cataloged. The solution is deployed on the cloud server, but it’s only within our network. The solution has a lot of capabilities. I like the fact that it has a scripting language that allows you to automate and write your own scripts. I think that's been a big bonus for us. I highly recommend the solution because of its capability for logical models, where you can put your business definitions and logic. While less expensive, some other tools can't do that. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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's a modernized development portal and helps reduce the learning curve for younger people coming in to work on the platform,"
"The most valuable feature of Topaz is Xpediter. It's more flexible than Xpediter through MVS."
"From a user perspective, the GUIs make it easier for people to see and interact with files on the mainframe."
"The visual ability to see potential downstream impacts to changes being made assists our developers in understanding the impact associated with their change."
"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."
"It helps our staff work by speeding up their documentation process."
"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."
"The tool is simple to use."
"It's easy to model and has a user-friendly interface. I like the team portal because, once we upload, the entire team can see the model."
"We use the solution to create data models which describe our company's data architecture"
"The data modeling and reverse engineering features are most important to us."
"We have been able to quickly create models for our enterprise-wide databases, even when some of them are third-party databases."
"ER/Studio is excellent for large teams; it scales well to teams of over one hundred plus people."
"The most valuable features are... those that enable me to represent the database to the development community and the business users."
"It was a very good tool at the time since it was complete."
 

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."
"It's not as intuitive as it should be. In terms of navigation, there is a large training curve for using it. For a millennial it might be better, if they're used to Eclipse. But coming from a non-Eclipse environment and using Eclipse, though I have experience with Eclipse, it might be cumbersome."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Technical support has gotten better over the years, though there's always room for improvement."
"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."
"One area for improvement with this product could be in providing clearer guidance and tools for disaster recovery planning and execution."
"The solution is not so strong at creating modeling views and database views."
"We would always like to see Repository performance improve, checking in and checking out."
"What needs the most improvement are semantic lineage and usability."
"One limitation I have found in ER/Studio is that when you want to make some changes to the table definitions, you have to go item by item. You cannot do it globally. Another issue concerns defining the foreign keys between the different tables. It is a little more tedious in the ER/Studio than in ERrwin. With ERwin it is direct."
"I'd like the ability to debug the errors ourselves instead of having to call them. There are certain types of errors that, I wouldn't say they come up regularly, but when you have an error it is very often the same type of error. Knowing that it's a Type III or Type I, it would be nice to have some kind of debugging facility for us to use to find out where the problem that threw that error occurs. That would be a really cool feature."
"The visual presentation is a little too colorful and seems that it is dumbed down."
"when there are some links to the external databases, if this database is not structured it is not uploaded. It gives me errors and I cannot see the view that was created on this structure and I cannot change those views, even manually. It skips the views. I have to ignore those views. I cannot re-upload them because it gives me an error."
"Sometimes our version is a little unstable. But I think this problem occurs because our version is old."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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 setup cost may have been around $1500 to $2000."
"The process of licensing could be much simpler, from our experience."
"As an individual user, the renewal is a little costly."
"At my previous company using ER/Studio, a database compare took four hours before using the product and 15 minutes after using the product."
"I use the product's trial version."
"The product is pricey."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is bad and ten is good, I would rate the licensing cost as a seven or eight. It's not too expensive for us."
"Pricing is on point, but do your due diligence - not every developer needs the tool."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
36%
Insurance Company
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Energy/Utilities Company
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
 

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 Enterprise11
Large Enterprise25
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IDERA ER Studio?
In terms of pricing, ER/Studio is slightly more expensive compared to Erwin, by about five to ten percent.
What is your primary use case for IDERA ER Studio?
I have been working with data modeling tools. Personally, I have been working with Erwin for many years now. ER/Studio is something I am currently trying to evaluate for acquiring it for our organi...
What advice do you have for others considering IDERA ER Studio?
I would strongly recommend ER/Studio for large teams. Erwin is a very stable product, but for smaller teams, it's okay. If I had to rate ER/Studio, I would give it nine out of ten because the absen...
 

Also Known As

File-AID, Data for Db2, Code Debug, Data Studio, Workbench for Eclipse, Code Pipeline
IDERA ER Studio, ER/Studio, ER/Studio Enterprise Team Edition
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Helvetia, The IMT Group, Hapag-Lloyd, Royal Bank of Canada, Chunghwa Telecom
Newmont Mining, Entrust, Accolade, TalkTalk, Catalina, Protective Life, NTT Data, dir systèmes, Microsoft; American Express, Astellas Pharma, AstraZeneca, Coriant, Fedex, GlaxoSmithKline, PepsiCo, Prudential, Wells Fargo
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC AMI DevX vs. IDERA ER/Studio and other solutions. Updated: October 2025.
872,922 professionals have used our research since 2012.