BMC AMI Ops vs VisualCron comparison

BMC and SMA Technologies are both solutions in the Workload Automation category. BMC is ranked #30, while SMA Technologies is ranked #17 with an average rating of 9.0. BMC holds a 1.0% mindshare in WA, compared to SMA Technologies’s 1.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of BMC users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of SMA Technologies users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 14, 2025

BMC AMI Ops and VisualCron compete in IT Operations Management and automation. VisualCron has the upper hand due to its flexibility and user-friendliness, while BMC AMI Ops is strong in system monitoring.

Features: BMC AMI Ops provides advanced monitoring, automated system management for mainframes, and diagnostic tools. VisualCron offers seamless integration, task creation features, and cross-platform capabilities, making it suitable for various automation tasks.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VisualCron is easy to deploy with straightforward setup and strong customer support. BMC AMI Ops requires intricate setup due to its complex focus but provides comprehensive customer assistance.

Pricing and ROI: BMC AMI Ops needs a significant initial investment but is valuable for detailed system monitoring. VisualCron has an accessible pricing model and ensures high ROI by reducing operational costs through effective automation and integration.

To learn more, read our detailed BMC AMI Ops vs. VisualCron Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

BMC AMI Ops vs. VisualCron

January 2026

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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

JAMS

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of JAMS is 2.6%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BMC AMI Ops is 1.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VisualCron is 1.4%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
JAMS	2.6%
VisualCron	1.4%
BMC AMI Ops	1.0%
Other	95.0%

Workload Automation

Featured Reviews

reviewer2770605

Cloud Engineer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees

Has streamlined complex job scheduling across scripting languages while reducing manual effort

JAMS could be improved with a web client that is accessible and as fast as a normal website, eliminating the need to RDP to the servers to access the JAMS client. A functionality running on the JAMS server to continuously check the JAMS agents would ensure they are working properly. If an agent is not responding, a feature to restart the service from the job server machine would be beneficial. The upgrade process, particularly when switching from V6 to V7, could be clearer in terms of documentation, ideally with screenshots showing exactly what needs to be done on each screen.

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reviewer1012668

Works

The service level and automated capacity manager functions allow us to control priorities, support SLA's and manage our 4HRA and reduce MLC for some software bills.

There currently is a WUI that allows an operator a single pane of glass to see how TM is performing to meet service policies within a JESMAS environment. This is a new feature and multiple individuals have expressed desire to not only see real time monitoring, but the ability to historically go back at least several hours or possibly an entire day to review history.

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Sourav-Dutta

Technical Lead - Database Administrator at SMART ENERGY SYSTEMS LLC

It's user-friendly, and I didn't need long to understand the process

We use VisualCron for all our automation needs, like connecting to FileZilla, calling APIs, generating PGP keys, creating encryption files with the PGP key login to Azure, etc. It can automatically log in to SQL Server and execute SQL script jobs in bulk. We had 2,000-3,000 users at my previous…

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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

"It's a full-featured job scheduling tool. The part that I liked the best was the support team. This tool was new, and we were all learning it and setting up the different jobs that were complex in nature. Their support team was very responsive in helping us out through the setup and resolving the issues. They have been incredibly awesome."

"Our company is based on data. Everything we do is data-driven, so it has been very valuable having one place where we can process all of the data and do batch schedules with chunks of data."

"The feature or capability to import a job is most valuable. We can import an existing job from different platforms, and all the configurations get migrated as well without modifying the code, job schedule, etc."

"The code-driven automation for more complex scheduling requirements frees up time because it's really easy to use... It's almost like a stand-alone software that we can't live without."

"The most valuable feature of JAMS is its user-friendly interface, especially after upgrading from version six to seven."

"While I appreciate the other features, the agent stands out for its ease of installation and configuration for JAMS monitoring."

"The alerting in it is really targeted... you can set specific alerting so that if jobs in a given folder fail, certain people are alerted. You can also set security at the folder level, so that only people in those areas can go set them. That means that the alerting and security can be set at a very granular level."

"The built-in triggers are great."

More JAMS pros

"The integration of IMS commands is very useful, because you do not have to switch to another tool to problem solve solutions."

"Enabled me to solve production problems faster or even avoid them preemptively with warnings."

"VisualCron is a very powerful program to automate different steps in your business processes. We use it to automate replacing files and inform departments about the replacement."

"It has improved our organization with more automation within the business departments and less administration and development in the IT department. Usually, as the IT department, we are the bottleneck for many requirements within the business. With this tool, the business departments are able to perform many task themselves."

"What I found most beneficial from VisualCron is that you can directly connect it with different databases, user accounts, and credentials. You can run queries from one machine to another using the credentials, unlike PowerShell, that's run by the machine itself. With VisualCron, you can directly ask other machines and run requests through user credentials. Suppose you have an AWS or Azure environment. In that case, you can maintain the connection between on-premises and cloud-based machines, which is the type of setup in the organization I'm working for. You can directly call some of the services via VisualCron on your local on-premises machine, and I found that an excellent feature of the tool."

"'ve only had a few cases where I've had to request support in the past 12 years of use, but the support response time and resolution were was extremely quick."

"We don't have to do any coding. We just plug and play and it works."

"I love VisualCron because we previously spent a lot of time writing Power switches to connect to SQL Server. VisualCron makes it easier to execute services or connect to FileZilla by only adding the credentials to the master credentials stored in the solution."

"The most valuable feature of VisualCron is its ability to schedule interactive jobs so that you can have interdependencies within the job and interdependencies of a job on another job, and so on."

"What I like about VisualCron is that like its name, it's a very visual tool. In my previous company, there were a lot of scripts for all kinds of services, and through VisualCron, you get to group all flows and get a nice visual overview. VisualCron also has an alerting feature, so you receive alerts from it. VisualCron makes everything clearer and easier to maintain. Every other solution that I was looking for almost always needed a programmer, but with VisualCron, you can do what you need to do without programming skills, so this is another valuable feature of the tool."

More VisualCron pros

Cons

"We have had a lot of people working from home who can't always connect to the JAMS server. We use VPN, as most companies do, and we have it set up so that everybody can access the JAMS server. But many times, our people cannot access it... JAMS could do a better job of telling you what the problem is when you try to log in to the server."

"One thing that I know that the JAMS people said that they were working on that would be huge for us is a search capability so that you could search for tasks. It may be available in version 7 or in a future release of 7. I think that's on their roadmap. But right now, for us to do a search, we have to search through database queries."

"The JAMS automation code isn't so clean."

"The client is horrible. Every time JAMS puts out a survey on what they can improve, I always say, "The client: When you are setting up jobs, it is quite horrible." The response has been, "Well, we are just using the Windows foundation," and I am like, "Why isn't it only your product?" We can get around it now that we know its quirks, but it is not the most user-friendly of tools out there. The UI is completely unintuitive. We had to go and open up a support ticket with JAMS just to get something back. It is not user-friendly at all."

"The documentation is not super... It's not as quick and slick as I'd like it to be."

"JAMS handles exceptions fairly well but there are some areas where it might improve a little bit. It has to do with being able to automatically handle exceptions, out-of-the-box, rather than having to code them."

"All my machines at work are Macs. JAMS client is a Windows-based thing. It is all built on .NET, which makes perfect sense. However, that means in order for me to access it, I need to connect to a VPN, then log onto one of our Azure VMs in order to access the JAMS client. This is fine, but if for some reason I am unable to do so, it would be nice to be able to have a web-based JAMS client that has all the exact same functionality in it. There are probably a whole bunch of disadvantages that you would get with that as well, but that is definitely something that would make life easier in a few cases."

"The error messages from JAMS often need clarification, hindering our ability to resolve issues swiftly."

More JAMS cons

"An expansion for distributed systems would be great, but probably not workable."

"More visualisation and support for mobile devices would be good."

"VisualCron is software, and you will experience performance degradation when you scale up. VisualCron takes too much memory or CPU power. We have to increase the hardware resources of a specific server or system."

"The error timeout and info could be better. When making web request calls, it will time out sometimes and we won't get any useful info out of the error response."

"I would like for VisualCron to expand audit log to show who changed job variables that are initialized per job run."

"I want to improve the UI in VisualCron, as it's not as user-friendly, particularly when setting up the task scheduler. If you're familiar with the tool, then no problem, but if not, you'll have a problem typing text because sometimes, the cursor points to other places, so there's an issue with text box alignment in VisualCron. That was painful for me when I was just a VisualCron novice, but when you become used to it, there won't be a problem."

"The only problem I face when I use the tool is that it doesn't contain much documentation or it doesn't have many video tutorials on its features."

"VisualCron's command console is a little bit difficult to understand and needs to improve."

"An area for improvement in VisualCron is its cluttered interface. It isn't always easy to find all functionalities, so what VisualCron needs is a user interface expert who can improve the interface. There's a learning curve in terms of finding what you need from the interface of VisualCron. The technical support for VisualCron also needs improvement in terms of response time. Currently, there's no live support or hotline you can call to get quick answers, so this is what I'd like to see in the next version of VisualCron. A less cluttered and more streamlined interface, where you don't need to hunt for some of the features, is also what I'd like to see in the next VisualCron update."

"Our suggestion to make it better and more manageable in terms of GDPR: Implement it in a very partnership way."

More VisualCron cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"JAMS is close to the lower end of the pricing models for enterprise scheduling solutions. They are much cheaper than Control-M, as well as some other products that I've used. I also don't know of another solution where you can actually get true, unlimited licensing, where you can have as many instances and as many agents as you want."

"Take advantage of its scalability. You can start small. The initial cost is very reasonable. Once you have started picking up the tool and adopting it, then you can scale up from there and buy more agents."

"The product is reasonably priced, and we don't have any add-ons."

"JAMS is relatively inexpensive, with additional costs only incurred for tags, other services, and optional support renewals."

"Definitely check how many single processes you want to run and count them as jobs. That is how you would work out your pricing on JAMS. For example, if you're running a number of commands and you can put them all into one script and run that script, you can count that as one job."

"It's certainly a lot cheaper than Tivoli and Control-M. In comparison to them, you get a lot more bang for your buck. You get pretty much the whole functionality and more, in some cases, when compared to Control-M, but at a fraction of the price."

"There are no additional costs other than the license for Fortra's JAMS which is affordable."

"For what it does, the product is priced very well."

More JAMS pricing and cost advice

"If you already use other products from BMC, you might be able to get a package deal from BMC's sales department."

"We are fine with a rather cheap setup. Licensing with VisualCron is fair. You have a simple one-year licence in different sizes. There isn't a licensing jungle with hundreds of options and opt-ins."

"ROI is 95 percent."

"The pricing is extremely fair, and because of that I recommend purchasing multiple instances to split out the processing load across multiple application servers."

"VisualCron is correctly priced because it wasn't very cheap, and it wasn't overly expensive, so the price for it was set correctly. When my previous company bought VisualCron, it was €800 per server per year. On a scale of one to five, I would rate the pricing for VisualCron a five because it was just right. The tool was affordable, and it has one of the most competitive pricing in the market."

"The price is a bit high."

"ROI is one month."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

27%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Outsourcing Company

Computer Software Company

28%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	18

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	5

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about JAMS?

I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JAMS?

They recently switched to subscription-based pricing, which increased. The price is fair considering the functionalit...

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What needs improvement with JAMS?

As far as we are using JAMS version 6, it looks good and there is nothing major to add about it. Everything is functi...

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What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

I have worked from 1973 with all kind of systems in large enterprises across the world. And have experience with all ...

See all answers

What do you like most about VisualCron?

The tool has reduced our operational costs by 40%.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VisualCron?

The price is a bit high. However, it is okay.

See all answers

What needs improvement with VisualCron?

The documentation is a bit weak. The tool must provide a better set of documentation.

See all answers

Comparisons

Control-M vs JAMS

Compared 18% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs JAMS

Compared 10% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs JAMS

Compared 10% of the time

Stonebranch vs JAMS

Compared 9% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs JAMS

Compared 6% of the time

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IBM OMEGAMON vs BMC AMI Ops

Compared 24% of the time

ASG TMON vs BMC AMI Ops

Compared 16% of the time

SYSVIEW Performance Intelligence vs BMC AMI Ops

Compared 11% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs BMC AMI Ops

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Z IntelliMagic Vision for z/OS vs BMC AMI Ops

Compared 7% of the time

More BMC AMI Ops Competitors

Microsoft Power Automate vs VisualCron

Compared 18% of the time

Control-M vs VisualCron

Compared 14% of the time

OpCon vs VisualCron

Compared 9% of the time

Fortra's Automate vs VisualCron

Compared 8% of the time

UiPath Platform vs VisualCron

Compared 7% of the time

More VisualCron Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

JAMS

January 2026

Download JAMS product report

Buyer's Guide

Mainframe Management

December 2025

Download BMC AMI Ops product report

Buyer's Guide

VisualCron

January 2026

Download VisualCron product report

Also Known As

No data available

BMC MainView, BMC Automated Mainframe Intelligence, Ops Monitoring, Ops Automation for Batch ThruPut

No data available

Interactive Demo

JAMS Software

Demo not available

BMC

Demo not available

SMA Technologies

Overview

JAMS is an automation and job scheduling solution designed for workflow optimization, catering to businesses large and small with flexible licensing and integration options.

Offering both Core and Advanced packages, JAMS supports a range of environments from small teams to large-scale operations. Its standout features include integration with platforms like PowerShell, SQL, and SAP, coupled with capabilities such as dependency management and natural language scheduling. JAMS simplifies job management, centralizes workflows, and boosts productivity with its robust automation features. Customizable workflows and insightful logging make it adaptable for diverse needs, supported by responsive customer service ensuring seamless operations.

What are JAMS's key features?

Automation & Scheduling: Flexible automation helps manage complex job schedules efficiently.
Integration: Connects seamlessly with platforms like SQL Server, SAP, and Python for diverse applications.
Centralized Job Management: A unified interface for handling thousands of jobs daily.
Dependency Management: Supports complex workflows with efficient dependency tracking.
Insightful Logging: Provides detailed logs and notifications for precise task execution.

What benefits should users look for in JAMS reviews?

Enhanced Productivity: Automates repetitive tasks, freeing up resources for strategic initiatives.
Scalability: Flexible licensing models grow with business size and needs.
Efficient Workflow Automation: Streamlines job orchestration across environments.
Responsive Support: Helps ensure smooth operations with quick troubleshooting.

In industries, JAMS is employed for automating workflows and managing batch jobs. Organizations utilize it for SSIS, SQL Server tasks, file transfers, and integrating with vendor systems, achieving efficient file automation and data management. Scheduler enables precise execution of thousands of tasks daily, enhancing operational efficiency.

JAMS Software

To keep your business running smoothly, you need mainframe management that does more than just monitor and display. BMC MainView gives you the power to diagnose problems, minimize risk, and cut costs.

Lower costs with more efficient monitoring.
Find and fix problems early to prevent costly outages and slowdowns.
Improve availability and productivity by automating and simplifying performance tasks.
Streamline application performance tuning using BMC's seamless integration with Compuware Strobe.

BMC

VisualCron offers task automation through a visual interface, eliminating the need for programming skills. With capabilities like alerting and variable usage, users benefit from integration with databases, timely task execution, and cross-platform operations.

VisualCron empowers users by simplifying complex workflows. It allows seamless task automation through features like interactive scheduling and role-based operations. Users appreciate its integration capabilities, replacing multiple tools with a comprehensive automation solution. The support system ensures quick assistance, making it a reliable choice for workflow visualization and task execution. However, areas like error handling and interface design require enhancements for improved user experience.

What are the key features of VisualCron?

Visual Interface: Users automate tasks without needing programming skills.
Integration: Connects with databases and multiple systems to streamline operations.
Alerting: Notifies users about tasks and system statuses.
Task Scheduling: Allows interactive management of automated tasks.
Credentials Management: Enables cross-platform operations securely.

What benefits can users expect when evaluating VisualCron?

Increased Efficiency: Reduces the time spent on manual processes.
Cost Reduction: Eliminates the need for multiple tools by consolidating functionalities.
Enhanced Support: Offers robust post-sales support for quicker assistance.
Streamlined Workflows: Simplifies complex task automation.

Organizations leverage VisualCron in industries like finance and logistics to automate tasks such as encryption and secure file transfers. It's also integral in managing data operations, facilitating communications between systems, and executing SQL jobs, enhancing operational efficiency across sectors.

SMA Technologies

Sample Customers

Teradata, Arconic, General Dynamics, Yum!, CVS Health, Comcast, Ghiradelli, & Boston’s Children’s Hospital

Costco, Dell, Apple, Citi, AT&T, FedEx, Johnson&Johnson, Comcast, Caterpillar, Vodafone, Sysco, Google, Oracle, Microsoft, Walt Disney

7 Eleven, ABB Sécheron SA, Adobe Systems Incorporated, Amazon Europe Core, Apple, Assa Abloy, Aston Martin, Banco Santander, BMW (Australia)

Buyer's Guide

BMC AMI Ops vs. VisualCron

January 2026

Free Report: BMC AMI Ops vs. VisualCron

Find out what your peers are saying about BMC AMI Ops vs. VisualCron and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.

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