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BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench vs Endevor 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 Compuware Topaz Workbench
Ranking in Mainframe Application Development
1st
Average Rating
7.2
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Endevor
Ranking in Mainframe Application Development
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Software Configuration Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Mainframe Application Development category, the mindshare of BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench is 26.1%, down from 28.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Endevor is 5.3%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mainframe Application Development
 

Featured Reviews

JE
It helps our staff work by speeding up their documentation process, but it often doesn't play well with other plugins in the environment.
I would look for more cooperation between the vendors and using Eclipse the way Eclipse is meant to be used. Topaz Workbench often doesn't play well with other plugins in the environment. 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. I would like to see the features include more integration or help customers when working with Jenkins. It would be nice to have an audit trail to see what mainframe developers are using what. We are trying to get more people to use the product at the moment. I would like to expand its usage because it is a good product for development.
Efrén Yanez - PeerSpot reviewer
Good analysis and integrations with helpful automation
If I had to comment on an area of ​​improvement or something new in the next or future version, I would like to see AI-assisted coding and impact analysis for mainframes. It is actually a fairly complete product. It is robust with a solid history and is always growing in functionality. It has a high level of maturity, which benefits the users and the administrators. This tool, with its group of options, facilitates the integration with other business processes, which allows you to take advantage of other solutions by incorporating automatic functions.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Topaz is Xpediter. It's more flexible than Xpediter through MVS."
"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."
"Once we got the configurations and deployment rolled out, it was very stable. I haven't had any major issues with Eclipse or the Topaz Workbench plugins."
"From a user perspective, the GUIs make it easier for people to see and interact with files on the mainframe."
"It's a modernized development portal and helps reduce the learning curve for younger people coming in to work on the platform,"
"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."
"We backup people's source code for them."
"The most valuable features are stability and ease of use."
"Any question that an auditor has about our processes and approvals is all stored in Endevor."
"It's very flexible. A new technology comes along, this can be multiplied to handle the new technology quite easily."
"​Stability has been really good. I have actually never had to open an issue or report an issue since I have been running it.​"
"The most valuable feature of Endevor is the software controller."
"It's the audit-level tracking. If something has gone wrong I can go back and figure out what happened, who did it."
"It offers security and audit of changes in information assets (software)."
 

Cons

"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 ability to edit source code that has special characters is limited. 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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 main challenges are its limited interface and the complexity of the customization."
"They need to ditch the Eclipse plugin and just make the development environment for Z the standard Eclipse interface.​"
"There are a lot of screens in it. The process for moving out my other solutions, it could be more convenient. There are a lot of steps to go through and a lot of screens to go through to get it accomplished."
"Interfacing with some change control products that are not CA's, it's a little glitchy on the approvals of changes. It requires special needs for the users for approvals."
"The solution is very expensive."
"Sometimes finding errors and output can be difficult because it spits out so many messages that it is hard to figure out which ones are the ones you need to look at and what flow did it actually take through the processor."
"One feature of Endevor is its Backout feature. If there is a problem, it can back out the executables. The only problem with that is that it will not back out the source in Endevor. For example, you can do a back out and it will back out the executable to the previous version, but it doesn't back out the source version in Endevor. It would make it much better if when you did a back out of Endevor, it would back out both the source and the executable and keep them in sync."
"It is still kind of behind the times. It needs to catch up with all the millennials that want a distributed look and feel.​"
 

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."
"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."
"It has saved our developers time and effort when working on documentation, which is now more readable and fluent."
"Licensing is fairly simple, you don't need multiple licenses."
"Just make sure if you are going to license, ensure you license the right features.​"
"It's competitively priced and, as far as I know, it's just an enterprise license. We have found it is worth the money."
"The solution is very expensive."
"It's worth the value. The pricing is fairly good, justifiable for the return on investment."
"The product is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Insurance Company
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
35%
Computer Software Company
19%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Endevor?
The product’s implementation process is complicated and restrictive. It is difficult to find file programs and use a different tool for the setup as the compilation process is all locked up, at lea...
What is your primary use case for Endevor?
We use the product as a source manager and program manager. It helps in controlling the mainframe code and performing data migrations.
 

Also Known As

No data available
CA Endevor Software Change Manager, Endevor Software Change Manager, CA Software Change Manager for Mainframe, CA Endevor SCM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Erste Group
Blue Hill Data Services Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench vs. Endevor and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.