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Control-M vs F5 BIG-IQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 13, 2026

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

Control-M
Ranking in Process Automation
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
218
Ranking in other categories
Managed File Transfer (MFT) (2nd), Workload Automation (1st), AI IT Support (3rd)
F5 BIG-IQ
Ranking in Process Automation
27th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of Control-M is 3.2%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IQ is 0.9%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Control-M3.2%
F5 BIG-IQ0.9%
Other95.9%
Process Automation
 

Featured Reviews

RP
Batch Admin at NBC Universal
Brings data together from multiple platforms and optimizes cross-environment orchestration
The features of Control-M that I like the most include the ability to easily integrate or bring in different platforms into Control-M. For instance, AWS, mainframe, TWS, and something that's running on Autosys can all be brought into Control-M, converted to how Control-M runs it, and then the batch can be executed. This centralizes various applications in Control-M, which doesn't just have to handle batch processes, but also other tasks like reporting on required data. I find this functionality very useful and the setup is impressive, with more advancements yet to come. With Control-M, my company has achieved several measurable improvements since I started. The metrics indicate that the number of failures has dropped, and we have addressed the issue of excessive false alerts that I encountered when I joined. Previously, we received an overwhelming number of alerts daily, but now we manage to maintain that at a normalized level, perhaps around five to fifteen alerts, depending on running core batches and their setup.
Bikale Kassu - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager for Implementation and Administration at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Has faced challenges with visibility and technical support but allows centralized management of multiple sites
The configuration part is complex for F5 BIG-IQ. The simplicity and visibility part needs improvement. The dashboard, especially the analytics part, needs to be more simple and presentable. For the security part, it is difficult to present to our management, so we have to capture it and prepare manual reporting options rather than getting them directly from the system. The automation part in F5 BIG-IQ is limited; we are still using it only for load balancing for some services. We haven't integrated it with our Accesso or implemented any automation options. The setup process for F5 BIG-IQ would rate a five 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

"IBM Workload Scheduler and Control-M are far superior to any of the other products on the market."
"Our customers find the self-service feature the most valuable. Control-M offers great value to businesses by providing an option to see different flows and control and orchestrate the sequence of the execution. It is easy to use and integrate with different solutions. It is a good solution that is easy to implement and deliver."
"We have a team called pro-mon and they monitor all the jobs for us. A single view for them makes it easy for them to monitor things."
"The GUI interface is exceptional, beating any of the competitors’ products I have used."
"Control-M is critical to the success of our business, we cannot accept downtime."
"Dashboard and recovery are the features I found most valuable in the solution."
"Control-M acts as a mediator in between that and provides it in a very efficient way, which has reduced a lot of manual intervention required as a business."
"For top 100 enterprises, there isn't another better tool on the market for enterprise."
"F5 is a leader in this space and this is a solution that I recommend."
"We use this solution on a daily basis, and it is very stable."
"It is quite good in a large environment where I have multiple devices; it is easy to manage the devices."
"The reporting feature is quite good."
"The backup, monitoring and logging are the best features."
"The customer service is great."
"The best aspect of the solution is that we can have everything integrated with a rather large capacity in order to personalize and configure specific rules."
"The F5 solution scales very easily, and if we have more boxes then we can just join them to the cluster."
 

Cons

"There are some areas in Control-M that have room for improvement, particularly some constraints regarding the scripts, such as limitations in how they can be executed and integrated; it's not the normal scripting way in some cases."
"I'm not sure how the solution fits together with our business modernization initiatives, as there are things outside of my area, even though Control-M is the scheduling tool of the company. They may use other things, e.g., Big Data."
"The performance could be better. Control-M Enterprise Manager tends to slow the system down even on a server with a six-core processor and 32 gigabytes RAM. The console is Java-based, so maybe OpenJDK 16 or 17 would be a performance improvement."
"The main issue is that there are some RBAC issues related to improper access control."
"Control-M is really good for legacy, corporate enterprise but less optimal for modern, open source environments."
"The overall experience of the migration and deployment process for my customers tends to be a horror show because migrations are critical and touch everything."
"A Control-M on-prem license is based on the number of jobs, which is the number of tasks a particular customer wants to have. These tasks have to be run within 24 hours window. For example, if you have a license for 100 jobs, you can run a maximum of 100 jobs in a 24-hour window. If your operations could not run 10 jobs, and they ran only 90 jobs, they just carry over to the next day, but the next day, they will have 110 jobs. Control-M asks you to buy those 10 more licenses because you were out of compliance in terms of the number of licenses. This is something that needs to be indicated in Control-M GUI so that customers know the number of licenses they're going to use in this time window. Their support and documentation should be improved. I am not that satisfied with their customer support. Sometimes, they don't have the answers. Their documentation is very poor. It is not well written, and it is not in a very logical manner. You can use it on Unix, Linux, Windows, and AIX, but it needs some improvement on iSeries. It needs a built-in mechanism inside the system to give you an option to restore from the last point of failure. If a process crashes, the Control-M needs to have a mechanism in iSeries where the process can be restored from the last point of failure."
"After we complete FTP jobs, those FTP jobs will be cleared from the Control-M schedule after the noon refresh. So, I struggle to find out where those jobs are saved. Then, we need to request execution of the FTP jobs again. If there could be an option to show the logs, which have been previously completed, that would help us. I can find all other job logs from the server side, but FTP job logs. Maybe I am missing the feature, or if it is not there, it could be added."
"F5 BIG-IQ should improve by being a complete certificate management solution because currently, it is only for Venafi. Other automation platforms, should be added."
"Integration with VAS is something that they need to work on."
"The solution should improve pricing. It's expensive in comparison to other American solutions."
"For stability, F5 BIG-IQ rates a two or three because currently we are integrating it with our third party as a port forwarding service. We created many VIPs, but on average, weekly, we lose three to five connections, making the troubleshooting part a headache for us."
"If they had a GUI interface for creating security rules then it would make it easier."
"F5 BIG-IQ is a complex solution, and it cannot manage everything related to BIG-IPs."
"For us, right now, F5 is too expensive."
"The shell, kernel, or Linux has something like a delay, especially with the Virtual Edition, when you are trying to implement it in the cloud and you want to access it remotely with web management. It would be great if they could improve their kernel. It was difficult for me, especially when I got started with BIG-IP. I was struggling to find which commands work with it. If you want to work with it, you have to be a Linux guy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product price is reasonable. I rate the pricing an eight."
"Initially, our licensing model was based on the number of jobs per day. That caused some issues because we were restricted to a number. So at our renewal time we said, 'We want to convert from number of jobs to number of endpoints.' That cost us extra money but it gave us additional capabilities, without worrying about the number of jobs."
"It works on task-based licensing."
"The cost is basically $100 a job, give or take."
"The annual licensing within BMC Control-M is on a per task basis. Three- and five-year contracts are also offered. The customer usually buys a bundle of tasks, e.g., 5,000 tasks, then my team configures Control-M for their usage."
"I switched to this solution within the last year. I switched from the servers payment package to the job payment package, and it is very expensive."
"It is not bad. The company can afford it, and it pays for itself. We have those jobs running automatically."
"Its pricing is a little bit high. They could provide an enterprise-level license for an unlimited number of jobs. Currently, it is based on the number of jobs, and if you exceed the number of jobs, there are charges. For example, if your license is for 3,000 jobs per day, but you run 3,050 jobs, you will have to pay for the extra 50 jobs. They charge $120 per job. So, it is too costly."
"I would like the product to be cheaper."
"There is only one licensing fee for F5 BIG-IQ and everything is included in the price."
"F5 BIG-IQ is a cheap solution."
"Users have to pay an annual subscription fee for the solution's iSeries."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise177
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

How does Control-M compare with AutoSys Workload Automation?
Control-M acts as a single, centralized interface for monitoring and managing all batch processes, which is helpful because nothing gets left unattended since it is all visible in one place, and th...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Control-M?
Control-M sits at the premium end of workload automation pricing — that is no secret, and I will not pretend otherwise. My position after decades of using it: the enterprise value justifies the pre...
What needs improvement with Control-M?
My main improvement point after decades with the product is not a feature — it is the path to mastery. Basic administration of Control-M is fairly accessible: a new person can define and monitor jo...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 BIG-IQ?
From the pricing perspective, F5 BIG-IQ rates an eight out of ten as it's reasonably priced.
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IQ?
The configuration part is complex for F5 BIG-IQ. The simplicity and visibility part needs improvement. The dashboard, especially the analytics part, needs to be more simple and presentable. For the...
What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IQ?
Currently for WAF, we are moving to another device, F5. We are not using Imperva. F5 BIG-IQ is the Web Application Firewall we're currently using, but regarding the Imperva products, now we are flo...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Control M, BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer, BMC Australia CTM
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

The Bank of East Asia, LINE Bank Taiwan, Coop, Air Europa, Carrefour, Itau Unibanco, Snam, Embraer, ANZ Bank, EDP, Dominio's, Tampa General Hospital, W&W Informatik GmbH, Veterans General, Up Sí Vale, Sky Italia, REWE digital GmbH, Raymond James, Railinc, Navistar, Management Science Associates, Colruyt, CARFAX, Banpara, Aspiag Service, Amadeus, AG Insurance, ING Bank Slaski
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Control-M vs. F5 BIG-IQ and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.