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Control-M vs F5 BIG-IQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 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

Control-M
Ranking in Process Automation
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
126
Ranking in other categories
Managed File Transfer (MFT) (3rd), Workload Automation (1st)
F5 BIG-IQ
Ranking in Process Automation
26th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of Control-M is 4.6%, up from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IQ is 0.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Ujjwal Sachdeva - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient automation and boosted workflow but needs better integration methods
Control-M is a bit faster compared to other solutions. The job and coding are easier. Also, my DevOps and Ops teams work collaboratively with it, enhancing its efficiency. The workflow is much easier compared to the ACS services we were using. Automation is more advanced, deployment is fast, and version control has been simplified.
Ravindra-Mali - PeerSpot reviewer
Key features like SSL uploading strengthen file handling
From the study material point of view, there are multiple certifications available. The challenge is there is hardly any study material available that can be referred to or used as a study material. Of course, from the knowledge perspective, multiple courses and details are available. However, from a hands-on experience perspective, more resources should be available on the Internet, like labs and lab preparations.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Most valuable feature would be the ability to detect and notify when a process has not completed successfully."
"The most valuable features are the managing of file transfers and the product keeping up with technology."
"Control-M has helped us resolve issues 70% to 80% faster. It provides us with alerts instead of having someone go to that particular server and check the logs to determine where the issue is. We can simply click on the alert information, then everything is in front of us. This provides us with time savings, human effort savings, and process savings."
"As soon as you have an issue, a ticket is created and the tech support is quite responsive."
"The product has improved dramatically over the years; it offers a lot in terms of features and capabilities and integration with third-party tools. A wide range of models available with the product is critical in reducing manual and mundane work such as custom script writing. This saves significant amounts of time and, by association, money for the organization."
"It is simple to create, integrate, and automate data pipelines and to ingest data from different platforms. It integrates well between platforms."
"I am proud to say almost all of the banks in South Africa are using it."
"Control-M is infinitely scalable. We only need to add agents. BMC will take care of it if you need anything on the SaaS side, but we can handle the rest using our agent architecture."
"We use this solution on a daily basis, and it is very stable."
"Features like AFM, the gateway, and Global DNS are the coolest features that save work for us."
"The GUI is fine, at least from an engineer's perspective."
"It is quite good in a large environment where I have multiple devices; it is easy to manage the devices."
"F5 BIG-IQ has always provided us with great support."
"The reporting feature is quite good."
"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."
"Scalability: To move from larger boxes to smaller boxes, along with virtualization. So, we are not locked into a particular size."
 

Cons

"Control-M reporting is a bit of a pain point right now. Control-M doesn't have robust reporting. I would like to see better reporting options. I would like to be able to pull charts or statistics that look nicer. Right now, we can pull some data, but it is kind of choppy. It would be nicer to have enterprise-level reporting that you can present to managers."
"In general, it is a very good product, and we are very happy with it. It meets all of our expectations."
"There can be some complexities with the UI part, especially with the advanced features."
"I would like to see more auditing capabilities. Right now, it has the basics and I've been trying to set those up to work with what our auditors are looking for."
"Regarding product design and R&D, the DevOps pipeline could be improved with better capabilities and automation. API security and authentication is another area that could use improvement; users must have static credential passwords, which is a security concern."
"Its operations and infrastructure can be improved."
"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."
"With the current version update, I'm not sure why we needed a separate database upgrade. Why not put it all in one package? Previously, you could do it either via a manual upgrade or an in-place upgrade but it wasn't separate."
"F5 BIG-IQ is a complex solution, and it cannot manage everything related to BIG-IPs."
"A bug caused me to lose all the configuration."
"Integration with VAS is something that they need to work on."
"From a hands-on experience perspective, more resources should be available on the Internet, like labs and lab preparations."
"I had trouble with high availability deployment in my environment."
"There are a lot of scripts available on the internet for people who know how to use them, but with a graphical interface, it would be easier for new users."
"The solution should improve pricing. It's expensive in comparison to other American solutions."
"They could use YAML or JSON if they wanted to make it a little bit easier for us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its cost can be more competitive. One of the main things customers look at is the cost. It's not affordable. The cost is very high, according to my customers."
"The pricing of Control-M is reasonable."
"This product saves hours in a day based on my experience working here versus other companies with manually operations."
"Licensing costs are around $3000 a year."
"There are two different types of licenses available. The first is based on the number of jobs that we run per day, and the other is based on the number of agents that we install. My current project has a contract for five years."
"We have a five-year contract with task-based licensing."
"They are expensive. If we were a small company, it would be complicated because we have to have strong sales and operations to be able to afford a tool of this level. Being a large company, the cost-benefit is covered, but it is not within the level of cheap solutions."
"Its pricing and licensing could be a little bit better. Based on my experience and discussions with other existing customers, everybody feels that the regular Managed File Transfer piece, not the enterprise one, is a little overpriced, especially for folks who already have licensed Advanced File Transfer. We understand that Advanced File Transfer is going away and is going to be the end of life, and there is some additional functionality built into MFT, but the additional functionality does not really correlate with the huge price increase over what we're paying for AFT already. This has actually driven a lot of people to look for alternative solutions."
"Users have to pay an annual subscription fee for the solution's iSeries."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 do you like most about Control-M?
First of all, the shift from manual to automation has been valuable. We have a tool that can automate.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Control-M?
Its cost can be more competitive. One of the main things customers look at is the cost. It's not affordable. The cost is very high, according to my customers. The licensing cost is very high, and t...
What do you like most about F5 BIG-IQ?
F5 BIG-IQ is a central management system for the BIG-IP.
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IQ?
The product is really good with no significant downsides. However, better and simpler integration with ACI could improve the product.
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

Control M
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CARFAX, Tampa General Hospital, Navistar, Amadeus, Raymond James, Railinc
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Control-M vs. F5 BIG-IQ and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.