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Control-M vs GoAnywhere MFT comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 8, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.4
Control-M enhances efficiency and reduces costs by automating operations, increasing productivity, and supporting large enterprise centralization.
Sentiment score
7.7
GoAnywhere MFT delivers cost-efficient automation, secure data transfer, and quick payback with improved administration and operational efficiency.
The main return on investment with Helix Control-M has been a reduction in downtime and minimization of manual interventions, which has improved our operational efficiency.
You can run a million batch jobs or tasks at night when all of your highly skilled people are at home sleeping.
It has reduced the total cost of ownership by 30% to 40%.
GoAnywhere can perform the work of three people, leading to a decrease in manpower needs for automation and file transfer.
There is a drastic improvement in time; at least a 50% to 60% improvement in terms of effort.
It saves considerable time, and I would say the investment pays off.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Control-M's support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, though complex cases need better communication and troubleshooting efficiency.
Sentiment score
7.2
GoAnywhere MFT's customer support is praised for competence and professionalism, though response times and documentation access could improve.
The technical support is very polite, helpful, and available 24/7.
If something fails at 3 AM in the morning, you need to fix it and get it back up and working really quickly.
The immediate acknowledgment and solutions provided by BMC's support team make it stand out compared to other tools.
They have their number on their website to call, and they are fast and available all the time.
The support technician who worked with me initially owned the ticket through the whole process, even after escalating to developers or higher-level support.
Support deactivated the old license, activated the new one, and fixed the issue in about two to three hours.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Control-M is praised for scalability and robust functionality, though cost may be a concern for some enterprises.
Sentiment score
7.7
GoAnywhere MFT efficiently scales, handling increased workloads and allowing easy expansion, stability, and automation across platforms and integrations.
It can absorb more workload wherever needed.
As the workload on Control-M increases, its scalability is much higher.
I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
We have clients with over 600,000 users.
With the scaling of the company, it was absolutely capable of handling all the data and databases.
When adding new jobs, I typically find similar projects, copy them, edit the XML file, and apply the changes.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Control-M is highly reliable with minimal glitches, praised for prompt support, regular updates, and high user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
8.0
GoAnywhere MFT is robust and reliable, with minimal downtime and quick support for rare issues, earning high stability ratings.
The downtime is higher compared to AWS.
The testing and development phases need to be more rigorous before releasing patches.
The stability of the Helix Control-M solution is good.
It works very well, especially when kept up to date.
It was very stable compared to other solutions we have used.
We experienced some unscheduled outages a couple of months back, but the support team worked closely with us and provided a solution that appears to have fixed the problem.
 

Room For Improvement

Control-M needs upgrades in analysis, reporting, interface, cost, monitoring, scalability, and integration for better usability and competitiveness.
GoAnywhere MFT users seek enhanced support, modern UI, clearer documentation, better error reporting, and improved performance with cloud compatibility.
They could provide more documentation and tutorials to make the initial setup easier to understand.
There should be an automation system for developers to set it up more easily and quickly.
What they've done about scheduling, other people are still trying to figure out.
That's the only thing that could help if the application could log what caused the error for us to prevent it.
We had to reach out to GoAnywhere support, and they were quick to provide support within a day, so we were able to complete that use case.
We did have some issues a couple of months back where we were having some unscheduled outages, and the support team worked with me closely and provided a solution that appears to have fixed the problem.
 

Setup Cost

Control-M is costly but valued by enterprises for robust features, especially in banking and healthcare, with complex licensing.
GoAnywhere MFT is cost-effective, offering customizable pricing with one-time licenses and optional add-ons appreciated by varied companies.
The licensing cost is very high, and they often consider switching to IBM Workload Scheduler or other options.
Pricing is generally affordable, though some features cost a bit more.
The best cell phone will always be more expensive.
Azure is significantly more expensive.
There are approximately 30% to 40% savings.
The pricing is decent for mid-sized and small-sized companies.
 

Valuable Features

Control-M enhances enterprise operations with automation, seamless integration, cross-platform support, and advanced features for reliable, scalable workload management.
GoAnywhere MFT centralizes file transfers with automation, robust security, and integration, enhancing efficiency with minimal coding and monitoring.
Automation is more advanced, deployment is fast, and version control has been simplified.
The user interface is comprehensive and lets me view all my jobs on one page, monitor everything, and access the job history.
Control-M provides workflow orchestration, including scheduling, deploying, managing, and monitoring workflows.
It provides multiple cipher options for HTTPS and SFTP protocols, utilizing AES-based algorithms for secure communication and data transfer.
I can produce reports for security and have full control over secure protocols allowed on the system, making it easy to comply with security standards such as Sarbanes-Oxley.
Before, we had to write scripts and manually update them to move data around, encrypt files, or rename files. Now we just use the GUI to set the modules for transfers, encryption, renaming, and copying, allowing us to set it and schedule it to run without any user interaction.
 

Categories and Ranking

Control-M
Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
122
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (2nd), Workload Automation (1st)
GoAnywhere MFT
Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category, the mindshare of Control-M is 4.7%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GoAnywhere MFT is 9.2%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed File Transfer (MFT)
 

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.
Joel Vinas - PeerSpot reviewer
Created a much better working relationship with our partners and saved a lot of time
While I was happy with the training and support, more of it could be beneficial. We had some basic training and support. I talked with Fortra recently, and they said that they revamped and changed their training support. I have not used it since December. I got support in February and May of last year, and it was not bad. I was just not sure which questions to ask. Trying to learn this stuff on the fly as you are handed a project is always stressful. I like that you can tweak the interface so much, but it would be nice to be able to tweak it some more. The ability to further tweak the interface would be advantageous, as our end users had some questions about modifications that we could not address. Other than that, GoAnywhere seemed to fulfill its role as a simple solution for secure file transfer.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

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 Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT?
GoDrive eliminates the need to use the exchange server for file sharing.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT?
The pricing for GoAnywhere MFT seems reasonable when compared to other similar services, especially cloud services. Azure is significantly more expensive.
What needs improvement with Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT?
The application uses resources such as network connections to shared directories or SFTP connections. I would appreciate seeing utilization metrics for these resources. For example, when opening a ...
 

Also Known As

Control M
HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT, GoAnywhere MFT, GoAnywhere Managed File Transfer,
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CARFAX, Tampa General Hospital, Navistar, Amadeus, Raymond James, Railinc
McKesson City of Modesto, California Kwik Trip Northwestern University Charter Communications
Find out what your peers are saying about Control-M vs. GoAnywhere MFT and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.