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Control-M vs Microsoft Configuration Manager 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.8
Control-M boosts ROI by automating tasks, reducing costs, improving efficiency, and enhancing data management for large enterprises.
Sentiment score
1.0
Microsoft Configuration Manager is valued for managing devices, offering cost savings and enhanced productivity, despite some Mac support challenges.
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.
By implementing automation tools, you can minimize human errors and improve efficiency.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
Control-M's support is praised for effectiveness and resources, though some users face delays and require issue escalation.
Sentiment score
5.7
Microsoft Configuration Manager receives mixed reviews for support, praised for resources but criticized for first-level support effectiveness.
They quickly evolve with changing technology trends, easily adopt new features, and incorporate them into the product.
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.
For technical support from Microsoft, I would rate them a nine.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Control-M is scalable and adaptable, efficiently managing complex operations across industries, despite occasional server load and cost concerns.
Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Configuration Manager scales well for enterprises, though expertise and investments may enhance scalability, especially with cloud integration.
Our license doesn't limit our ability to configure Control-M as needed, allowing us to easily create new agents or environments.
It can absorb more workload wherever needed.
As the workload on Control-M increases, its scalability is much higher.
The product is suitable for our size, handling 800 devices.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Control-M is praised for stability and reliability, with minimal issues often linked to external factors and resolved quickly.
Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Configuration Manager is praised for stability, with issues mostly due to external factors and the need for proper setup.
The downtime is higher compared to AWS.
The testing and development phases need to be more rigorous before releasing patches.
Once properly implemented, the system becomes very stable, which is one of its strongest attributes.
There were misconfigurations by our team rather than issues with the product itself.
 

Room For Improvement

Control-M users desire better reporting, lower costs, improved interfaces, enhanced integrations, simplified upgrades, and offline capabilities.
Microsoft Configuration Manager needs improved integration, automation, Linux compatibility, and enhanced PowerShell, UI, mobile support, and AI alerts.
They could provide more documentation and tutorials to make the initial setup easier to understand.
We've experienced main problems with MFTE where having one setup means when an error occurs, the entire service goes down.
Documentation should be maintained for all versions since they provided the application.
I can suggest that Microsoft Configuration Manager should get the Autopilot feature because Autopilot is the main part of Intune, and nowadays everybody is using Autopilot.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers face high costs with Control-M, but many find its comprehensive features a worthwhile investment despite complex licensing.
Microsoft Configuration Manager pricing is high but offers comprehensive features, with value seen mainly for larger infrastructures.
The licensing cost is very high, and they often consider switching to IBM Workload Scheduler or other options.
Control-M tends to be more expensive compared to other solutions, but users get great value from it.
Control-M is among the highest-priced solutions in the market.
The setup cost is considered sufficient.
The pricing for Microsoft Configuration Manager is okay for me.
 

Valuable Features

Control-M enhances workflow management with intuitive interfaces, robust automation, and seamless integration, improving flexibility, efficiency, and productivity.
Microsoft Configuration Manager offers scalable endpoint management, efficient deployment, vulnerability fixes, and integration, crucial for enterprises with remote operations.
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.
It is easy to integrate Control-M with technologies for data ops or DevOps processes as things change, and it is not complex compared to other workload automation tools available in the market.
If I want to get a fetch report for anything, such as hardware-related issues or group policy-related issues, I need to fetch the report by using SCCM's scripting language and remediation part.
The product valuable for deployment recovery.
 

Categories and Ranking

Control-M
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
133
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (2nd), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (3rd), Workload Automation (1st)
Microsoft Configuration Man...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
Software Distribution (1st), Server Monitoring (6th), Configuration Management (3rd), Patch Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Control-M and Microsoft Configuration Manager aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Control-M is designed for Process Automation and holds a mindshare of 4.6%, up 4.1% compared to last year.
Microsoft Configuration Manager, on the other hand, focuses on Server Monitoring, holds 5.3% mindshare, down 7.2% since last year.
Process Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Control-M4.6%
Camunda24.8%
Temporal7.4%
Other63.2%
Process Automation
Server Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Configuration Manager5.3%
Zabbix25.9%
Checkmk10.5%
Other58.3%
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Mark_Francome - PeerSpot reviewer
Easily connects to different platforms and ties everything together in a centralized screen
Areas of Control-M that have room for improvement include the reporting feature. The reporting on Control-M hasn't changed much over the years, although it is in a different internal format. It used to be Crystal Reports, and now they've upgraded that. It would be better if that was really flexible where you could define your own reports. You can customize it a little bit, but when people come in with complex questions, you should be able to use that tool and access anything in the database. Control-M has two internal databases that are core to the product. You can go in and do your own SQL queries against the database, but this reporting tool should really be able to do everything that you can do with SQL, and give you good information. Instead, you end up having to export to spreadsheets and then change and update them. It can be very labor-intensive to get this information out. Other than the reporting, they've addressed most things over the years. Control-M is a tool that's been around for more than 30 years, so they have actually fixed most issues that you would encounter. They have a request for enhancement process that most users have sent requests to, but it doesn't move very quickly. The other challenge is they're supporting so many different platforms; BMC just wants it to be a trouble-free release. When users request new features, such as improved reporting, BMC's priority remains maintaining a clean-running system.
JunedBedrekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Have effectively deployed patches and applications while integrating with cloud solutions
The features I find most valuable in Microsoft Configuration Manager are replication and scripting. If I want to get a fetch report for anything, such as hardware-related issues or group policy-related issues, I need to fetch the report by using SCCM's scripting language and remediation part. The inventory collection features of Microsoft Configuration Manager are good because we always prefer the inventory. We do it by using the script language. We use remote management capabilities in Microsoft Configuration Manager. Remote management capabilities are useful if the user is not providing access; we can use the backend users to update the group policy and sync the devices. These are the main features we require.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise113
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise63
 

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?
Pricing for Control-M depends on the licensing model, with different options such as the per-agent model or the per-job model. BMC is phasing out the per-agent model in favor of per-job licensing, ...
How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that the set up will take depends on the kind of technical architecture that your org...
How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?
ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. What I like most about ManageEngine is that I can log on to every PC very easily a...
What do you like most about SCCM?
One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages efficiently and deploy them to specific groups within our network. This streamlined ...
 

Also Known As

Control M
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM ), Microsoft SMS
 

Interactive Demo

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

CARFAX, Tampa General Hospital, Navistar, Amadeus, Raymond James, Railinc
Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad
Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda, BMC, Temporal Technologies and others in Process Automation. Updated: August 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.