Control-M vs Temporal comparison

BMC and Temporal Technologies are both solutions in the Process Automation category. BMC is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.7, while Temporal Technologies is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.6. Additionally, 98% of BMC users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Temporal Technologies users who would recommend it.

Control-M

Read 121 Control-M reviews

3,737 Views
1,531 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Temporal

Read 17 Temporal reviews

1,417 Views
1,108 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Control-M

Temporal

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Control-M and Temporal compete in the workflow automation and scheduling category. Control-M seems to have an upper hand with its robust integration capabilities and comprehensive control modules, particularly suited for complex AS400 processes.

Features: Control-M offers robust integration capabilities, comprehensive control modules, and automation of complex AS400 processes, which are crucial for banking. Its cross-platform support and enhanced scheduling features make it a preferred choice for handling intricate workflows. Temporal stands out with its developer-centric features, customizable scheduling, and the ability to handle distributed transactions efficiently. These capabilities are particularly valuable in environments requiring high adaptability and precision.

Room for Improvement: Control-M users have pointed out the need for enhanced output analysis and more flexible reporting options. These are common user-requested improvements that could enhance its usability. Temporal users have highlighted areas needing better workflow state visualization, improved integration capabilities, and more comprehensive documentation to ease onboarding and enhance understanding.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Control-M supports diverse deployment models, including on-premises and hybrid cloud setups. However, user satisfaction with its technical support has been mixed. Temporal, primarily cloud-oriented, receives praise for strong technical support, although some users have reported challenges in the deployment process.

Pricing and ROI: Control-M is perceived as expensive due to its complex licensing model based on jobs or endpoints, yet many companies report high ROI from automation efficiencies. Temporal's open-source nature offers cost-effectiveness, particularly for on-premises use, with no costs unless premium cloud features are utilized, making it an appealing choice for businesses managing budgets carefully.

To learn more, read our detailed Control-M vs. Temporal Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Control-M vs. Temporal

April 2025

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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

3rd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

121

Ranking in other categories

Managed File Transfer (MFT) (4th), Workload Automation (1st)

Temporal

Ranking in Process Automation

7th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

Pedro Fuentes

System Engineer at Community Loans of America, Inc.

Cost-effective, excellent support, and centralized access and control

They have a department that handles requests for enhancements. I talked to Control-M guys back in October or November when they had a gathering here in Atlanta. We talked about not being able to go back in history in Helix Control-M for more than two weeks. We submitted a request for enhancement. They told us that they are working on it, and they are thinking of expanding that to 30 days. We would like to see it expand to 90 days, but they are working on it. In Control-M, we were able to go back 180 days, but that was on-prem. The storage of that data was on our own servers. We know that storage is money, and we do not expect them to store that much of the data, but at least 30 to 60 days seem proper.

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AbhishekDash

Senior Software Engineer at A.P. Moller - Maersk

Orchestrates infrastructure tasks like deployment, deletion, and management

Temporal focus on developers rather than business users. In contrast to older workflow orchestration engines like Camunda, which are more business-oriented and strongly emphasize UI and workflow authoring, Temporal is geared toward developers. It provides extensive capabilities for building complex workflows. A standout feature of Temporal is its handling of long-running workflows, a significant advantage over many other solutions. Temporal excels in managing distributed transactions and application state durability, especially in microservice environments where transactions might fail due to network issues. Temporal simplifies these challenges by managing retries, fail-safes, and circuit breakers. As a result, developers don't need to implement these features manually; Temporal handles them implicitly, though it also allows for tuning based on specific needs.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best feature is that we can automate everything. Moreover, we can access all the features through one dashboard, which is beneficial."

"Control-M provides us with a unified view, where we can easily define, orchestrate, and monitor all our application workflows and data pipelines. It also provides the ability to filter. So, if I don't want to see everything, I can also narrow it down or open ViewPoint. This is very important since we have thousands of jobs to monitor. If we did not have this ability, it would be very difficult to see what is going on."

"You can let users access the system and manage jobs: self-service."

"In our bank, all new applications need to be implemented with Control-M. We try to look for the best way to establish communication between both products. One of the new features for us is Application Integrator. It is a very interesting feature because it lets us integrate with those applications that are not included in Control-M. By using Application Integrator, we can easily integrate new technologies. With the help of Application Integrator, we recently integrated with Blue Prism, which is a robotic product. We could integrate such processes into Control-M. Now, we are working with Ansible, and we are putting Ansible automated processes into Control-M."

"Control-M has enabled true enterprise batch automation, which combined with the other BMC Control products on our mainframe platform, allows us to run a 24/7 site with the lights out."

"Control-M is useful to automate all critical and non-critical processes. Using Control-M, we can automate application workflows as well as file transfers involved in application workflows. We can also use it to run batches related to applications. Automating these processes reduces the RTO and RPO, which helps in the case of failures. It also helps us to identify bottlenecks and take corrective measures."

"Self Service, BIM features are most valuable. As no need to login to EM client and check the job status."

"The web interface is handy. It's easy to use, and Control-M provides you with the necessary materials to understand the features and perform various tasks."

More Control-M pros

"Temporal provides visibility into workflow progress and analytics and supports scheduled tasks with customizable settings, making it very convenient."

"When some jobs take a lot of time and fail midway, the solution’s retry feature automatically causes them to retry."

"It is very useful for long-running workflows."

"Temporal focus on developers rather than business users."

"We like the fact that the whole process is durable, which is very useful to us."

"The solution's most valuable feature is its ability to fix things quickly."

"The solution's most valuable feature is its ability to retry from an interrupted state."

"What I like best about the tool is that it's easy to install, especially since it uses JavaScript. It's also easy to set up with Docker, and the documentation is easy to understand."

More Temporal pros

Cons

"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."

"I'm currently working on the SaaS version, but I've also worked on the on-prem versions before. There is a handful of features that haven't been added to the SaaS version, and the BMC knows that. It's a matter of time before they prioritize the missing pieces and bring them into the SaaS version."

"Its operations and infrastructure can be improved."

"Sometimes, with technical support, they will take feedback, but you don't know where that feedback goes or if it proceeds along in the thought process."

"The documentation could be improved, and I'd also like to see automatic upgrades."

"Control-M is the number one leading product in the world. What they've done about scheduling, other people are still trying to figure out, so it's difficult for me to propose anything new. There is not so much AI at this point in time, but I guess it's coming. However, predictive analysis is built into it."

"It has a slight issue with daylight savings time while advancing the clock in the Spring."

"Control-M could benefit from incorporating AI features for better job scheduling."

More Control-M cons

"One area where I think Temporal could improve is its dashboard, particularly in event tracking. Currently, the dashboard doesn't show a time-based view of events, meaning it doesn't display when an event started or went through the retry process. If this feature could be added in a future release, it would significantly enhance monitoring capabilities. Other than that, Temporal's overall performance is quite impressive, and we're confident we can migrate to the Temporal workflow."

"Temporal could be improved by making it more user-friendly for beginners and non-technical staff, ensuring easier integration and usability across different use cases."

"Temporal doesn't have built-in data storage to store the state of the ongoing execution."

"There are areas where Temporal could improve. For instance, calling multiple microservices with Temporal introduces latency due to workflow registration and analytics overhead."

"Retro compatibility needs improvement. Sometimes, when we make new changes to a workflow, it fails if it is not configured properly due to compatibility issues."

"Temporal lacks many resources, like YouTube videos, which users can use to learn or refer to if they get stuck with the solution."

"Developers often mention the desire for a more intuitive visualization of workflow states."

"One area for the product improvement is the learning curve."

More Temporal cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not bad. The company can afford it, and it pays for itself. We have those jobs running automatically."

"Pricing is generally affordable, though some features cost a bit more."

"One of the restrictions that we had was with some of the licensing, and not having any insight on the financials part of the product. I don't know what the licensing on the product is, but we don't have an unlimited enterprise license. So, there might be a limitation on either the cost of the licensing or the number of seats."

"The pricing is moderate, not too low or too high compared to other solutions."

"The pricing and licensing could be better. However, when I compare Control-M pricing with JAMS, Control-M is still better priced than JAMS enterprise."

"The license model is based on the number of jobs we run on the SaaS application or the number of executions, unlike the on-premise model options. If we have a handful of jobs, it's always good to consider Control-M, but if it's a large number of jobs, Control-M might not be a great option."

"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."

"Licensing costs are around $3000 a year."

More Control-M pricing and cost advice

"Temporal is a free, open-source tool."

"It is worth the price."

"The tool is open source under the MIT license, so there are no hidden fees. You can freely use everything on their GitHub and Docker images."

"Temporal is open-source and free to use, which is great. We didn't have to pay for any premium features."

"The savings weren't as big as we initially expected, but they were pretty great from a developer's perspective."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

28%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

26%

Computer Software Company

18%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

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...

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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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Control-M?

It is a little bit expensive.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Temporal?

Temporal OSS is expensive in infrastructure, but it brings back the reliability that companies need.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Temporal?

The actual user interface is still in its early stages. It’s very basic. Users don’t really have a complex permission model yet. Users don’t really have ways to automate things like, for example, p...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Temporal?

We [my company] use it to run a large workload. We have a set of security scans we want to perform, and we distribute them over a full day, that’s over 24 hours. We use it to orchestrate all the st...

See all answers

Comparisons

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Control-M

Compared 16% of the time

Automic Automation vs Control-M

Compared 9% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs Control-M

Compared 7% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Control-M

Compared 6% of the time

Stonebranch vs Control-M

Compared 5% of the time

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Camunda vs Temporal

Compared 49% of the time

Flowable vs Temporal

Compared 16% of the time

Orkes vs Temporal

Compared 14% of the time

Pega Platform vs Temporal

Compared 5% of the time

ServiceNow Orchestration vs Temporal

Compared 4% of the time

More Temporal Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Control-M

April 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Temporal

April 2025

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Also Known As

Control M

No data available

Overview

Control-M is used for enterprise workload automation, orchestrating finance, retail, healthcare, and supply chain processes. It handles batch job scheduling, managed file transfers, cloud integrations, and compliance auditing across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments.

Organizations leverage Control-M to efficiently monitor and manage business-critical processes like payroll, HR, SAP, Informatica, and database tasks. It enhances visibility, security, and error resolution. Automating and optimizing workflows in data centers, AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, Control-M supports diverse technological environments. The platform's robust capabilities make it suitable for effective centralized management of applications and data pipelines, ensuring enhanced collaboration and scalability.

What are Control-M's most important features?

Integration capabilities: Seamlessly integrates with various systems
Automation API: Facilitates automation through APIs
Managed File Transfer: Simplifies secure file transfers
GUI console: Intuitive graphical user interface
Role-based administration: Provides access control
Single-pane view: Centralized monitoring dashboard
Scheduling options: Flexible job scheduling
Workflow orchestration: Coordinates complex workflows
Reporting: Generates insightful reports
Monitoring: Tracks and manages tasks
Forecasting: Predicts future workloads
Self-service portal: Empowers users with self-service tools
Plugins: Extends functionality through additional plugins

What are the benefits or ROI of using Control-M?

Enhanced visibility: Centralized view of all processes
Ease of use: User-friendly interface
Error reduction: Minimizes manual errors
Improved collaboration: Facilitates teamwork
Scalability: Supports growth and scale
Support: Comprehensive customer support

Control-M is implemented in industries like finance to handle payroll and HR tasks, in retail for inventory management and supply chain processes, and in healthcare for compliance auditing and patient data processing. Organizations benefit from streamlined workflows and automated processes across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, ensuring efficient and secure operations.

BMC

Temporal automates and manages workflows efficiently, offering resilience in distributed systems with features like retry and fault tolerance. Its capabilities in handling complex workflows and integrating with programming languages make it a valuable tool for managing diverse business logic.

Temporal excels in workflow orchestration, automating tasks across multiple platforms, and ensuring durability in asynchronous operations. It supports long-running workflows and simplifies handling distributed transactions, reducing boilerplate code. Temporal is noted for its durable execution and built-in retry policies, enhancing resilience. Despite its complexity and steep learning curve, it is valued for its integration with popular programming languages and relatively easy setup process, though it requires improvements in user-friendly features, documentation, community support, and security.

What are Temporal's key features?

Automation and Efficient Management: Automatically handles workflows without manual intervention.
Resilience and Fault Tolerance: Features built-in retry policies for increased reliability.
Integration: Supports various programming languages, easing development.
Distributed Transactions: Simplifies complex transaction handling with reduced boilerplate code.
Durable Execution: Ensures long-running workflows are reliably managed.

What benefits or ROI should users evaluate?

Scalability and Reliability: Enhances IT environments through robust workflow management.
Ease of Integration: Supports seamless multi-platform automation.
Improved Operational Efficiency: Reduces need for extensive coding, streamlining processes.
Durability and Fault Tolerance: Provides reliable asynchronous operations.

Temporal is implemented in sectors requiring robust workflow orchestration, such as managing data pipelines, API integration, and scheduling tasks. Organizations in a Kubernetes environment leverage it for its scalability and infrastructure management capabilities, securing integrations and enhancing reliability across IT operations.

Temporal Technologies

Sample Customers

CARFAX, Tampa General Hospital, Navistar, Amadeus, Raymond James, Railinc

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Control-M vs. Temporal

April 2025

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