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 9.0, 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 118 Control-M reviews

4,177 Views
1,571 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Temporal

Read 17 Temporal reviews

901 Views
696 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Control-M

Temporal

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Control-M vs. Temporal

January 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

118

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 initial setup is largely straightforward."

"We can set up automated email notifications to the programmers or the whole team for a particular job. It helps save time because we're not consistently looking at the job to see if it has ended or failed."

"The scheduling and management were really good. Monitoring was also better. It had a good visual presentation. It showed me charts and all such things. It was really good on that side."

"It integrates seamlessly with other tools within our ecosystem."

"It gives us the ability to have end-to-end workflows, no matter where they're running."

"Because it's a tool which allows us to do scheduled work, it allows for notifications when jobs aren't running within that scheduled time frame. This improves the opportunity to meet SLAs."

"Monitoring is a valuable aspect of it. The monitoring tool is very good, and it is easy for expert and entry level users to use on a short notice."

"Our data transfers have improved using Control-M processes, e.g., our monthly batches. When we used to do things manually, like copying files and reports, we used to take three to four days to complete a batch. However, with the automated file transfers and report sharing, we have been able to complete a batch within two and a half days and our reports are on time to users. So, 30% to 40% of the execution time has been saved."

More Control-M pros

"The initial setup is easy."

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

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

"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."

"The tool is easy for a beginner to learn. The documentation covers activities, workflows, workers, servers, and more. While more examples could be beneficial, the existing resources are good enough to help you get started. There are also YouTube videos available that can provide additional context. The Slack community for Temporal is very active and helpful, similar to Stack Overflow, where you can find answers to a wide range of questions from basic to advanced levels. If you have a unique question, the community is responsive and provides knowledgeable support."

"Temporal allows retryability for different workflows whenever they fail. It helps ensure idempotence and that things get done."

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

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

More Temporal pros

Cons

"The high availability that comes from BMC with its supplied Postgres database is very limited. Even using your customer-supplied Postgres database is problematic. We have engaged with them regarding this, but it is difficult. My company doesn't want to do this and BMC doesn't want to do that. We just need to find some middle ground to get the proper high availability. We're also moving away, like the rest of the world, from the more expensive offerings, like Oracle. We are trying to use Postgres, which is free. The stability is good. It is just that the high availability configuration is not ideal. It could be better."

"While they have a very good reporting facility, the reports that I'm asked to produce, a lot of times aren't necessarily what we need."

"There are numerous boxes to tick and things to check to ensure everything is in order before the upgrade happens. The process is very long"

"Control-M doesn't have any dynamic reporting facilities or features."

"Reporting in Control-M could use improvement."

"We would recommend modernizing the look and feel of Control-M. They also need to move towards more self-service and development in their environment. It's very antiquated."

"Everybody's biggest gripe is the reporting capability option. It is a gripe because there is a lot of information in Control-M, but the solution doesn't have a good reporting tool to extract that information. Now, if you want all that information, you need to rely on another third-party BI tool to extract the information out of Control-M."

"The main area that could be improved would be documentation, just like every other software product out there!"

More Control-M cons

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

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

"Temporal's debugging is a bit complex."

"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."

"Sometimes it scales kind of badly, but it depends on the process of our products."

"While the tool can be a bit daunting initially, especially if you're not used to async programming models, it's generally a pleasure. There's always room for improvement, though. I've noticed some limitations with the .NET SDK regarding dynamic workflows, but this might have been improved in recent versions. Overall, I think Temporal could be more open about implementing features in a more—.NET-friendly way, especially in how you add workers and clients."

More Temporal cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"BMC does NOT have a great licensing model from my perspective."

"We have a license till 2024. We are good and satisfied with it."

"Pricing varies depending on which components and modules you are using."

"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."

"Cost-wise, it is good."

"We have a five-year contract with task-based licensing."

"You must accept that BMC licensing can be very confusing. No one can easily understand how they calculate things, whether it is user-based, job-based, or server-based. The calculation is quite tough. How BMC calculates licensing is not easily available anywhere."

"BMC's price is based on the number of jobs."

More Control-M pricing and cost advice

"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 a free, open-source tool."

"It is worth the price."

"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

29%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

30%

Computer Software Company

16%

Retailer

12%

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...

See all answers

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?

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

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 19% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs Control-M

Compared 9% of the time

Automic Automation vs Control-M

Compared 8% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Control-M

Compared 6% of the time

Rocket Zena vs Control-M

Compared 5% of the time

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Camunda vs Temporal

Compared 52% of the time

Flowable vs Temporal

Compared 15% of the time

Orkes vs Temporal

Compared 15% of the time

Pega Platform vs Temporal

Compared 5% of the time

ServiceNow Orchestration vs Temporal

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Control-M

January 2025

Download Control-M product report

Buyer's Guide

Temporal

December 2024

Download Temporal product report

Also Known As

Control M

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Learn More

BMC

Temporal Technologies

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.

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.

Sample Customers

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

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Buyer's Guide

Control-M vs. Temporal

January 2025

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