Control-M vs VisualCron comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Control-M and VisualCron based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Managed File Transfer (MFT) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Control-M vs. VisualCron Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Ability to handle files remotely through the advanced file transfer feature.""We can tie together all the workloads across the estate and make the whole process reactive to events.""You can let users access the system and manage jobs: self-service.""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.""The Automation API has opened up a world of possibilities for us, including the ability to create workflows on-demand using traditional DevOps tools.""BIM is helpful because we do not miss any SLAs, as we get to know the issue well in advance. It is the topmost service that has helped us provide better solutions for the business.""The File Watcher utility, cyclic jobs, and email alert notification are valuable.""It is very stable. We hardly get calls in respect to issues on Control-M, particularly on version 9.0.19."

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"I love VisualCron because we previously spent a lot of time writing Power switches to connect to SQL Server. VisualCron makes it easier to execute services or connect to FileZilla by only adding the credentials to the master credentials stored in the solution.""VisualCron is a very powerful program to automate different steps in your business processes. We use it to automate replacing files and inform departments about the replacement.""What I found most beneficial from VisualCron is that you can directly connect it with different databases, user accounts, and credentials. You can run queries from one machine to another using the credentials, unlike PowerShell, that's run by the machine itself. With VisualCron, you can directly ask other machines and run requests through user credentials. Suppose you have an AWS or Azure environment. In that case, you can maintain the connection between on-premises and cloud-based machines, which is the type of setup in the organization I'm working for. You can directly call some of the services via VisualCron on your local on-premises machine, and I found that an excellent feature of the tool.""What I like about VisualCron is that like its name, it's a very visual tool. In my previous company, there were a lot of scripts for all kinds of services, and through VisualCron, you get to group all flows and get a nice visual overview. VisualCron also has an alerting feature, so you receive alerts from it. VisualCron makes everything clearer and easier to maintain. Every other solution that I was looking for almost always needed a programmer, but with VisualCron, you can do what you need to do without programming skills, so this is another valuable feature of the tool.""We don't have to do any coding. We just plug and play and it works.""It helped us reduce manual steps.""'ve only had a few cases where I've had to request support in the past 12 years of use, but the support response time and resolution were was extremely quick.""The most valuable feature of VisualCron is its ability to schedule interactive jobs so that you can have interdependencies within the job and interdependencies of a job on another job, and so on."

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Cons
"I think it's slightly expensive but at the same time it's a good product.""The unifying features between Control-M for different platforms needs improvement. The scheduling options on the Control-M mainframe jobs are different than they are on our Linux server. There are a few differences here and there.""The next major release needs to focus on the lightweight web client.""Advanced File Transfer (AFT) has limitations that cause us to use a bit more licensing than we feel is appropriate.""We've also had a few database bugs within our organization. I think we are migrating to OpenJDK rather than just regular Java and that has since shown some issues with our Control-M instance, timing out and causing our jobs to stop running. We are still working with BMC to fine-tune that and get that resolved.""They can improve their interface.""Control-M reporting isn't that good. It is very limited. We would like the ability to create our own reports as well as the ability to publish dashboards in the cloud, which would help us. Improved reporting will help us determine statuses and get the answers that we need. However, I personally think BMC is not focusing on the reporting. I have even visited the BMC office in India, and asked, "Why haven't you improved the reporting?"""The stability could be improved. I ran into an issue with a recent Control-M patch. The environment would become unstable if security ports were scanned. This is an area they need to improve on, but ultimately it's a relatively small improvement."

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"VisualCron's command console is a little bit difficult to understand and needs to improve.""I would like for VisualCron to expand audit log to show who changed job variables that are initialized per job run.""VisualCron seems to operate like an efficient machine when it comes to improvements and enhancements and new features. I always appreciate the quick response I get when bringing up an issue or coming up with suggestions. I've mentioned before that it would be great to see a move away from SQLCE and XML configuration files.""The only problem I face when I use the tool is that it doesn't contain much documentation or it doesn't have many video tutorials on its features.""Our suggestion to make it better and more manageable in terms of GDPR: Implement it in a very partnership way.""An area for improvement in VisualCron is its cluttered interface. It isn't always easy to find all functionalities, so what VisualCron needs is a user interface expert who can improve the interface. There's a learning curve in terms of finding what you need from the interface of VisualCron. The technical support for VisualCron also needs improvement in terms of response time. Currently, there's no live support or hotline you can call to get quick answers, so this is what I'd like to see in the next version of VisualCron. A less cluttered and more streamlined interface, where you don't need to hunt for some of the features, is also what I'd like to see in the next VisualCron update.""I want to improve the UI in VisualCron, as it's not as user-friendly, particularly when setting up the task scheduler. If you're familiar with the tool, then no problem, but if not, you'll have a problem typing text because sometimes, the cursor points to other places, so there's an issue with text box alignment in VisualCron. That was painful for me when I was just a VisualCron novice, but when you become used to it, there won't be a problem.""VisualCron is software, and you will experience performance degradation when you scale up. VisualCron takes too much memory or CPU power. We have to increase the hardware resources of a specific server or system."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Compare to other tools Pricing and licensing was more. It should be decrease."
  • "BMC does NOT have a great licensing model from my perspective."
  • "we are more looking for a better cost/license/performance model because BMC, while we could say it's the best, is also the most expensive. That is what we are probably most annoyed with. We are paying something like €1,000,000 over three years for having 4,000 jobs running. That's expensive."
  • "We have account based licensing. There are two or three types of licensing. One of them is based on the number of jobs, so we a license close to 4,000 jobs per day. The cost is based on the different modules, which we buy from them. If we a buy a hardware module, which we are presently using and integrating, that is an additional cost, but I'm not sure of the amount. Each module comes with a different cost."
  • "As we increase the number of tasks or jobs on the system, there are concerns about cost."
  • "We have a five-year contract with task-based licensing."
  • "This product saves hours in a day based on my experience working here versus other companies with manually operations."
  • "It works on task-based licensing."
  • More Control-M Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "ROI is 95 percent."
  • "We are fine with a rather cheap setup. Licensing with VisualCron is fair. You have a simple one-year licence in different sizes. There isn't a licensing jungle with hundreds of options and opt-ins."
  • "The pricing is extremely fair, and because of that I recommend purchasing multiple instances to split out the processing load across multiple application servers."
  • "ROI is one month."
  • "VisualCron is correctly priced because it wasn't very cheap, and it wasn't overly expensive, so the price for it was set correctly. When my previous company bought VisualCron, it was €800 per server per year. On a scale of one to five, I would rate the pricing for VisualCron a five because it was just right. The tool was affordable, and it has one of the most competitive pricing in the market."
  • More VisualCron Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:In Helix Control-M, we have the automation API that allows us to customize and do integrations easily in any script, such as Java or Python. It is all integrated within the integration API.
    Top Answer:It is not bad. The company can afford it, and it pays for itself. We have those jobs running automatically.
    Top Answer:The most valuable feature of VisualCron is its ability to schedule interactive jobs so that you can have interdependencies within the job and interdependencies of a job on another job, and so on.
    Top Answer:The organization is paying for the VisualCron license, so I'm not aware of the current pricing for the tool.
    Top Answer:VisualCron's command console is a little bit difficult to understand and needs to improve.
    Ranking
    Views
    2,238
    Comparisons
    829
    Reviews
    20
    Average Words per Review
    1,502
    Rating
    9.1
    Views
    717
    Comparisons
    409
    Reviews
    5
    Average Words per Review
    750
    Rating
    8.0
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Control M
    Learn More
    Overview

    Control-M simplifies application and data workflow orchestration on premises or as a service. It makes it easy to build, define, schedule, manage, and monitor production workflows, ensuring visibility, reliability, and improving SLAs.

    • Accelerate new business applications into production—by embedding workflow orchestration into your CI/CD pipeline
    • Scale Dev and Ops collaboration, with a Jobs-as-Code approach
    • Simplify workflows across hybrid and multi-cloud environments with AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform integrations
    • Deliver data-driven outcomes faster, managing big data workflows in a scalable way
    • Take control of your file transfer operations with integrated, intelligent file movement and visibility

    VisualCron combines many features into one product. Through scheduling you can set your Jobs to run on a specific time or event. The Tasks in each Job automate scripts and eliminate human errors. Through various Tasks you can integrate different systems through file transfer and conversion.

    Sample Customers
    CARFAX, Tampa General Hospital, Navistar, Amadeus, Raymond James, Railinc
    7 Eleven, ABB Sécheron SA, Adobe Systems Incorporated, Amazon Europe Core, Apple, Assa Abloy, Aston Martin, Banco Santander, BMW (Australia)
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm34%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Retailer9%
    Healthcare Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm29%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Insurance Company7%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    REVIEWERS
    Logistics Company14%
    Pharma/Biotech Company14%
    Recruiting/Hr Firm14%
    University14%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Computer Software Company17%
    Healthcare Company7%
    Insurance Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business11%
    Midsize Enterprise9%
    Large Enterprise80%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise9%
    Large Enterprise76%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise56%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise57%
    Buyer's Guide
    Control-M vs. VisualCron
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Control-M vs. VisualCron and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Control-M is ranked 2nd in Managed File Transfer (MFT) with 109 reviews while VisualCron is ranked 10th in Managed File Transfer (MFT) with 10 reviews. Control-M is rated 8.8, while VisualCron is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of Control-M writes "We have seen quicker file transfers with more visibility and stability". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VisualCron writes "It's user-friendly, and I didn't need long to understand the process". Control-M is most compared with AutoSys Workload Automation, IBM Workload Automation, Rocket Zena, ESP Workload Automation Intelligence and Automic Workload Automation, whereas VisualCron is most compared with Microsoft Power Automate, AutoSys Workload Automation, UiPath, ActiveBatch by Redwood and Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT. See our Control-M vs. VisualCron report.

    See our list of best Managed File Transfer (MFT) vendors and best Workload Automation vendors.

    We monitor all Managed File Transfer (MFT) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.