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Endevor vs Gen 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Endevor
Ranking in Mainframe Application Development
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Software Configuration Management (1st)
Gen
Ranking in Mainframe Application Development
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Mainframe Application Development category, the mindshare of Endevor is 5.4%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Gen is 6.4%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mainframe Application Development
 

Featured Reviews

Efrén Yanez - PeerSpot reviewer
Good analysis and integrations with helpful automation
If I had to comment on an area of ​​improvement or something new in the next or future version, I would like to see AI-assisted coding and impact analysis for mainframes. It is actually a fairly complete product. It is robust with a solid history and is always growing in functionality. It has a high level of maturity, which benefits the users and the administrators. This tool, with its group of options, facilitates the integration with other business processes, which allows you to take advantage of other solutions by incorporating automatic functions.
IR
Full packets enable software implementation on the mainframe and client sides
I rate it eight out of 10. It's just very powerful tool, very powerful product to use. Nowadays, there are a couple of mainframe companies, using mainframe products, so to be honest, I'm not recommending it. Of course, if you have mainframe and you have do something in the mainframe that’s different.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It standardizes the processing of all the development. Everything gets produced in a constant and consistent manner."
"The most valuable feature of Endevor is the software controller."
"The developers can very easily see what has changed on a particular piece of source code or a program, and others can look at that as well so they can coordinate their changes. It makes it much easier to promote a piece of code up to production."
"We have been able to replicate entire SDLCs for new clients and have them loaded and ready to use Endevor in as little as one week. This was possible with the use of Endevor variables within the processors, so that a single processor was able to function for multiple systems across the entire SDLC."
"Endevor is easy to use."
"We have used it for years and never had any real issues with it."
"The most valuable feature of Endevor is customization and ease of use."
"The flexibility, because I know a lot of the competition pigeonholes you into definitions and character limitations, and Endevor is wide open."
"Full packets, enable you to develop software and systems using these packets, and implement software on the mainframe side and the client side. You can use the same packets, so it's very powerful."
"CA Gen has provided us web development capability."
"You can easily manage the code, and you can easily find other changes, other group changes, other models, other components."
 

Cons

"The scalability of Endevor could improve."
"Sometimes finding errors and output can be difficult because it spits out so many messages that it is hard to figure out which ones are the ones you need to look at and what flow did it actually take through the processor."
"One feature of Endevor is its Backout feature. If there is a problem, it can back out the executables. The only problem with that is that it will not back out the source in Endevor. For example, you can do a back out and it will back out the executable to the previous version, but it doesn't back out the source version in Endevor. It would make it much better if when you did a back out of Endevor, it would back out both the source and the executable and keep them in sync."
"The main challenges are its limited interface and the complexity of the customization."
"The initial setup can be less complex and has room for improvement."
"Learning the tool for the first time was extremely difficult, and it could be because of all the other processes we had around it. But knowing you can do these things in batch, you can do things in the foreground or online mode, and then these, you have to have a package for. There are these rules, and some of the concepts inside the tool are not clear, like what is the CCID? Why do I have to have one? What is that? And how is it used? As a developer, it's not important to me - I don't know what a CCID is, and I don't care - but apparently it's important to someone."
"There should be better integration between CA Endevor Software Change Manager and Zowe."
"There are a lot of screens in it. The process for moving out my other solutions, it could be more convenient. There are a lot of steps to go through and a lot of screens to go through to get it accomplished."
"The product needs to be well marketed, then adopted. I am not seeing many customers using the product."
"I cannot use DB2 specifications, DB2 comments, easily."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing is fairly simple, you don't need multiple licenses."
"It's worth the value. The pricing is fairly good, justifiable for the return on investment."
"It's competitively priced and, as far as I know, it's just an enterprise license. We have found it is worth the money."
"The product is expensive."
"The solution is very expensive."
"Just make sure if you are going to license, ensure you license the right features.​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
34%
Insurance Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Endevor?
The product’s implementation process is complicated and restrictive. It is difficult to find file programs and use a different tool for the setup as the compilation process is all locked up, at lea...
What is your primary use case for Endevor?
We use the product as a source manager and program manager. It helps in controlling the mainframe code and performing data migrations.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

CA Endevor Software Change Manager, Endevor Software Change Manager, CA Software Change Manager for Mainframe, CA Endevor SCM
CA Gen
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blue Hill Data Services Inc.
Global bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Endevor vs. Gen and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.