IBM Workload Automation vs OpCon comparison

IBM and SMA Technologies are both solutions in the Workload Automation category. IBM is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.0, while SMA Technologies is ranked #7 with an average rating of 9.1. IBM holds a 5.7% mindshare in WA, compared to SMA Technologies’s 1.8% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of SMA Technologies users who would recommend it.

IBM Workload Automation

Read 33 IBM Workload Automation reviews

3,700 Views
3,404 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

OpCon

Read 59 OpCon reviews

1,883 Views
1,695 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

IBM Workload Automation

OpCon

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

We performed a comparison between IBM Workload Automation and OpCon based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

Features: IBM Workload Automation and OpCon are both highly regarded for their unique strengths. IBM Workload Automation stands out for its impressive capability to initiate tasks across multiple nodes and pre-plan them. OpCon is recognized for its adaptability, seamless integration capabilities, self-service functionality, and ability to automate manual tasks.

IBM Workload Automation could benefit from enhancements in performance, navigation, job dependencies, daily schedule refreshes, stability, reporting visibility, and integration with new technologies. OpCon could be improved in terms of its web-based interface, upgrading process, logs, programming and configuration, accessibility through a mobile app, self-service functionality, failover, licensing, support, and UI features.

Service and Support: IBM Workload Automation's customer service is praised for its lab advocacy program, which provides thorough code support. However, customers may face difficulties in pinpointing the root cause of certain problems. OpCon's customer service and support have garnered positive feedback. Customers describe their technical support team as exceptional and commend their prompt responses and efficient solutions.

Ease of Deployment: The setup process for IBM Workload Automation can be difficult for those who are not familiar with IBM tools or application development. OpCon's setup can be complicated. Close collaboration with SMA and receiving training is necessary, however, once acquainted with the system, it becomes more manageable.

Pricing: IBM Workload Automation's setup cost is dependent on the customer's contract and the number of agents installed. OpCon offers a tiered pricing model that includes previously purchased add-ons. Although OpCon is recognized as an expensive and intricate solution, it offers good value for the price.

ROI: IBM Workload Automation focuses on optimizing workload scheduling processes. Users have found it beneficial for automating and streamlining tasks, resulting in time savings and improved efficiency. OpCon has also demonstrated significant advantages in terms of ROI. It excels in automating tasks, which saves time and also contributes to increased productivity.

Comparison Results: OpCon emerges as the preferred choice when compared to IBM Workload Automation. OpCon stands out for its adaptability, ability to integrate with other systems and self-service functionalities. Users appreciate the ability to automate tasks according to their own requirements, leading to a decrease in complexity and an increase in productivity.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Workload Automation vs. OpCon Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Workload Automation vs. OpCon

September 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

IBM Workload Automation

Ranking in Workload Automation

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

OpCon

Ranking in Workload Automation

7th

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of IBM Workload Automation is 5.7%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpCon is 1.8%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
OpCon	1.8%
IBM Workload Automation	5.7%
Other	92.5%

Workload Automation

Featured Reviews

Ilhami Arikan

Cloud Services Automation Technologies Manager at Garanti Teknoloji

With an easy setup phase in place, agent-based installation can be done in minutes

Sometimes we have issues with the solution's stability. So, stability can be improved. Reporting and visibility of the solution need improvement. These days, we need more visibility. We need to access the logs and databases easily. You need to keep track of the running number of logs, like which ones are executed, completed, etc. So if there would be a good reporting dashboard, then it would be good. There's room for improvement in the solution since it is a challenging thing when we want to use the solution's technology with our new technologies. For example, if we need to use TWS on our OpenShift platform, the solution's API is not capable enough. So the product itself needs to be aligned with new technologies.

Read full review

Jose Rivera Hernandez

Senior VP of Technology at Triangle Credit Union

Helps automate all kinds of jobs and it's worth the price because it saves a lot of time and money

One problem that I had with them when we got SMA Technologies is that sometimes the jobs fail, but they automatically restart. SMA Technologies automatically gets a notification that the job has failed, and they restart it on their end, so now, we have the job restarting twice. There were times when we came into the office in the morning, and we had two files because the job ran twice. I do not know if the system can prevent a job from running the second time. If a job has run successfully, or it is running, it should not run again.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The DWC, when configured correctly, is a great GUI tool to provide Self-Service Scheduling capabilities to the user community."

"I recommend IBM Workload Automation as it's a well-established and stable product."

"Technical support from IBM is very good."

"The solution helps automate processes so that the workload can be handled on a daily basis."

"The initial setup is easy."

"It offers features like MDM and a Windows workstation, although there are some technical dependencies. It is more user-friendly and also includes failover and failback capabilities. While both systems offer high availability, Control-M's high availability is superior to AWS's."

"The technical support is great, the product is easy-to-use, and it is stable."

"The project we worked on involved the running of nearly 24,000 job instances in a single day, so I would say that the solution is stable."

More IBM Workload Automation pros

"File Watcher can run jobs when files are made available in a folder."

"The stability of this solution is awesome. It's the only product I've ever seen that you can actually build to fix itself if it has a problem. You'll build something and, if you find an issue, you can say, 'Hey, if this happens again, do this to correct it.'"

"Previously, we would receive a file from a vendor, then we would have to go through and make changes to individual accounts in our core system. There are probably between 10 to 20 accounts any given week. It probably took around five minutes for it to run through the report and make all the changes, and that was if there was nothing complicated with all very straightforward changes. Now, that is done in 30 seconds."

"I rate OpCon support 10 out of 10. I've never had a problem with them. I've always been able to get answers quickly and always seem to find a knowledgeable person to assist with any questions."

"Reliability is always important, and the reliability of the system is outstanding."

"Often times there are criteria that cannot be determined by the system, which allows a human to make the determination and use the Self-Service Solution Manager to trigger a job."

"Last year, we added a second environment and the OpCon Deploy product. This has allowed us to build a testing environment. This has been a great addition for us as we can work through our workflows without disrupting our production environment."

"It makes everything simpler. Once OpCon is in, it just repeats itself day after day. We don't have to worry about whether a process will be missed. It will run every single time. We are not dropping jobs or missing stuff. When you have multiple institutions, it's very easy to miss jobs. You get on a roll, start doing things, and then forget somebody. With OpCon, everything is done."

More OpCon pros

Cons

"This solution does have bugs and could be improved in this regard. However, these bugs are resolved relatively quickly."

"IBM Workload Automation could be improved by reducing its cost. The maintenance charges have increased significantly, and a lower cost would be beneficial."

"The solution's installation could be improved because the customers have to do it all the time."

"The solution should offer more free technical sessions to customers so that they can gain more experience or learn more about how to use it."

"It is missing some features and can improve in areas where the competition is somewhat better like linking job dependencies."

"IBM needs to move away from its native terminology and adopt a more cloud-centric approach."

"The schedule refreshes daily and that's a challenge for us."

"There should be more custom documentation, specifically around Java APIs. There should also be more training. In terms of features, we are currently using only 50% of its features. We don't use all features that are available, but there is always room for improvement in all of the tools."

More IBM Workload Automation cons

"The logs are a little daunting to look at the first few times, however, as you begin to understand what you're looking at, it becomes easier."

"We have not explored the possibility, but one of the areas for improvement would be more integration into Active Directory, to where it could do the creation of user accounts and the additional work to integrate third-party systems into payroll systems."

"The only thing that we have been talking about with the vendor is the Solution Manager tool that we have. It is a great tool. It is getting replaced by another tool that is probably called Enterprise Manager. We just had a few complaints about it. The navigation of that new tool is a little bit more arbitrary than what we have been used to."

"I don't really think anything needs to be improved within the functionality. The only struggle I had, when I first started using it, is that it depends a lot on the command line and I didn't have that experience. So more built-in, basic commands or more education on commands would be good."

"More functionality within self-service would be greatly appreciated."

"We would like a display of the created date, created by, and last modified date, as well as modified by."

"Enterprise Manager is a little clunky which I know they're addressing in the solution's manager."

"Do your first install, your first upgrade, with SMA. It's simple, it's as per the manual, as per the training, but you need that little bit of confidence."

More OpCon cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is affordable."

"The contract is with the customer with whom we are working, so IBM is not directly involved in this."

"The solution is a little bit expensive."

"To my knowledge, IWA is the only WLA product that will provide "parallel tracking" capability to assist in upgrading from one platform to IWA."

"It is about one-third of the cost of a controller."

"We transitioned from a server license to per job license, and that saved us a lot money."

"Pricing depends on the number of agents that you install."

"Scaling is pricey."

"Annually, we pay $29,000. This is for a blanket policy that covers everything, like licensing and support."

"Our annual maintenance costs are $45,000. The initial cost is separate."

"It used to be per machine, so we had X number of devices licensed. Now it's not. If we had a lot of machines, the new license might've decreased the cost. Unfortunately, we didn't see the same gains."

"Cost depends on your environment. We are doing stuff now with failover and recovery, so we have boosted our costs."

"The pricing is over $100,000 for our credit union and I believe it's $89,000 for our clients, in total, annually."

"The cost is just shy of $20,000. That's for two licenses annually, production, and failover. It is a pricey solution. Comparatively speaking, you can certainly find schedulers which are cheaper. In some cases, you can find ones that are free or use free solutions. However, OpCon is by far the superior quality product, and you pay for that. This also has a cost savings associated with an FTE, so you can more than outweigh the cost of the solution if you were to reduce the staff that you have onsite. Plus, this means that you don't need to have someone during irregular hours."

"Our license is for 1000 jobs. Including support, the license and upgrades are 2000 euros a month."

More OpCon pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

28%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Retailer

Computer Software Company

45%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

Non Profit

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	29

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	29
Large Enterprise	19

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Workload Automation?

IBM Workload Automation could be improved by reducing its cost. The maintenance charges have increased significantly, and a lower cost would be beneficial.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Workload Automation?

We use IBM Workload Automation ( /products/ibm-workload-automation-reviews ) as a scheduler. We install agents on the application servers and use scheduling to trigger jobs on other servers. Our us...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering IBM Workload Automation?

I recommend IBM Workload Automation as it's a well-established and stable product. However, the cost is a concern. The product features a master-slave setup that ensures continuity during failures....

See all answers

What do you like most about OpCon?

My favorite feature is the dashboard feature, which shows jobs that are running, and completed, any failures, and provides dashboard reporting.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpCon?

I am the one who signs the contract. In the beginning, when I started working here, it seemed very expensive, but after I learned everything that it does, I found it worth the price. I would recomm...

See all answers

What needs improvement with OpCon?

See all answers

Comparisons

Control-M vs IBM Workload Automation

Compared 21% of the time

HCL Workload Automation vs IBM Workload Automation

Compared 15% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs IBM Workload Automation

Compared 11% of the time

Automic Automation vs IBM Workload Automation

Compared 7% of the time

Stonebranch vs IBM Workload Automation

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM Workload Automation Competitors

Control-M vs OpCon

Compared 25% of the time

VisualCron vs OpCon

Compared 10% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs OpCon

Compared 10% of the time

UiPath Platform vs OpCon

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow vs OpCon

Compared 7% of the time

More OpCon Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Workload Automation

October 2025

Download IBM Workload Automation product report

Buyer's Guide

OpCon

October 2025

Download OpCon product report

Also Known As

IBM Tivoli Workload Scheduler, IBM TWS

No data available

Overview

IBM Workload Automation streamlines scheduling with automation and dynamic workload balancing. It integrates multiple platforms, offering efficient management across diverse systems, enhancing operational productivity.

IBM Workload Automation provides end-to-end control in managing tasks across varied platforms, supporting event-based scheduling and real-time updates. Its intuitive GUI allows seamless scripting and monitoring, facilitating integration with applications like SAP and Oracle. The inclusion of FTA agents ensures efficient local dependency management, while offering versatile scheduling options. Its capability to provide a comprehensive view, manage CPU usage, and meet service level agreements positions it as a valuable tool for large-scale operations.

What are the most important features?

Automation with Dependencies: Allows integration of complex tasks and workflows across multiple platforms.
Dynamic Workload Balancing: Ensures optimal resource utilization by adapting to changing demands.
Event-Based Scheduling: Initiates processes based on real-time events for timely task execution.
Real-Time Updates: Keeps users informed with instantaneous status changes and alerts.
User-Friendly GUI: Facilitates custom scripting and monitoring with ease.
Application Integration: Supports seamless connectivity with SAP, Oracle, and more.
FTA Agents: Efficiently handle local dependency resolution for consistent workflow operation.

What benefits or ROI should users look for in reviews?

Operational Efficiency: Streamlines workload management and reduces manual intervention.
Improved Resource Management: Balances CPU usage and avoids bottlenecks.
Enhanced SLA Compliance: Assures adherence to service level agreements, boosting reliability.
Scalability: Supports expanding operations with robust scheduling capabilities.
Integration Flexibility: Adapts to evolving technological landscapes with ease.

Industries such as government, banking, and large enterprises implement IBM Workload Automation for automated scheduling, workload balancing, and batch processing. It assists in migrating from legacy systems to web-based services, integrating with numerous applications, and managing extensive daily job lists. Key functions include offshore management and backend data collection, crucial for effective resource tracking. This adaptability enables organizations to efficiently support operations while scaling workloads as needed.

IBM

OpCon enhances automation with features like auto-scheduling and Corelation KeyStone integration, empowering users with self-service capabilities. Its intuitive interface and flexibility boost productivity, providing reliable automation and efficient file transfers.

OpCon is a powerful automation platform known for streamlining operations through features like auto-scheduling and robust integration capabilities. It facilitates seamless automation, allowing users to execute tasks without direct environment access and simplifies job dependencies. Users benefit from self-service capabilities, which enable easy task execution by non-IT staff, reducing errors and human intervention. With its modern interface, OpCon supports efficient file transfers and integrates effectively with multiple systems, enhancing productivity. While offering significant scalability, OpCon users suggest improvements in web functionality, script-writing, and graphical displays, along with enhancements in user authorization and notification systems. There is also a need for better template management, clearer logging, improved mobile accessibility, and expanded training resources.

What are OpCon's Key Features?

Auto-scheduling: Efficiently automates task scheduling.
Corelation KeyStone Integration: Allows for automation without direct environment access.
Self-service Capabilities: Enables non-IT users to execute tasks with ease.
Modern Interface: Simplifies job dependencies and task management.
File Transfers: Supports secure and efficient file management.
Flexibility: Integrates with diverse systems to boost productivity.

What ROI Can Users Expect?

Increased Productivity: Automation reduces manual task dependency.
Error Reduction: Streamlined processes minimize human intervention.
Scalability: Supports growing business needs effectively.
Time Savings: Frees up resources for strategic initiatives.

OpCon is widely used in industries like financial services, where automation and scheduling tasks are critical. Financial institutions rely on OpCon for core processing tasks, including reporting, automated workflows, and vendor file exchanges. The platform handles high volumes of jobs across platforms, ensuring efficient operations and reducing reliance on manual processes.

SMA Technologies

Sample Customers

Standard Life Group, Banca Popolare di Milano, A*STAR, ArcelorMittal Gent

LOHR, Carnival Cruise Lines, Herbalife, Digital Federal Credit Union, Synergent, Frandsen Bank & Trust

Buyer's Guide

IBM Workload Automation vs. OpCon

September 2025

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