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 6.0% mindshare in WA, compared to SMA Technologies’s 1.7% 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 October 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of IBM Workload Automation is 6.0%, down from 8.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpCon is 1.7%, 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	1.7%
IBM Workload Automation	6.0%
Other	92.3%

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

"The initial setup is easy."

"Jobs can be triggered in multiple nodes."

"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 most valuable feature of IBM Workload Automation is its holistic view, which helps me find technical solutions quickly. For instance, if a customer has an issue completing their workload within a specific time frame, the tool provides enough information to identify and resolve the issue. One of the main challenges is dealing with data infrastructure problems and pending updates. Workload Automation helps me leverage current AI capabilities to recommend architectural updates to avoid these issues. It also allows me to balance CPU usage effectively, ensuring service level agreements are met. The interface is user-friendly and facilitates this process smoothly."

"This solution has a request feature where users can request the added features they need to have developed. Based on client voting for those features, these are developed and released."

"IBM Workload Automation provides good performance and monitoring."

More IBM Workload Automation pros

"The biggest thing that we like about OpCon is how easy it is to trust it once we put the automation in place. Once we put whatever that job or schedule is, if we have the proper settings and conditions and we understand the components of OpCon in itself, we can go from a manual process to an automated process. We allow our team to get time to rest and have time to handle other things."

"The biggest example in which OpCon has improved my organization is that we have to download and process files from the federal reserve several times a day. If we don't do it in a certain timeframe, we can be penalized. It's the fact that we can download these files, process them, get our accounting teams the information they need to work the exceptions that is one of the most important roles."

"There's also a self-service solution manager... that allows us to enable staff to run complex automation tasks by clicking a button and entering some information. They don't have to have access to the OpCon environment to kick off those kinds of events."

"The most valuable feature is the automation in general."

"The ability to chain jobs together allows us to create complex interdependencies between our jobs, and the integration into our core system is important because it allows us, through an automated system, to do a huge number of things that used to be done manually."

"It has also helped to streamline our operations. We contract out our collection department so they are no longer housed on our system. They're housed on another platform. OpCon is able to not only pull in our data, but it also, on a daily basis, updates that third-party."

"I have been pleased with the support that we can get from the European partners. I think they are very good. All the time, when we have a question, they have an answer. It is very reassuring to have that support every day. Then, you can concentrate on your job and OpCon is just there to work. For us, it's perfect."

"Auto-scheduling is the most valuable feature. We have the ability to schedule [batch jobs on our Unisys mainframes] seven days in advance, so we know exactly how we're running every night."

More OpCon pros

Cons

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

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

"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."

"To improve IBM Workload Automation, I suggest enhancing automation features further, as more automation would be beneficial. The product is good enough for my current customers, but improving technical support and pricing would be welcome. We often need quicker responses and better solutions than we can manage manually. These improvements would make the product even better."

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

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

"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."

"Slow down on the releases a bit. I fully understand that IWA functionality is increasing at an amazing rate, but trying to keep up with the upgrades is rough."

More IBM Workload Automation cons

"It would be great if you could create physically separate "clients," as I call them. I wish I could have a production client and a testing client and that they would be separate."

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

"Usage is a little complex. It's not like you can bring somebody in and they can just use it. They have to be trained... As far as complexity goes, it's right up there."

"There is one feature that has been a difficult problem, and right now, OpCon can't do it. I'm not sure if it should be expected to, but we have tried to get it to where it could start a process on an external database."

"It was hard to automate in the beginning because there were a lot of concepts. I had to learn a lot of things, as I never used such a software before. I learned a lot of the concepts and ideas behind it in the beginning."

"The FICS integration is a little bit clunky. We've had some tickets with their support team, and sometimes they couldn't figure it out, but that probably has more to do with FICS than with OpCon."

"It's not something you can just quickly grab, try, run, and play with. You have to get the knowledge and train yourself. It was easy for me, but I also took the time to throw myself into it. There is a learning curve to a certain extent. You have to learn the rules."

"A way to select multiple jobs in the UI for a quick change or to hold, release, et cetera, would be nice."

More OpCon cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is affordable."

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

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

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

"The solution is a little bit expensive."

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

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

"It is at a decent price for the work that it does for us."

"While the base pricing is reasonable, the à la carte options are making the overall cost more complicated and potentially problematic."

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

"Yearly, it's around $30,000."

"The cost is based on the number of jobs. You pay for what you use. For us, the support cost is between €20,000 and €30,000 per year. It's too expensive."

"On a yearly basis our cost is between $25,000 and $30,000."

"This solution is certainly not the cheapest, but we win in time."

"We currently renewed with one of their new technology bundles. It's around $36,000 annually. We run a query of our SQL in our SQL database to see how many jobs we run. They're charging us per usage and whatever add-ons you want to use with OpCon."

More OpCon pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

29%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Retailer

Computer Software Company

45%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Non Profit

Government

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 22% of the time

HCL Workload Automation vs IBM Workload Automation

Compared 15% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs IBM Workload Automation

Compared 12% 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 28% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs OpCon

Compared 12% of the time

VisualCron vs OpCon

Compared 10% of the time

UiPath Platform vs OpCon

Compared 7% of the time

Tidal by Redwood vs OpCon

Compared 6% 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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