Aspera Managed File Transfer vs Control-M comparison

IBM and BMC are both solutions in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category. IBM is ranked #10 with an average rating of 9.0, while BMC is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.6. IBM holds a 2.8% mindshare in MFT, compared to BMC’s 6.9% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of BMC users who would recommend it.

Aspera Managed File Transfer

Read 4 Aspera Managed File Transfer reviews

937 Views
918 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Control-M

Read 184 Control-M reviews

22,169 Views
3,325 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Aspera Managed File Transfer

Control-M

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 13, 2026

Aspera Managed File Transfer and Control-M are competitors in the enterprise software space. Control-M has the upper hand with comprehensive features, making it a preferred choice even though Aspera offers competitive pricing and support.

Features: Aspera Managed File Transfer is noted for its high-speed file transfers, optimal for large data sets. It’s also beneficial for transferring large files quickly and efficiently. Control-M excels in job scheduling, automated workflows, and cross-platform integration. Its valuable features include the user-friendly interface and application integration, easing complex scheduling tasks.

Room for Improvement: Aspera could enhance user experience by expanding its feature set beyond rapid data transfer. Improved integration capabilities could also benefit its market reach. Control-M might reduce complexity in deployment and simplify initial setup processes, improving user onboarding.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Aspera offers a simple deployment process with strong customer service, allowing a more rapid setup that suits file transfer-focused companies. Control-M’s deployment may be more complex, but its in-depth customer service is praised for addressing intricate integration challenges effectively.

Pricing and ROI: Aspera provides a cost-effective solution with a good return on investment for companies heavily involved in file transfers. Control-M, with potentially higher initial costs, offers significant return on investment through its extensive features, enhancing operational efficiencies in workflow management.

To learn more, read our detailed Aspera Managed File Transfer vs. Control-M Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Aspera Managed File Transfer vs. Control-M

February 2026

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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

Aspera Managed File Transfer

Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)

10th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Control-M

Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)

2nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

184

Ranking in other categories

Process Automation (2nd), Workload Automation (1st), AI IT Support (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category, the mindshare of Aspera Managed File Transfer is 2.8%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Control-M is 6.9%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Managed File Transfer (MFT) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Control-M	6.9%
Aspera Managed File Transfer	2.8%
Other	90.3%

Managed File Transfer (MFT)

Featured Reviews

Balamurugan Kumarasamy

Deputy General Manager Information Technology at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Data transfer improvements with an easy setup and responsive support

There are other products of Aspera which come as add-ons, however, we haven't purchased those, like report generation, since that was not our requirement. The features we needed were included in the basic edition, and that works for us. If there is any failure in the data transfer and it can automatically detect and reinitiate it, that would be great.

Read full review

Raj Pattni

Batch Admin at NBC Universal

Brings data together from multiple platforms and optimizes cross-environment orchestration

The features of Control-M that I like the most include the ability to easily integrate or bring in different platforms into Control-M. For instance, AWS, mainframe, TWS, and something that's running on Autosys can all be brought into Control-M, converted to how Control-M runs it, and then the batch can be executed. This centralizes various applications in Control-M, which doesn't just have to handle batch processes, but also other tasks like reporting on required data. I find this functionality very useful and the setup is impressive, with more advancements yet to come. With Control-M, my company has achieved several measurable improvements since I started. The metrics indicate that the number of failures has dropped, and we have addressed the issue of excessive false alerts that I encountered when I joined. Previously, we received an overwhelming number of alerts daily, but now we manage to maintain that at a normalized level, perhaps around five to fifteen alerts, depending on running core batches and their setup.

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

"Good user interface and ability to set up multiple file transfer jobs."

"We were able to effectively nullify the China firewall since the China firewall was disrupting our data transfer."

"Aspera Managed File Transfer is an optimal solution for customers who want to transfer large files to remote sites with lower bandwidth and in less time."

"We were able to effectively nullify the China firewall since the China firewall was disrupting our data transfer."

"The main feature of Aspera Managed File Transfer is that it's an incredibly fast protocol, you can use all the bandwidth available. If I need to send large amounts of data this is the fastest protocol on the market. I have been using it for some minor projects and it is very powerful."

"The most valuable thing is that it works as advertised. We don't take advantage of some of the features like we should because that's not our primary role and responsibility in the environment that we manage. We only want to make sure that a file gets to where it was supposed to go, or we pull in a file and it comes to us correctly."

"The pressure on our operations and our maintenance has been reduced."

"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."

"The best part about this product is that it has a lot of features. Control-M doesn't limit us and we can use it for a lot of things."

"Promotions between environments, as well as local, mass update, versioning, and self-service."

"It's a user-friendly tool."

"Control-M has enabled new capabilities and business processes that were not possible before."

"The solution supports all file transfers."

More Control-M pros

Cons

"Deployment is complex and it was difficult to get support."

"If there is any failure in the data transfer and it can automatically detect and reinitiate it, that would be great."

"The solution's pricing is high and should be reduced."

"Aspera Managed File Transfer should be packaged into another solution. Explaining to customers you need to have multiple solutions from multiple vendors for their use cases can get complicated for them to understand."

"If you want to do a file transfer between two countries, and one is not China, then you have other more affordable options."

"Before we transfer files we have to make the connection profile first for MFT. If we did not have to do this and send the transfer files directly, that would be useful."

"They could enhance the product's data flow, job processing speed, and efficiency."

"It is a very strong product, but the reporting could be better."

"The structure between the Control-M/Server and Control-M/Agent could possibly be improved."

"There is definitely room for improvement. Version 9.0.20 actually comes with a web-based interface, but there are still a lot of things unavailable with it. There will eventually be more inclusions added into the web interface, but there is still a long way to go."

"I would love to see REST API integration and more plugins for Google Cloud Platform compared to AWS and Azure."

"The report form and display function are weak; they are not very powerful."

"A Control-M on-prem license is based on the number of jobs, which is the number of tasks a particular customer wants to have. These tasks have to be run within 24 hours window. For example, if you have a license for 100 jobs, you can run a maximum of 100 jobs in a 24-hour window. If your operations could not run 10 jobs, and they ran only 90 jobs, they just carry over to the next day, but the next day, they will have 110 jobs. Control-M asks you to buy those 10 more licenses because you were out of compliance in terms of the number of licenses. This is something that needs to be indicated in Control-M GUI so that customers know the number of licenses they're going to use in this time window. Their support and documentation should be improved. I am not that satisfied with their customer support. Sometimes, they don't have the answers. Their documentation is very poor. It is not well written, and it is not in a very logical manner. You can use it on Unix, Linux, Windows, and AIX, but it needs some improvement on iSeries. It needs a built-in mechanism inside the system to give you an option to restore from the last point of failure. If a process crashes, the Control-M needs to have a mechanism in iSeries where the process can be restored from the last point of failure."

More Control-M cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It was close to $10,000 to $20,000."

"Aspera Managed File Transfer is not an inexpensive solution. I am not aware of many competitors to determine how affordable the price is overall."

"We are paying way more for Control-M than we've paid for any of our other scheduling tools."

"Its pricing and licensing could be a little bit better. Based on my experience and discussions with other existing customers, everybody feels that the regular Managed File Transfer piece, not the enterprise one, is a little overpriced, especially for folks who already have licensed Advanced File Transfer. We understand that Advanced File Transfer is going away and is going to be the end of life, and there is some additional functionality built into MFT, but the additional functionality does not really correlate with the huge price increase over what we're paying for AFT already. This has actually driven a lot of people to look for alternative solutions."

"Apart from the standard license, if we avail any additional features, there's an extra cost. For example, Workload Archiving is an additional feature from the standard product, so we pay extra for that."

"This solution is very expensive compared to others in the market. Previously it was the only solution in our country to offer this kind of functionality. However, technology has caught up and many competitors offer the same at a lower price."

"This is an expensive product compared to other solutions, although I think that it is a good one. We are in a good position with licensing, as we can run 10,000 jobs."

"The cost of the hardware is high. Because you need to license each job, it is costly."

"Its cost is high for small companies."

"This is an area where it is a little difficult to work with BMC. They want to do licenses by job, which is what we have. For example, the simplest is to license by job, but they can also license by nodes. While the licensing is simple to use, it might not be the correct licensing model for the customer. It is okay because we want to license by job, which is something measurable. At the end of the day, licensing by job is the most important."

More Control-M pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

26%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	37
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	141

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Aspera Managed File Transfer?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Aspera Managed File Transfer?

We have an office in China, and we wanted to transfer data from China to the UK. We have an office in the UK as well.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Aspera Managed File Transfer?

For our requirements, IBM Aspera fit very well into the budget. It's subjective. I'd rate it nine out of ten. If you want to do a file transfer between two countries, and one is not China, then you...

See all answers

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?

From what I know about pricing, I would probably put Control-M in the expensive category, but you do pay for what you get; you are paying for a premium product.

See all answers

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JSCAPE by Redwood vs Aspera Managed File Transfer

Compared 9% of the time

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AutoSys Workload Automation vs Control-M

Compared 13% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Control-M

Compared 8% of the time

Automic Automation vs Control-M

Compared 6% of the time

Stonebranch vs Control-M

Compared 5% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs Control-M

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Managed File Transfer (MFT)

January 2026

Download Aspera Managed File Transfer product report

Buyer's Guide

Control-M

January 2026

Download Control-M product report

Also Known As

No data available

Control M, BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer, BMC Australia CTM

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

IBM

BMC

Overview

IBM Aspera takes a different approach to tackling the challenges of big data movement over global WANs. Rather than optimize or accelerate data transfer, Aspera eliminates underlying bottlenecks by using its proprietary fasp technology that fully utilizes available network bandwidth to maximize speed and quickly scale up with no theoretical limit. Using fasp, transfers are secure end-to-end and are largely unaffected by file size, transfer distance, or network conditions, making transfer times up to 100Xs faster than TCP-based protocols.

IBM Aspera offers SaaS, on-prem, and hybrid solutions to meet the needs of modernizing infrastructures. All solutions offer robust security and compliance, intuitive file sharing, workflow automation, central administration, and real-time visibility. Quickly and easily initiate transfers across hybrid infrastructures, including support for cloud-to-cloud transfers. IBM Aspera offers unmatched transfer speeds, end-to-end security, reliability, and exceptional bandwidth control.

IBM

Control-M SaaS by BMC is tailored for growing teams, offering essential orchestration for managing hybrid cloud workflows starting at $29,000 annually.

Control-M integrates automation, orchestration, and a user-friendly interface to streamline workflows across banking, DevOps, and cloud environments. Key modules like Managed File Transfer and cross-platform support simplify job monitoring, while Batch Impact Manager enhances scheduling. Despite its capabilities, improvements in output analysis, reporting customization, offline access, and API integration are desired by users.

What are Control-M's key features?

Automation and Orchestration: Simplifies workflow management.
Integration: Connects with diverse applications seamlessly.
User Interface: Facilitates easy navigation.
Managed File Transfer: Streamlines secure file movements.
Self-Service: Empowers users to independently manage tasks.
Cross-Platform Support: Handles complex workflows efficiently.
Batch Impact Manager: Enhances scheduling and SLA management.
API Integration: Extends versatility across environments.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Increased Efficiency: Optimizes operations through automation.
Scalability: Supports enterprise growth and workload demands.
Improved SLA Management: Enhances reliability in scheduling.
Cost Savings: Streamlines processes to reduce operational costs.
Process Optimization: Ensures secure and efficient data exchanges.

Control-M is implemented in industries such as finance and enterprise operations, aiding in automating batch processing across platforms like SAP and Teradata. It integrates with secure file transfers, ERP systems, and databases, whether deployed on-premises or cloud, ensuring seamless operation optimization.

BMC

Sample Customers

Gwinnett County Public Schools, Evonik, Voith, BITMARCK, Oracle

The Bank of East Asia, LINE Bank Taiwan, Coop, Air Europa, Carrefour, Itau Unibanco, Snam, Embraer, ANZ Bank, EDP, Dominio's, Tampa General Hospital, W&W Informatik GmbH, Veterans General, Up Sí Vale, Sky Italia, REWE digital GmbH, Raymond James, Railinc, Navistar, Management Science Associates, Colruyt, CARFAX, Banpara, Aspiag Service, Amadeus, AG Insurance, ING Bank Slaski

Buyer's Guide

Aspera Managed File Transfer vs. Control-M

February 2026

Free Report: Aspera Managed File Transfer vs. Control-M

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