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AutoSys Workload Automation vs OpCon comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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

JAMS Scheduler
Sponsored
Ranking in Workload Automation
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
AutoSys Workload Automation
Ranking in Workload Automation
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
OpCon
Ranking in Workload Automation
14th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of JAMS Scheduler is 3.5%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AutoSys Workload Automation is 6.5%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpCon is 2.6%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
JAMS Scheduler3.5%
AutoSys Workload Automation6.5%
OpCon2.6%
Other87.4%
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2890770 - PeerSpot reviewer
Developer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Centralized scheduling has improved automation and reduces manual monitoring for complex workflows
The best features JAMS Scheduler offers are centralized job scheduling, dependency management, and monitoring. I also appreciate the alerts and retry options because they help us handle failures without constantly checking jobs manually. Centralized scheduling makes it easier to manage all our jobs from one place instead of maintaining multiple schedulers or scripts. Dependency management is especially useful for chaining workflows because JAMS Scheduler can automatically trigger the next job only when the required previous step completes successfully. Another useful feature is the monitoring and alerting. If a scheduled job fails or runs longer than expected, we can quickly identify it and take action, which is particularly helpful for production support and reducing manual monitoring. JAMS Scheduler has helped quite a bit with identifying common job failures, missed schedules, dependency issues, and execution errors. The alerts and job history make it easier to identify the failure point and take corrective action without manually checking every workflow. JAMS Scheduler's code-driven automation has been useful for handling more complex scheduling logic and workflows that go beyond simple time-based triggers. It is important for us because we can combine scripts, dependencies, conditions, and parameters to support different production scenarios without creating too much manual intervention.
PK
Assistant VP at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Experience significant automation with robust integration and user-friendly interfaces
There are areas of AutoSys Workload Automation that have room for improvement. They are implementing good enhancements in the R24 release. The web UI needs some improvement. Cloud integrations are limited to 25 or 30 configurable plugins and integrations to the cloud. They can improve in that area. They have separate tools, not AutoSys Workload Automation, such as Atomic and other SaaS-based solutions that can run inside the cloud. AutoSys Workload Automation can be configured in the cloud, but it requires a substantial number of VMs depending on the load. For on-premises deployment, it is a very good solution. They need to increase their footprint in the cloud and improve the web UI. They are making excellent progress in the R24 release.
Jose Rivera Hernandez - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Being able to create a series of chained jobs, which are basically linked jobs is valuable."
"The interface is good, and it's very easy to define and create jobs. If a job is not running or there is an error, the solution will send an email. That's all very good and very useful."
"The scheduling and execution of jobs are the most valuable features. The scheduling is important because if there is a task we want to execute at 4:00 AM, there's no way we will have someone who can manually run the job. In addition, we execute 100 to 200 jobs per day, and manual intervention is not an option."
"We also use the solution’s Interactive Agents. If we need to push something to our dealer portal, we can just drop a file in a folder and it goes. Running interactive tasks helps me users focus on business processes since I don’t have to take care of running the jobs manually."
"The code-driven automation for more complex scheduling requirements frees up time because it's really easy to use... It's almost like a stand-alone software that we can't live without."
"JAMS is easier to use and cheaper than our previous solution. The installation is more straightforward, and JAMS has a graphical user interface, so it's more accessible."
"Our company is based on data. Everything we do is data-driven, so it has been very valuable having one place where we can process all of the data and do batch schedules with chunks of data."
"JAMS has improved my organization by taking a myriad of manual processes and allowing us to automate them. It enables our folks to focus more on tasks that require their human intelligence and their creativity and less on just mundane tasks. It increases efficiency, accuracy, and consistency."
"We did not have the visibility of the distributed jobs until we used ESP Workload automation and we can now schedule them together with our mainframe jobs."
"We get better reports than we use to have."
"The product itself has always been very, very stable, and extremely easy to upgrade."
"It has been a wonderful tool for automating our business needs, and that they should really consider this product."
"CA Workload Automation AutoSys Edition is one of the most powerful schedulers that you have on the open systems, or going between Window servers; to be able to schedule and take advantage of the different powers that the automation has with it."
"It gives us flexibility when doing releases. We can make changes for one day in a PDS member, since we stage our jobs by date, and the next day the normal job definitions are run."
"AutoSys Workload Automation is a stable solution."
"This solution has made my clients' workplaces a lot less labor-intensive."
"We particularly like the fact that it's graphical because it is Windows-based. Before, we were text-based on the mainframe. You can also produce flow charts. Because it's point-and-click, its ease of use is very nice."
"In two weeks, OpCon has done 15,677 jobs that an operator would normally have had to do, significantly streamlining operations and doing things right every time."
"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."
"The solution streamlined our mortgage operations."
"Where I see it working best is when we are trying to automate jobs."
"File Watcher can run jobs when files are made available in a folder."
"It has made my life very easy."
"It gives you peace of mind to know that something that you scheduled will run, and if for any reason it doesn't, you have the support to help get you back on track and troubleshoot any issues."
 

Cons

"The monitoring of the JAMS product and its performance is an area of concern for me."
"We have had a lot of people working from home who can't always connect to the JAMS server. We use VPN, as most companies do, and we have it set up so that everybody can access the JAMS server. But many times, our people cannot access it... JAMS could do a better job of telling you what the problem is when you try to log in to the server."
"The product does not allow the users to cut and paste the job names from the screen."
"If around 5,000 or more jobs run at a time, JAMS slows down, and we have to wait around five to 10 minutes or restart JAMS scheduler services."
"The search capability needs to be improved because when we try to search for a job, it's hard to do."
"If there were a softcover book on how to really take advantage of all of JAMS' tools, I would buy it. I do better with training books than online searching, so a book would be helpful."
"One area of improvement I see for JAMS Scheduler is making the user interface more intuitive for new users, especially when configuring complex job dependencies."
"The biggest area with room for improvement is the area that my organization benefits the most from using JAMS, and that is in custom execution methods. I happen to have a very good C# developer. Ever since we got JAMS, he has spent a lot of time talking to JAMS developers, researching the JAMS libraries, and creating custom execution methods. He's gotten very good at it. He is now able to create them and maintain them very easily, but that knowledge was hard-won knowledge. It was difficult to come by, and if I should ever lose this developer, then I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who could create JAMS custom execution methods quite as well as he can since there really isn't all that much help, such as documentation or information, available on how to create custom execution methods."
"However, when compared to other products in the market, it is still behind other solutions."
"The job flow could use a little more improvement."
"The scalability is poor because I cannot use it for all automation solutions."
"Documentation and cross-application externals could be improved."
"Since Broadcom acquired this product, the technical support has not been as good. They should really be faster and more knowledgeable."
"Support definitely needs improvement."
"Upgrades to the GUI interface would be probably one of the biggest things they could do to improve."
"The installation process is complex, and is pretty archaic."
"It is a complex product to use. Programming the schedules is complex."
"Enterprise Manager is a little clunky which I know they're addressing in the solution's manager."
"The system needs better communication, better advanced warning, and better stability with SQL database systems."
"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."
"The initial setup is very complex, but that's not necessarily something that needs to be improved. I'm told that in the next version they're improving the upgrade process. So that's in the works already."
"I wouldn't call it the easiest to automate. It has to be learned, training is required, then you get better at it over time."
"In our environment, OpCon is much more expensive than it used to be a year ago."
"The way to view a schedule is called perch view, and that's not always the greatest. It can be quite slow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It was $10,000 for the first year. Then, there is a maintenance cost for licensing every year that we get billed $5,000 for every year."
"Fortra's JAMS pricing structure has deteriorated significantly since its acquisition by Fortra."
"The pricing is very fair. We have seen very minimal to no price increases over the years. We are not banging down the door of support all the time either. I would imagine if we were a company that submitted a dozen support tickets a week for the last nine years, then it might be a little different because we would be eating up everybody's time. However, for what we get out of it, the pricing is extremely fair. Back when we were originally looking and brought in JAMS, we were looking at a couple of the other competitive products that were in this space, but the pricing from JAMS was far and away better than what the other competitors could offer for the same functionality."
"I haven't been involved in the financial side for several years, but we buy one host and unlimited agents, and we get a reasonable price for that. We're happy with the amount we pay and the scalability it provides."
"Take advantage of its scalability. You can start small. The initial cost is very reasonable. Once you have started picking up the tool and adopting it, then you can scale up from there and buy more agents."
"The product is reasonably priced, and we don't have any add-ons."
"Definitely check how many single processes you want to run and count them as jobs. That is how you would work out your pricing on JAMS. For example, if you're running a number of commands and you can put them all into one script and run that script, you can count that as one job."
"There are no additional costs other than the license for Fortra's JAMS which is affordable."
"The pricing needs to be improved. Some of my client's complained that it was too expensive."
"There is an annual license to use AutoSys Workload Automation."
"People need to pay attention to how they use their ESP agents on the distributed platform. That's where some of the cost comes in, based on how many you need or how many you use."
"It is overpriced."
"I don't have information on the exact licensing cost of AutoSys Workload Automation because that's managed by the tools and financing teams. For agents, it's close to $4,00, but for the server setup, it's usually a one-time license initially, and it's AMC which is paid every year and comes close to $8,000 to $10,000."
"Validate how many agents you need beforehand."
"The return on investment would be very high because doing things manually without this product would be extremely expensive."
"The price of this solution is reasonable and there is an annual license required."
"Our license is for 1000 jobs. Including support, the license and upgrades are 2000 euros a month."
"The pricing is over $100,000 for our credit union and I believe it's $89,000 for our clients, in total, annually."
"I have seen some contracts, and it seems that Control-M is a lot more expensive than OpCon, but I do not know the pricing of OpCon. Control-M seems to be four or five times more expensive than OpCon."
"Compared to AutoSys and ISE, OpCon was a lot cheaper to put in. AutoSys is hundreds of thousands of dollars to just install it because they don't have an interface into our system. You have to teach them what your system does."
"OpCon cost us $80,000 in 2017 money, and that included everything: support, installation, onsite assistance during the conversion, etc. It's been a worthwhile investment by far."
"This solution is slightly more expensive than our previous solution. Right now, we are paying about $40,000 a year. However, we think it's well worth the cost to keep things automated, reducing our staff."
"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."
"While the overall cost is reasonable, I'm interested in exploring options for making the managed automation solution, specifically the mass solution, more cost-effective."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
32%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise27
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise79
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise29
Large Enterprise19
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JAMS?
I was not really involved in the pricing, setup cost, and licensing at that level. I am more involved in the technica...
What needs improvement with JAMS?
In terms of improvements, I believe JAMS can enhance its user interface for better user experiences. I would like to ...
What is your primary use case for JAMS?
My primary use case for JAMS is enterprise workload automation and batch job orchestration. I use it to schedule and ...
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 b...
What needs improvement with AutoSys Workload Automation?
There are areas of AutoSys Workload Automation that have room for improvement. They are implementing good enhancement...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

No data available
CA Workload Automation, CA Workload Automation AE
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Teradata, Arconic, General Dynamics, Yum!, CVS Health, Comcast, Ghiradelli, & Boston’s Children’s Hospital
Gaumont, Mercantil do Brasil, CCEE, Hanwha Life
LOHR, Carnival Cruise Lines, Herbalife, Digital Federal Credit Union, Synergent, Frandsen Bank & Trust
Find out what your peers are saying about AutoSys Workload Automation vs. OpCon and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,533 professionals have used our research since 2012.