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BMC AMI DevX vs IBM InfoSphere Optim Test Data Management (TDM) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 15, 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

BMC AMI DevX
Ranking in Test Data Management
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Software Configuration Management (1st), Debugging (2nd), Database Development and Management (11th), Mainframe Application Development (1st), Mainframe Testing Tools (1st), Data Masking (3rd), AI Software Development (30th)
IBM InfoSphere Optim Test D...
Ranking in Test Data Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Test Data Management category, the mindshare of BMC AMI DevX is 12.1%, up from 5.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM InfoSphere Optim Test Data Management (TDM) is 5.9%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Test Data Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
BMC AMI DevX12.1%
IBM InfoSphere Optim Test Data Management (TDM)5.9%
Other82.0%
Test Data Management
 

Featured Reviews

Wisdom Mbiza - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Engineer at Absa Group
Modern tools have boosted mainframe file extraction speed and simplified everyday workflows
I definitely think BMC AMI DevX could be improved or enhanced in terms of the logging in features. BMC AMI DevX's logging in feature is not so great. Whenever you try to log in, it always prompts you for passwords. Then when you have to switch sessions, because we usually have to switch between production and UAT, there's no quick way of switching between the two. Every time you try to switch, it prompts you to log in. Additionally, there's a pop-up that I always receive. When you click X on it, it doesn't disappear. Eventually, I just end up minimizing it. Furthermore, the startup of BMC AMI DevX takes a long time to start up before it loads. It doesn't just immediately start up and it's ready. It takes a good solid two to three minutes before it's ready so that you can work on it. BMC AMI DevX's logins and the other ones I can understand because security has to be there, but I do feel that once I've logged in, I shouldn't need to log in again. The startup problem is the annoying one because if I want to do something, I need to open it two or three minutes earlier to give it time to load up. The startup problem is the one that definitely needs to be addressed.
Ajai Lal - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager at Mphasis
Supports both legacy and non-legacy systems
The solution's initial setup is neither complex nor too easy. Around six or seven people, including database administrators, were involved in the solution's deployment. On a scale from one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy, I rate the solution's initial setup a four to five out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"BMC AMI DevX helps me develop COBOL while juggling other responsibilities by bringing editing, debugging, job submissions, and code navigation into a single environment."
"I have worked with DB2's great features in the last five years. The IDAA feature transformed the vision of warehousing, business analytics, and big data at my bank. Besides the mainframe, I saw that this solution was evolutionary. It gives real-time information."
"We can develop in parallel today on ISPF, but it's giving us the advantage of the newer interface into the mainframe programming languages that younger programmers can use and are familiar with, rather than using the ISPF green screen."
"For bank applications, DB2 is the best on the market."
"My guess is this would have taken twice as long, or we would have had many more issues without using Xpediter."
"Topaz workbench is one of the most integrated into Eclipse that I've seen from the mainframe vendors."
"It does our CICS NEWCOPYs and our Db2 binds for us, whereas before, that was a manual process. It takes a lot of the workload off of the operations folks and off the DBAs."
"The smart editor helps because it will code-complete for me. I can see code working a lot faster and I'm able to get things coded in less time."
"Optim is a great tool for enterprise data movement, data masking, data sub-setting, data comparison, and data aging."
"IBM InfoSphere Optim Test Data Management can be found in the following platforms: Windows, Linux, *nix and z/OS; this presents a great opportunity to scale code and develop multiplatform libraries, updating the code once and deploying to all platforms."
"Data masking features are the most valuable, as non-production environments are used by diverse parties and data privacy has to be guaranteed."
"The platform's ability to generate metrics is the most valuable feature for data management. It is a user-friendly and easy-to-use tool."
"Data archiving reduces application performance issues and storage."
"The Data Archive or Data Growth feature is one of the very useful solutions that help organizations to manage and support their database archiving strategies."
"The product has helped to streamline the Test Data Management (TDM) process."
"IBM Optim solutions are highly scalable."
 

Cons

"I'm waiting to see what 19.2 for Topaz looks like, but I have a problem with the JES Explorer right now. It limits you to a certain prefix for job names and there are some groups that have multiple prefixes that they'd like to see all at once in their job names, because of how they work in a group. And they can't see that in the JES Explorer."
"It's not as intuitive as it should be. In terms of navigation, there is a large training curve for using it. For a millennial it might be better, if they're used to Eclipse. But coming from a non-Eclipse environment and using Eclipse, though I have experience with Eclipse, it might be cumbersome."
"Initial setup can be tricky in some cases."
"The area for improvement is related to the testing tools that are available for unit testing or acceptance testing. I know they have some out there that we are not licensed for at this time, but it seems like some of the Eclipse tools that are used for other programming languages, they're all just built-in and they're a little more intuitive to the developers. Making those testing tools as intuitive as possible, and as integrated as possible into the workbench, would be really beneficial."
"The only thing that bothers me about BMC AMI DevX Code Pipeline is the screen movement."
"The ISPW plugin could be improved to add some functionality which is already in ISPF panels and not in the plugin."
"Technical support has gotten better over the years, though there's always room for improvement."
"One thing I would really like to see some improvement on is the promotion diagnostic messages. It invokes utilities "under the covers" to copy components, and it does not echo back any of the error messages from those utilities."
"TDM's efficiency in terms of generating reports needs improvement. It could work faster."
"Data masking with InfoSphere Optim products creates intermediary extract files and writing the data to persistent storage, which means that extraction, masking, and insertion happen being separate processes, taking more for the process to run."
"The tool needs to have more test data management features like synthetic data generation and data reservation."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy, I rate the solution's initial setup a four to five out of ten."
"Improvisation in the area of the self-service user interface for test data management is required to cater to test data needs."
"The tool does not support new test data generation."
"Pricing and licensing is higher compared to other products."
"In the past, we have waited months for IBM to resolve the problem."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The only thing I would mention related to the licensing and/or the pricing, is that they have some visualization features in there that are licensed by concurrent users. We're starting to trip up on that. We're looking to probably increase the number of concurrent licenses that we have. But those types of licensing strategies, where they license by concurrent users or the number of seats is confusing for some people. They don't understand why it works sometimes and doesn't work other times."
"It has saved our developers time and effort when working on documentation, which is now more readable and fluent."
"In terms of pricing, there isn't an extra charge for the parts of it we use. It comes with the licenses we purchased for other products, so no complaints there. The licensing is built in with the other products that you purchase from Compuware."
"In general, Compuware tools are very competitive."
"I like the seat-based licensing much more than MSU-based licensing, and that the cost has been competitive."
"The price point is great."
"We purchase TDM's yearly license."
"You have to pay yearly for the license, which comes at a reduced cost. The monthly payment option for a shorter project duration is also good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Insurance Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
14%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BMC Compuware Topaz Enterprise Data?
My understanding is that BMC AMI DevX is an enterprise product with custom licensing, so pricing is typically negotiated based on factors such as the modules purchased, organization size, and usage...
What needs improvement with BMC AMI DevX?
BMC AMI DevX is a strong platform, but there are a few areas where it could improve, such as simplifying the initial installation and configuration, especially for first-time users. It could also i...
What is your primary use case for BMC AMI DevX?
My main use case for BMC AMI DevX is to work with COBOL and JCL development on IBM. I mainly use it for editing, browsing data sets, submitting jobs, and debugging applications. I appreciate the Ec...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM InfoSphere Optim Test Data Management (TDM)?
The solution does not need much maintenance. The solution is maintained by the infrastructure team. There is a separate team for the software installation. I would recommend the solution to other u...
 

Also Known As

File-AID, Data for Db2, Code Debug, Data Studio, Workbench for Eclipse, Code Pipeline
IBM Optim Test Data Management, Optim Test Data Management, IBM InfoSphere Optim Test Data Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NRB, Iberdrola, Consorzio Servizi Bancari 
Dignity Health
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC AMI DevX vs. IBM InfoSphere Optim Test Data Management (TDM) and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
910,454 professionals have used our research since 2012.