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BMC AMI DevX vs Rocket ChangeMan ZMF (formerly a Micro Focus product) comparison

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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 Software Configuration Management
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Debugging (2nd), Database Development and Management (11th), Mainframe Application Development (1st), Test Data Management (4th), Mainframe Testing Tools (1st), Data Masking (3rd), AI Software Development (30th)
Rocket ChangeMan ZMF (forme...
Ranking in Software Configuration Management
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Software Configuration Management category, the mindshare of BMC AMI DevX is 8.4%, down from 21.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rocket ChangeMan ZMF (formerly a Micro Focus product) is 10.1%, up from 7.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
BMC AMI DevX8.4%
Rocket ChangeMan ZMF (formerly a Micro Focus product)10.1%
Other81.5%
Software Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

Mitanshu Shrimali - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Modern workflows have accelerated mainframe delivery and simplify understanding legacy code
BMC AMI DevX can be improved primarily by streamlining initial configuration and installation, simplifying advanced documentation, and enhancing UI/UX feature discoverability. While the platform successfully bridges modern IDEs such as VS Code with z/OS, user feedback highlights the need for simplifying setup and onboarding configuration. The initial installation and login process can be simplified. Although it feels complex initially, once completed, there is nothing to do with installation repeatedly since it is a one-time process. However, it is still somewhat complex. Basic tutorials are available that address teams implementing the configuration of multi-vendor tools and integration, but documentation gaps exist that frequently force heavy reliance on vendor support. Additionally, certain components across the workspace and diagnostic tools retain a legacy feel or hide powerful features behind deep menus, so UI/UX features can be simplified. Integrating with non-BMC enterprise testing or new CI/CD orchestrators can require custom engineering rather than native plug-and-play connectors. Optimizing large-scale performance is also important, as heavy resource consumption during deep runtime analysis for large-scale code mapping can impact performance over slower network connections for extremely dense application modules.
reviewer1527093 - PeerSpot reviewer
Development Team Lead at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Very flexible with Johnny-on-the-spot tech support
I would like to see them enable parallel development for online. It's available now for batch stuff on the mainframe. Jenkins, IBM, and Rocket all supposedly already have safe and workable version of Git for the mainframe. With that in mind, we need to know where our feature is. Unfortunately, as good as ChangeMan is, if we're listing downfalls, they should be talking to me about this. Not me having to go talk to them about it. Hopefully, they have this in the works and they are positioning their product for the future. That's just a straightforward comment. It really comes down to whether they are complacent or not. The other thing that should improve is cost. Git, even on the mainframe, a large part of the components "free". They're the way you set them up yourselves and they're self-sustaining and built into the infrastructure. You can't charge me for that. I gave ChangeMan an overall score of eight, but what could drive them to a nine is coming up with a way for all my code that belongs together to be tracked and moved together. Everything should move based upon the mainframe; it needs to be alerted and synchronized.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"With the use of ISPW, we were able to reduce our deployment time for specific applications by utilizing the auto-deploy features."
"Topaz workbench is one of the most integrated into Eclipse that I've seen from the mainframe vendors."
"It speeds up processes, makes things easier, more efficient, and from a mainframe perspective, the way the mainframe is utilized has become that much easier."
"One of the features that the developers like is that they can retrieve what they need with the tool. They don't have to go through some process or request something be done by another team. They can get the programs they need, compile them, retrieve the JCL and alter the JCL if they need to, and put these programs wherever they need to go for their testing."
"I like the ability to flow through the source and see what happens to the data as the statements are executed. If there is a fault, it will track the event, and we can then look back to see why it may have caused the fault. You can also reverse engineer your test. You can set it so that you can go backward as well as forward in your test. This is something that I haven't done here at my company. Compuware Xpediter is one of the best debugging tools for mainframe software development. We have currently licensed only the COBOL language for Xpediter, but I know they have other languages, including Assembler, PL/I."
"We had parallel development before, but the way ISPW implements it is better. It has more control and oversight of the process, whereas before, it was like the Wild West. Everybody could have their own package with their own version of the component in it... ISPW is constantly aware of it. It notifies when someone else is using or has a different version of that component."
"Once we got the configurations and deployment rolled out, it was very stable. I haven't had any major issues with Eclipse or the Topaz Workbench plugins."
"We audit once a year for our ChangeMan access, accurate financial programs, and all of that. Auditors really love ChangeMan for how easy it is to get through and how tight the security is on it. Our internal auditors, external auditors, and SOX editors love this solution. We're in the healthcare business, so HIPAA regulations and all such things are a big deal, and this makes all that really simple."
"Scalability is great. It has absolutely met every need for us so far. We do have some concurrent development paths and we're able to flexibly assign variables. At the same time, our skeletons assemble where we want them to, so the scalability is very good."
"Auditors really love ChangeMan for how easy it is to get through and how tight the security is on it."
"What’s most valuable to me is the ability to compile the code and move it through the test and productions environments."
 

Cons

"The only thing that bothers me about BMC AMI DevX Code Pipeline is the screen movement."
"I find it more cumbersome to use Topaz."
"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."
"I choose eight out of ten because of two frustrating parts: one is the navigation complexity sometimes, and the other is the configuration that gets erased over reboots or cleaning of the saved directory configs."
"There are some features that are not well documented, so documentation could use a little help, on things like setting up deployment and which structures in the database correspond to which tables."
"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."
"DB2 is a hard tool to grasp. It's hard for users to learn how to use it. It's not easy to see how it works."
"If I consider improvements for BMC AMI DevX, I would like to see enhancements in the UI for a more seamless experience, especially given its slightly high licensing cost, where purchasing individual tools can be costly."
"I would like to see them enable parallel development for online. It's available now for batch stuff on the mainframe. Jenkins, IBM, and Rocket all supposedly already have safe and workable version of Git for the mainframe. With that in mind, we need to know where our feature is."
"I would like to see a better search tool."
"As such, there's nothing wrong with the product. It is great, but there are small things that can be better to make it much more friendly. The way you navigate through fields can be improved. If I'm going to stage a component over something that exists and that I've created in another library, and I want to pull it in and write it over what I've got there in my package, I've got to type in that data set name every time. That can be aggravating. It is not a big deal. The way things are sorted can also be improved. If you're doing a delete of a bunch of components, you can't sort those out by type or anything. Some things are just standard, and you can't look at them in a way that would be helpful."
"Their technical support is not so good. To be perfectly honest, that's one of the reasons we were looking at other solutions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I like the seat-based licensing much more than MSU-based licensing, and that the cost has been competitive."
"In general, Compuware tools are very competitive."
"It has saved our developers time and effort when working on documentation, which is now more readable and fluent."
"The price point is great."
"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's on a yearly basis. I am not aware of any additional costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise30
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BMC Compuware Topaz Enterprise Data?
I do not have direct information about the setup cost and pricing and licensing. From the implementation perspective, I think the initial configuration can require some effort to align the product ...
What needs improvement with BMC AMI DevX?
I would suggest making the initial installation and configuration simpler, especially for new users. The login and startup experience could also be improved by reducing repeated login prompts and t...
What is your primary use case for BMC AMI DevX?
BMC AMI DevX is used primarily for mainframe application development and troubleshooting, particularly for COBOL and JCL. I use it to edit and navigate code, browse datasets, and submit jobs, and a...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

File-AID, Data for Db2, Code Debug, Data Studio, Workbench for Eclipse, Code Pipeline
Open Text, Micro Focus ChangeMan ZMF
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NRB, Iberdrola, Consorzio Servizi Bancari 
SPTS Technologies, Generali France, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. (BBH), Kutxa-Vital-Banco Madrid, Space and Naval Warfare Information Technology Center (SPAWAR ITC)
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC AMI DevX vs. Rocket ChangeMan ZMF (formerly a Micro Focus product) and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
918,614 professionals have used our research since 2012.