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BMC AMI Ops vs IBM Workload Automation comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 14, 2025

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
Sponsored
Ranking in Workload Automation
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
BMC AMI Ops
Ranking in Workload Automation
30th
Average Rating
9.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Mainframe Management (3rd)
IBM Workload Automation
Ranking in Workload Automation
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of JAMS is 2.6%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BMC AMI Ops is 1.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Workload Automation is 4.9%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
JAMS2.6%
IBM Workload Automation4.9%
BMC AMI Ops1.0%
Other91.5%
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2770605 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Engineer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Has streamlined complex job scheduling across scripting languages while reducing manual effort
JAMS could be improved with a web client that is accessible and as fast as a normal website, eliminating the need to RDP to the servers to access the JAMS client. A functionality running on the JAMS server to continuously check the JAMS agents would ensure they are working properly. If an agent is not responding, a feature to restart the service from the job server machine would be beneficial. The upgrade process, particularly when switching from V6 to V7, could be clearer in terms of documentation, ideally with screenshots showing exactly what needs to be done on each screen.
The service level and automated capacity manager functions allow us to control priorities, support SLA's and manage our 4HRA and reduce MLC for some software bills.
There currently is a WUI that allows an operator a single pane of glass to see how TM is performing to meet service policies within a JESMAS environment. This is a new feature and multiple individuals have expressed desire to not only see real time monitoring, but the ability to historically go back at least several hours or possibly an entire day to review history.
reviewer2701716 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Dynamic workload balancing facilitates efficient job scheduling and ensures continuity with a master-slave setup
One valuable feature of IBM Workload Automation is the ability to combine different applications and platforms to organize jobs together, creating dependencies. It's akin to an orchestra. Another feature is dynamic workload balancing, which I find enhances efficiency by automating job setup to run daily. Moreover, having a backup setup allows for immediate recovery if the master setup fails.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We looked at other companies, like VisualCron, that were cheaper, but one of the main sticking points was the fact that they wouldn't have provided a central location for us to monitor across all servers. That was one of the biggest selling points of JAMS."
"Being able to create a series of chained jobs, which are basically linked jobs is valuable."
"JAMS has improved our productivity immensely because everything flows. I don't think we could operate at our current staffing levels without it."
"I like how you can add new execution methods on the fly. It isn't overly complex to add Python script support to an execution method in the JAMS system. The scheduling is excellent. You can schedule a maintenance window and take that resource unit out of everything. It halts all of the jobs."
"The fact that we no longer need to use Excel spreadsheets is huge. Before JAMS, every group was keeping track of their own batch jobs. Nobody really knew what the other jobs were. So, if jobs failed, other groups wouldn't necessarily know. With JAMS, everything is done through a single scheduler. You can choose who to notify."
"JAMS has been a beneficial monitoring tool for our project in terms of being able to deliver data that is essential for users."
"The ability to sequence jobs is excellent; it means we don't have to schedule them individually, and if one fails, it doesn't unwind the entire workflow."
"JAMS offers diverse scheduling capabilities for any kind of job, including Linux, PowerShell scripts, and SQL, enabling automation of jobs, which has proven beautiful after three years of usage."
"Enabled me to solve production problems faster or even avoid them preemptively with warnings."
"The integration of IMS commands is very useful, because you do not have to switch to another tool to problem solve solutions."
"The technical support is great, the product is easy-to-use, and it is stable."
"The project we worked on involved the running of nearly 24,000 job instances in a single day, so I would say that the solution is stable."
"Technical support from IBM is very good."
"The most important feature is the creation of folders. It's a really great feature because you can organize the process with naming conventions."
"Jobs can be triggered in multiple nodes."
"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."
"IBM Workload Automation provides good performance and monitoring."
"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."
 

Cons

"Fortra is getting much better with documentation and examples, but there is still room for improvement."
"There could be a better simulation for banning the termination. You have to simulate every one of the processes in order to have an idea for better planning. This kind of simulation is broken and needs improvement."
"JAMS doesn't allow us to implement SOC controls. We are a company that trades stocks on the New York Stock Exchange, so all our transactions are audited. It has a feature that saves the file for only a month but doesn't segregate the data between finance and SOC-related compliance."
"JAMS notifications for hung jobs could be improved."
"The monitoring of the JAMS product and its performance is an area of concern for me."
"The monitoring of the JAMS product and its performance is an area of concern for me."
"The documentation is not super... It's not as quick and slick as I'd like it to be."
"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."
"An expansion for distributed systems would be great, but probably not workable."
"More visualisation and support for mobile devices would be good."
"It is missing some features and can improve in areas where the competition is somewhat better like linking job dependencies."
"The solution's installation could be improved because the customers have to do it all the time."
"The configuration of IBM Workload Automation has some challenges. We have a difficult time customizing it, but it is similar to other solutions."
"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."
"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."
"Scalability-wise, it can be a little bit challenging."
"It would be helpful to have a mobile app that could be used to follow the job schedule."
"It should support other schedulers that aren't IBM products."
 

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."
"The product is reasonably priced, and we don't have any add-ons."
"JAMS is close to the lower end of the pricing models for enterprise scheduling solutions. They are much cheaper than Control-M, as well as some other products that I've used. I also don't know of another solution where you can actually get true, unlimited licensing, where you can have as many instances and as many agents as you want."
"It's expensive, to be honest, but it does the job."
"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."
"There are no additional costs other than the license for Fortra's JAMS which is affordable."
"All licensing models are a little overpriced, but JAMS offers a good value, especially given their support response times and ability to handle unforeseen issues like the SFTP transfers. I hope to find more use cases to get a better bang for our buck."
"The licensing model for JAMS is straightforward and based on the number of agents, not the number of jobs you run. It's cheap and fairly simple."
"If you already use other products from BMC, you might be able to get a package deal from BMC's sales department."
"To my knowledge, IWA is the only WLA product that will provide "parallel tracking" capability to assist in upgrading from one platform to IWA."
"The solution is a little bit expensive."
"It is about one-third of the cost of a controller."
"The contract is with the customer with whom we are working, so IBM is not directly involved in this."
"Pricing depends on the number of agents that you install."
"We transitioned from a server license to per job license, and that saved us a lot money."
"The solution's pricing is affordable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Retailer
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise18
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about JAMS?
I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JAMS?
They recently switched to subscription-based pricing, which increased. The price is fair considering the functionalit...
What needs improvement with JAMS?
As far as we are using JAMS version 6, it looks good and there is nothing major to add about it. Everything is functi...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
I have worked from 1973 with all kind of systems in large enterprises across the world. And have experience with all ...
What needs improvement with IBM Workload Automation?
IBM Workload Automation could be improved by reducing its cost. The maintenance charges have increased significantly,...
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...
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. Th...
 

Also Known As

No data available
BMC MainView, BMC Automated Mainframe Intelligence, Ops Monitoring, Ops Automation for Batch ThruPut
IBM Tivoli Workload Scheduler, IBM TWS
 

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
Costco, Dell, Apple, Citi, AT&T, FedEx, Johnson&Johnson, Comcast, Caterpillar, Vodafone, Sysco, Google, Oracle, Microsoft, Walt Disney
Standard Life Group, Banca Popolare di Milano, A*STAR, ArcelorMittal Gent
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC AMI Ops vs. IBM Workload Automation and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
880,954 professionals have used our research since 2012.