BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench vs BMC Compuware Xpediter comparison

BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench and BMC Compuware Xpediter are both solutions in the Mainframe Application Development category. BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench is ranked #1, while BMC Compuware Xpediter is ranked #6. BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench holds a 27.9% mindshare in MAD, compared to BMC Compuware Xpediter’s 8.5% mindshare. Additionally, 71% of BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of BMC Compuware Xpediter users who would recommend it.

BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench

Read 7 BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench reviews

727 Views
282 Comparison Views

71% willing to recommend

BMC Compuware Xpediter

Read 2 BMC Compuware Xpediter reviews

104 Views
73 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench

BMC Compuware Xpediter

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench and BMC Compuware Xpediter based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Mainframe Application Development solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench vs. BMC Compuware Xpediter Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench vs. BMC Compuware Xpediter

January 2025

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Helped 832,138 peers since 2012

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 Compuware Topaz Workbench

Ranking in Mainframe Application Development

1st

Average Rating

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

BMC Compuware Xpediter

Ranking in Mainframe Application Development

6th

Average Rating

8.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Mainframe Testing Tools (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Mainframe Application Development category, the mindshare of BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench is 27.9%, up from 26.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BMC Compuware Xpediter is 8.5%, up from 6.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Mainframe Application Development

Featured Reviews

Jill Wilkey

Technical Analyst at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Replacing ISPF tasks with Topaz Workbench

At this time I do not know of additional improvements from my perspective. Over the last year, Compuware has made major improvements to the JES Explorer, which used to be the biggest negative. There are some tools in ISPF that are not available outside of ISPF right now, things the programmers may need to look at. They still have to go to the green screen for a few things. Since we have the free version of Topaz, we do not have access to the new 3270 emulator that can handle this situation in Eclipse. We have noticed that Topaz supported Eclipse environments are rather old. It would be nice if Topaz were compatible with the more current Eclipse releases. The current version of Eclipse supported by Topaz is Photon.

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reviewer1449762

IT Developer III at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees

One of the best debugging tools for mainframe software development that allows us to flow through the source and see what happens to the data

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"It helps our staff work by speeding up their documentation process."

"It's a modernized development portal and helps reduce the learning curve for younger people coming in to work on the platform,"

"From a user perspective, the GUIs make it easier for people to see and interact with files on the mainframe."

"The most valuable feature of Topaz is Xpediter. It's more flexible than Xpediter through MVS."

"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."

"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."

"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."

Cons

"It would be nice to have an audit trail to see what mainframe developers are using what."

"It often doesn't play well with other plugins in the environment."

"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."

"I'm always looking for improvement in things like the documentation, to make things a little bit easier and simpler to understand, a place where people can go to troubleshoot issues."

"The ability to edit source code that has special characters is limited. The ability to incorporate or convert REXX into macros that are usable under the Topaz software is not there. And the REXX macros that I have developed over 40 years of work are useless, so I have a toolbox I can't use or deploy using the Topaz technology, while I can use it under MVS."

"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."

"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."

"It would be good if the vendors would work together or at least have some collaboration between them, so they would know what would work and what wouldn't work. Right now, the way things are working, they're relying on the customer to make everything work."

"Their technical support could be better. There were times where, when we reported bugs, they would fix one bug but add another one. That's probably because of their support model. A lot of organizations are developing software using Agile rather than the Waterfall method, so things are happening all over the place. You get things quicker, but sometimes one fix will break another one or add other bugs."

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."

"It has saved our developers time and effort when working on documentation, which is now more readable and fluent."

"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."

"In general, Compuware tools are very competitive."

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

30%

Insurance Company

19%

Computer Software Company

10%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

28%

Insurance Company

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Comparisons

IBM Rational Developer for z Systems vs BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench

Compared 78% of the time

Bonita vs BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench

Compared 22% of the time

More BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench Competitors

IBM Debug Tool vs BMC Compuware Xpediter

Compared 68% of the time

InterTest vs BMC Compuware Xpediter

Compared 32% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench

February 2025

Download BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench product report

Buyer's Guide

Mainframe Application Development

February 2025

Download BMC Compuware Xpediter product report

Overview

Topaz Workbench provides an intuitive interface that enables developers of all experience levels to initiate Compuware’s industry-leading developer tools, Abend-AID, File-AID, Hiperstation, Xpediter and Strobe, as well as non-Compuware products and distributed solutions in the same environment.

Through Topaz Workbench, mainframe teams can:

Access Compuware development tools, providing the ability to visualize complex application logic and data relationships, make changes to code, test and debug, and performance tune
Leverage existing Eclipse frameworks and integrations with popular open-system tools
Manage source code and promote artifacts through the development lifecycle via integration with ISPW
Leverage a multi-language, multi-platform source code editor
Use JES functions like job submission, review, print and purge
Use Host Explorer for z/OS navigation, including dataset management (i.e., allocation, recall, deletion); build mainframe projects to isolate and quickly access files associated with a unit of work
Copy files from one LPAR to another with a simple drag and drop or right click; data is compressed and the processing is zIIP enabled for optimal performance
Leverage integrations with other industry-leading tools

BMC

Xpediter is Compuware’s mainframe application interactive debugging tool. It also offers code coverage for mainframe application analysis.

Xpediter enables developers to get into an interactive test session with minimal effort and quickly move applications into production with greater confidence.

With Xpediter, developers can:

See and control source code execution line by line
Fully understand what each individual instruction is doing
See and control all data variables within a test session
Resolve production abends without impacting program logic or risking data corruption
Monitor and control execution with added flexibility
Use Code Coverage to view documented proof that code has been executed
Trap transactions initiated by a remote source or a non-terminal task
Gain full control of testing
Create conditions during test to ensure execution of all code in a program
Work alongside other developers who are debugging application code in the same or different logical IMS systems through Xpediter’s integration with COPE IMS virtualization technology

BMC

Sample Customers

Erste Group

Credit Union, IMT, Chunghwa Telecom, Pitney Bowes, Helvetia

Buyer's Guide

BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench vs. BMC Compuware Xpediter

January 2025

Free Report: BMC Compuware Topaz Workbench vs. BMC Compuware Xpediter

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