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BMC AMI DevX vs Gen 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 Mainframe Application Development
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Software Configuration Management (1st), Debugging (4th), Database Development and Management (16th), Test Data Management (5th), Mainframe Testing Tools (1st), Data Masking (4th), AI Software Development (202nd)
Gen
Ranking in Mainframe Application Development
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Mainframe Application Development category, the mindshare of BMC AMI DevX is 27.3%, down from 42.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Gen is 12.3%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mainframe Application Development Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
BMC AMI DevX27.3%
Gen12.3%
Other60.4%
Mainframe Application Development
 

Featured Reviews

FI
Devops Engineer / Ispw Admin at a insurance company with 201-500 employees
Tight deployment controls have secured production and simplified complex release rollbacks
The best feature of BMC AMI DevX Code Pipeline that impresses me is the fallback functionality. The fallback functionality impresses me because when developers deploy large releases involving multiple components, such as COBOL programs, underlying copy books, and CICS modules, backing out changes would typically become a nightmare. With ISPW, developers can back out the entire release or entire package. If they deployed 100 components and want to back out everything, they can do so with one function and back out all components without worrying about backing out each individual component. They can back out the entire deployment set, which handles everything and brings them back to the previous versions. Developers can also selectively back out a subset of the deployed components. They also have the ability to revert to not just the most previous version but can go back several versions if they choose to do so. This gives them a lot of flexibility.
IR
Consultant
Full packets enable software implementation on the mainframe and client sides
I rate it eight out of 10. It's just very powerful tool, very powerful product to use. Nowadays, there are a couple of mainframe companies, using mainframe products, so to be honest, I'm not recommending it. Of course, if you have mainframe and you have do something in the mainframe that’s different.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's a modernized development portal and helps reduce the learning curve for younger people coming in to work on the platform,"
"We have seen an improvement in the rate and level of quality at which we deploy changes."
"I like that Compuware File-AID can actually map out control sections within load modules, or, as they're now known, program objects."
"The visual ability to see potential downstream impacts to changes being made assists our developers in understanding the impact associated with their change."
"The plugin ISPW integrated into Eclipse is a really valuable functionality for developers who already use it."
"ISPW is an excellent product; it does everything the developers need it to do, we were able to build it and customize it very simply as we became more familiar with how the system works during installation, and it doesn't need a lot of care and feeding once it's up and running."
"I think the most valuable features are code management, code deployment, and code generation. The fact that those three features are included makes BMC Compuware ISPW a robust product. If one of those features was missing, it would be less robust and less interesting. But because it has those three features, it is a very good solution for code development and management."
"The most valuable feature of Topaz is Xpediter. It's more flexible than Xpediter through MVS."
"Advantage Gen greatly enhanced productivity as well as development of solutions in mainframes, Client, and server applications."
"CA Gen has provided us web development capability."
"Full packets, enable you to develop software and systems using these packets, and implement software on the mainframe side and the client side. You can use the same packets, so it's very powerful."
"It has lived long beyond what people thought was its life expectancy as a product, largely because it is such a quality tool that people can't replace."
"If you’re writing a simple barebones COBOL program, it may take 20-30 hours, but with a solution like this it can be done in around four hours."
"If you want to be the first in market and you have a short time to generate, or to develop your application, and if you're looking for a platform that supports multiple frameworks, multiple platforms such as mainframe, Java, and .Net, or the others, you need a modelling tool, rather than a language or technology."
"Coding on CA Gen is easy."
"You can easily manage the code, and you can easily find other changes, other group changes, other models, other components."
 

Cons

"The only thing that bothers me about BMC AMI DevX Code Pipeline is the screen movement."
"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."
"It would be nice to have an audit trail to see what mainframe developers are using what."
"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."
"I find it more cumbersome to use Topaz."
"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."
"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."
"The weak side is, I cannot use the DB2 specifications, DB2 comments, easily."
"The world is changing, the technologies are changing - COOL:Gen needs to change as well."
"The product needs to be well marketed, then adopted. I am not seeing many customers using the product."
"If I look into the native COBOL language it can be more efficient, and CA Gen adds what seems to be some unnecessary lines of code; it’s not an apples to apples comparison."
"Nowadays, there are a couple of mainframe companies, using mainframe products, so to be honest, I'm not recommending it."
"Personally, I think the tool has taken a turn for the worse."
 

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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise17
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with BMC Compuware Topaz Enterprise Data?
To improve BMC AMI DevX, consideration should be given to cloud-style provisioning and development models, as well as integration of more AI capabilities. Enhancements in VS Code extensions to deve...
What is your primary use case for BMC Compuware Topaz Enterprise Data?
BMC AMI DevX solutions are primarily used for mainframe-based resources and application development, encompassing not only COBOL but also Workbench and VS Code for various purposes. Data management...
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Also Known As

File-AID, Data for Db2, Code Debug, Data Studio, Workbench for Eclipse, Code Pipeline
CA Gen
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NRB, Iberdrola, Consorzio Servizi Bancari 
Global bank
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC AMI DevX vs. Gen and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
899,258 professionals have used our research since 2012.