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BMC AMI DevX vs Gen 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 Mainframe Application Development
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
Software Configuration Management (1st), Debugging (3rd), Database Development and Management (9th), Test Data Management (2nd), Mainframe Testing Tools (1st), Data Masking (3rd), AI Software Development (23rd)
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 November 2026, in the Mainframe Application Development category, the mindshare of BMC AMI DevX is 24.1%, down from 38.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Gen is 15.7%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mainframe Application Development Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
BMC AMI DevX24.1%
Gen15.7%
Other60.2%
Mainframe Application Development
 

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.
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

"BMC AMI DevX Code Pipeline is a solid product that any company can benefit from if they want to have tight control and a standard way of deploying applications into production in a secure manner."
"The most valuable feature of Topaz is Xpediter. It's more flexible than Xpediter through MVS."
"I like the ability that it has to format copy books in a presentable manner. So, you will be able to see the starting offset in length of each field within the layout."
"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 BMC AMI DevX has provided overall benefits and a positive impact because I've seen a lot of developers, not just the new developers, but even the old developers who have used the green screen their entire life, also developing with BMC AMI DevX and migrating into the newer screen."
"BMC AMI DevX tools have positively affected my developers' productivity and efficiency compared to prior solutions, with an estimated increase of almost thirty-three percent in overall productivity."
"With the use of ISPW, we were able to reduce our deployment time for specific applications by utilizing the auto-deploy features."
"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."
"CA Gen has provided us web development capability."
"You can easily manage the code, and you can easily find other changes, other group changes, other models, other components."
"Coding on CA Gen is easy."
"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."
"Advantage Gen greatly enhanced productivity as well as development of solutions in mainframes, Client, and server applications."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"One improvement I would appreciate is stronger integration between DevX debugging and other troubleshooting information, such as JCL, job output, abend details, and application logs, all in one place."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Better discussions to identify inventory prior to the start of any migration would be helpful for potential clients that have applications with code that is not modified often."
"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."
"BMC AMI DevX can be improved by simplifying the user experience."
"The weak side is, I cannot use the DB2 specifications, DB2 comments, easily."
"Personally, I think the tool has taken a turn for the worse."
"Nowadays, there are a couple of mainframe companies, using mainframe products, so to be honest, I'm not recommending it."
"The world is changing, the technologies are changing - COOL:Gen needs to change as well."
"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."
"The product needs to be well marketed, then adopted. I am not seeing many customers using the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Construction Company
20%
Performing Arts
13%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
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...
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Comparisons

 

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: September 2026.
919,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.