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BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer vs Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

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 Control-M Managed File ...
Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT
Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)
2nd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category, the mindshare of BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is 4.5%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT is 7.8%, up from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed File Transfer (MFT)
 

Featured Reviews

Alan Arnold - PeerSpot reviewer
Stable, straightforward to deploy, and works as advertised
The most valuable thing is that it works as advertised. We don't take advantage of some of the features like we should because that's not our primary role and responsibility in the environment that we manage. We only want to make sure that a file gets to where it was supposed to go, or we pull in a file and it comes to us correctly. There are some GUI interfaces that we take a look at that tell us the number of transfers and the servers that are being utilized the most for capacity management and performance management. That's about it.
Earl Diem - PeerSpot reviewer
Key to our workflow and our workload automation strategy, helping us trade and consume files
File monitors are one of the most valuable features. We have about 400 file monitors running in GoAnywhere. They monitor the NAS locations where files arrive, and they kick off workflows. When a file arrives, GoAnywhere will identify that the file is there, move it to a consumption zone, then reach out to our enterprise scheduler through a REST API call. The solution helps centralize the exchange of data between systems, employees, customers, and trading partners. It's very central and that's pretty important. We generally move about 3,000 files a day, between our partners and internal workflows. My team really likes the intuitiveness of GoAnywhere's user interface. For example, my automation team has a file coming in from a bank, a file that needs to be unzipped, reformatted, re-zipped up, and then put into another folder where another team is going to consume it. Because of all the progressive elaboration—the project started a year ago—the format of the file is not the same. We addressed it with GoAnywhere instead of having the producer of the file change the format. That's how flexible it is for us. And looking at the comprehensiveness of GoAnywhere's workflow features, we use it pretty extensively for working with files. Stonebranch is our enterprise automation platform, but we don't really do any file work with Stonebranch. We chose to use GoAnywhere, our MFT tool, to move and manipulate files. The solution also connects to popular ICAP servers and that's pretty important to our security guys when it comes to preventing malware and other malicious content from entering our organization. The connection to popular ICAP servers, so that content is inspected for sensitive information like credit cards, is pretty important. We're a financial institution and a lot of the data we work with has PAN data and card numbers in it, coming in from partners.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The file transfer, database, and integration features are the most valuable."
"It is a highly scalable solution...I rate the product's initial setup a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy."
"What I like best about BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is that it makes transfers more secure and faster. It has a recovery feature during failed file transfers."
"The solution supports all file transfers."
"BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is highly stable. It is enterprise-grade software. Doing a job of 10,000 to 20,000 the solution is very stable."
"It has a nice dashboard for loading up the file transfers, so it's easy to follow the success or failure rates of the operations."
"Our customers find the self-service feature the most valuable. Control-M offers great value to businesses by providing an option to see different flows and control and orchestrate the sequence of the execution. It is easy to use and integrate with different solutions. It is a good solution that is easy to implement and deliver."
"The most valuable thing is that it works as advertised. We don't take advantage of some of the features like we should because that's not our primary role and responsibility in the environment that we manage. We only want to make sure that a file gets to where it was supposed to go, or we pull in a file and it comes to us correctly."
"GoAnywhere makes it easy to move files around. We have quite a bit of information we have to transfer to around 300 different companies that require us to send data on a regular basis. If we did this manually, it would require several employees."
"It enabled us to allocate staff toward other work. All the time that we would have wasted worrying about this stuff and correcting problems is put into other parts of our job. That's one of the best things about it, is that we don't waste time on these projects. We just don't have to worry about them because it lets us know if there's a problem."
"File monitors are one of the most valuable features. We have about 400 file monitors running in GoAnywhere. They monitor the NAS locations where files arrive, and they kick off workflows. When a file arrives, GoAnywhere will identify that the file is there, move it to a consumption zone, then reach out to our enterprise scheduler through a REST API call."
"Scheduling is valuable. You can schedule a transfer for any time you want. It can be hourly, daily, monthly, or yearly. You can transfer the file on AWS, Azure, or SharePoint."
"The most valuable feature of MFT is the security it provides for our data. MFT allows us to add additional authorization and passwords to any file attachments we send via email, and also to limit the number of times the recipient can download the file."
"It streamlines the files. Anyone can go pick up the file that we give access to. It is great."
"The user interface is simple."
"When users say, 'I'm building spreadsheets that I would like to be uploaded on a regular basis into the IBM i,' we are able to accommodate that request within a matter of hours rather than the days it would take to create programs to do that. That is very useful. It has eliminated several dozens of scripts for us."
 

Cons

"This solution could be improved by making it possible to better control GUI when interfacing with other systems."
"One can opt for either a job-based license or a job execution-based license, which sometimes can be troublesome. If the job count exceeds a limit, you may need to procure additional licenses from BMC."
"The solution should improve the out-of-the box conversion tool for migrations so the percentage result isn't so low."
"I believe that the API should be upgraded with security control from the DM. There is Currently no security for the app API solution."
"It scales well, except for the cost. I have to pay per agent per server, which could be prohibitive for some organizations."
"Before we transfer files we have to make the connection profile first for MFT. If we did not have to do this and send the transfer files directly, that would be useful."
"Its price could be better."
"Offering it as open source for free would be great, however, that's unlikely."
"When we restart the agent on each server, it tries to go out to the internet and it takes about a 13-minute timeout before it can move forward. Why is there a 13-minute timeout value when trying to go to the internet? ...If they could limit that timeout or give us a way to modify it so we could have a faster timeout, that would help us at least knock out a half-hour's worth of outage."
"Its user interface can be improved. The current user interface is a little basic for some of the use cases. We have to use an external component to enhance it. When we need a more appealing user interface, we use an additional component, and that works okay."
"When a monitor invokes a project to accomplish something, that gets logged as a job. I've had a little difficulty figuring out where to look to see the monitor's activities itself, to see if the monitor is having a problem. For instance, if an account on a secure FTP server has expired, the monitor that uses that account doesn't announce to us that it's having a problem. I want to work with them on this to get it fixed."
"The solution's support for the Unix platform and AS2 should be improved."
"There's not a lot of improvement I can think of. Maybe in the tools section, they have an SQL Wizard and a URL Wizard, which are really good. I think that the SQL Wizard might need some improvement. I don't know how to improve it, but it's just a little slow here and there."
"There are a number of built-in tasks in GoAnywhere. One, in particular, the write to CSV task, is slow. If you have, say, 100,000 records in your row set and you want to write them to a CSV file, it takes a long time. That definitely requires performance improvement."
"It would be helpful to have a way to actually have a job run without notifying the email addresses you have set up and without posting to the actual FTP... when you need to make a small change to a job that is deployed to production, and test that change, you have to go back and reset everything. It's not really a great way to test."
"The support could be enhanced a little bit... If the first echelon of support could say, 'Okay, you are trying to create a variable,' and could tell you what you have to do, that would be good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is expensive."
"Yearly licenses are based on the number of jobs."
"Apart from the standard license, if we avail any additional features, there's an extra cost. For example, Workload Archiving is an additional feature from the standard product, so we pay extra for that."
"The licensing is a bit more expensive than other tools, so if a client is focused on the cost, that would be something to consider. The licensing should be cheaper."
"This solution is very expensive compared to others in the market. Previously it was the only solution in our country to offer this kind of functionality. However, technology has caught up and many competitors offer the same at a lower price."
"It is an expensive solution."
"I rate the solution's price a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is low or really affordable, and ten is high or really expensive. It is a really expensive tool."
"It was a little bit pricey. They were proud of the product. A particular module was not free. However, BMC was able to negotiate that particular module into our whole contract itself without having to negotiate an individual price for that module. All that was included in a one-time negotiation, and we've signed a five-year contract on that."
"Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT carries a higher price tag than other MFT solutions."
"Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT is an inexpensive solution."
"HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT is very reasonably priced for the value it brings."
"GoAnywhere was the most attractively priced product that met our needs. In our PoC it really came down to MOVEit and GoAnywhere, and GoAnywhere's pricing was about 30 percent less."
"GoAnywhere's price is justified by its features and the time it saves me."
"The cost was definitely within reason and it has definitely been worth the cost, based on how much we can automate. It has exceeded my expectations."
"The product's pricing is reasonable."
"I find it to be very fair. It is very good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer?
It is a highly scalable solution...I rate the product's initial setup a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer?
Negotiate based on task and ask for a better price where non prod tasks could be charged a lower price.
What needs improvement with BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer?
Most improvements are related to cloud connectivity. It would be beneficial to have cloud integration tools for services like AWS and Azure. Currently, batch flows integrate through modules but don...
What do you like most about Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT?
GoDrive eliminates the need to use the exchange server for file sharing.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT?
If anyone feels that the price for this product is too high, I would like to know what else they are using. When it comes to secure systems that we have used, the price point can get a whole lot hi...
What needs improvement with Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT?
While I was happy with the training and support, more of it could be beneficial. We had some basic training and support. I talked with Fortra recently, and they said that they revamped and changed ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT, GoAnywhere MFT, GoAnywhere Managed File Transfer,
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

British Sky Broadcasting
McKesson City of Modesto, California Kwik Trip Northwestern University Charter Communications
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer vs. Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.