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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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
8.3
BMC Control-M MFT achieved ROI quickly, reducing costs and errors, and transitioned from mainframe to distributed systems efficiently.
Sentiment score
7.8
Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT offers cost-effective automation, enhancing security, reducing administrative efforts, and boosting revenue through efficient data integration.
GoAnywhere can perform the work of three people, leading to a decrease in manpower needs for automation and file transfer.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.5
BMC Control-M support is praised for responsiveness but criticism exists for Level 2 expertise, with mixed feedback on Italian support.
Sentiment score
7.3
Fortra GoAnywhere MFT offers responsive and knowledgeable support, with users rating it highly, despite some reported delays and limitations.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is scalable for large enterprises but faces licensing costs and high availability limitations.
Sentiment score
7.7
GoAnywhere MFT efficiently scales for all company sizes, managing large transactions and workflows while maintaining high reliability and uptime.
I have to pay per agent per server, which could be prohibitive for some organizations.
We have clients with over 600,000 users.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is reliable, stable, and enhanced by regular updates, ensuring high availability and robust performance.
Sentiment score
8.1
Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT is highly stable and dependable, with minimal downtime and rare issues mostly caused by external factors.
 

Room For Improvement

BMC Control-M needs improvements in scalability, cloud integration, GUI, support services, licensing, APIs, and administrative functions.
Enhancements needed for GoAnywhere MFT include improved DNS, GUI, cloud mailbox support, technical support, scheduling, and user interface.
It is adequate for most scheduling needs.
 

Setup Cost

BMC Control-M MFT pricing is high, yet users value effectiveness and can negotiate discounts despite geographic cost variations.
Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT offers robust data transfer solutions with flexible, organization-friendly licensing, considered cost-effective by many users.
 

Valuable Features

BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer offers automation, security, scalability, and integration features appreciated for enhancing workload efficiency and flexibility.
Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT excels in automation, security, and integration, streamlining file transfers and securing data exchanges efficiently.
If I have a staff that operates Control-M on Windows Server, they will easily pick it up if they need to run it on Unix or mainframes. It's the same interface, saving time and improving efficiency.
It provides multiple cipher options for HTTPS and SFTP protocols, utilizing AES-based algorithms for secure communication and data transfer.
 

Categories and Ranking

BMC Control-M Managed File ...
Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)
7th
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
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category, the mindshare of BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is 4.4%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT is 7.8%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed File Transfer (MFT)
 

Featured Reviews

Shirish Kamalapurkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Good visibility for jobs and an easy-to-use dashboard for maintenance
The solution should improve the out-of-the box conversion tool for migrations so the percentage result isn't so low. We have many use cases where we migrate from different vendors like Otter. When we see the result for main frames, the percentage is low. A higher percentage would give us more confidence. We want to share good results with our customers. There is no option to deploy agents from Control-M itself so they have to be installed manually and that is time consuming. BMC does provide a separate tool to deploy the software but it would be easier to do from the solution's controller.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare 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?
There is not much room for improvement. It already has a GUI and even a mobile app, although I don't use it. It is adequate for most scheduling needs. Offering it as open source for free would be g...
What do you like most about Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT?
GoDrive eliminates the need to use the exchange server for file sharing.
What needs improvement with Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT?
The technical support response time has room for improvement.
 

Also Known As

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

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.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.