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BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer vs Kiteworks 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)
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Kiteworks
Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (15th), Email Security (32nd), Content Collaboration Platforms (13th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category, the mindshare of BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is 3.8%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kiteworks is 10.0%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed File Transfer (MFT)
 

Featured Reviews

SirajShaik - PeerSpot reviewer
Improve operational efficiency through workflow orchestration
Its stability and the feature list are rich compared to other tools in the market. I have experienced a thirty percent reduction in operational time for developers, increasing efficiency in workflow orchestration design. The UI is great, with a minimal learning curve and caters to both click-and-monitor users and those who want to code.
Sukkanta Banerjee - PeerSpot reviewer
Two-factor authentication and .ZIP format make large file transfers very secure
The most valuable feature is the ability to send a large file of 30 GB in size and more. In Outlook and other email applications, you cannot send files that are larger than 20 MB. But with Kiteworks, 30 GB is transferable by default and, with the proper approval, a file of up to 100 GB can be sent. It makes file transfer very easy and smooth. Also, only the .ZIP format is supported because it is a very secure mode of file transfer, and that is why it is recommended. It also has built-in antivirus, so if it detects any malware it will quarantine the file and it won't be delivered. This is really important to keep the service up and running in a proper and secure manner. With people working from home, the data needs to be checked to see what kind of data is being sent. It has a two-factor authentication mechanism. For example, if a person with a particular domain is using Kiteworks and sends a file to a party outside of his domain, that external party has to go through two-factor authentication. The receiver gets a link that takes them to the setup of a temporary account, which will be valid for three days. The recipient will also receive a customized password separately. Only after all these steps will they be able to access the file. That access is only available to a person with the mail ID to which the file was sent. In addition, admins can see who is sending sensitive content, what that content is, and to whom it is being sent, and can track emails. One week of good training will give a user complete knowledge for using the solution. The system is very easy to use. You just click on "Compose," attach a file, and send it. It's very easy compared to Outlook or Teams. It's quite simple, even for someone logging in for the first time. It is very smooth and easy to send files.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"I find the customer service to be excellent."
"The solution supports all file transfers."
"The file transfer, database, and integration features are the most valuable."
"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 reporting and the analytics that I can generate out of my schedules are valuable."
"Dashboard and recovery are the features I found most valuable in the solution."
"The solution removes the limitations with file attachment size that is found with regular email."
"Scalability is impressive."
"The solution can be used remotely; it's easy to upload and share files."
"I can identify from which region our users are uploading or downloading files."
"We could see whether the customer with whom we shared a file had downloaded it, which was not available with GitHub."
"We can see when people are sending things. We can definitely see who is sending to whom. From the administrative logs, we can see who is sending to an outside entity, and those logs are retained for quite a while."
"The top two features are the two-factor authentication, which is pretty good. It's easily understood by the users. And their API is rather robust. We have numerous integrations that work off the API."
"The benefits that Kiteworks has provided to its customers in terms of data sovereignty."
 

Cons

"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."
"I'd like to see MFT included as part of the overall product and not a cost add-on as AFT used to be included and they stopped supporting that and now have come up with MFT and you now have to pay for it separately."
"There are eight different kinds of dashboards in Workflow Insights, but there could be more because there is third party software that provides more dashboard styles."
"Its current functionalities can be upgraded."
"Its price could be better."
"Most improvements are related to cloud connectivity."
"Offering it as open source for free would be great, however, that's unlikely."
"The only improvement I would suggest is the license pricing should be a little reduced. Apart from that, I don't see anything else as a major concern with the tool right now."
"In my experience, their technical support can be a little slow."
"I noticed the Kiteworks login UI is very basic, lacking customization. Allowing more HTML tags to add hyperlinks or user-friendly information on the home page would be very useful."
"There are always issues when there are bugs or upgrades. The challenge with upgrading is getting more storage from the customer. Every time we have a new version, it requires additional storage. This means that the customer would need to procure more storage for their server, which they don't like because it means additional cost to them. So, I think my request would be that the version upgrades don't require any significant storage requirement."
"It could be more stable. In the next release, it would be better if it was more stable with improved performance."
"The one feature, which I have also requested directly to Kiteworks, is to have a scheduled upgrade function. Currently, one of my engineers logs in after hours for the upgrade. We're a hospital, and we're 24/7, but the primary users are seven to five. So, we log in the early evening just to push a button to tell it to do the update. It would be nice if that could be very easily scheduled."
"There is no offboarding process for end-users in Kiteworks. It's a manual process. There is no automated syncing with LDAP and checking to see if the account is still active. It's a manual process to get people out of here, which isn't the best way."
"I would like to see immediate releases of fixes because now it takes at least a week. If that time span can be reduced to one day or two days, that would be very helpful for users so that things are sorted and transactions work smoothly."
"File location could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Its cost is high for small companies."
"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."
"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."
"I switched to this solution within the last year. I switched from the servers payment package to the job payment package, and it is very expensive."
"BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer has reasonable pricing. What you pay for is the task or job, and as it's a module, it's complimentary, so you save about twenty percent of the job cost."
"It is an expensive solution."
"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."
"The license management is changing and confusing. If I could make one change to it, it would be better license management through the API."
"They changed it midstream. We were being charged a certain flat rate for SFTP traffic. For whatever reason, at the beginning of the year, our pricing changed, and we are now being charged more for using a feature of the product than we were when we first bought it. That has been our experience with billing. It turned out to be more expensive than when we started with it."
"I believe it's a little costly, but given the faith that we put into it from a security perspective to maintain the integrity of our patient information that is being transferred through this system, that's a small price to pay. So, on the surface, it might look like a lot of money, but depending on the need for security, which is where we feel it shines, it's okay price-wise."
"It is not really expensive. I mean, to me it's obviously expensive, but it's worth it."
"The solution is very expensive because we are buying with Malaysian Ringgit and it's sold in US dollars."
"The price of Kiteworks is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

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 is Kiteworks?
Kiteworks is a secured file sharing platform that enables users to collaborate with different parties across a robust offering of secured protected channels. Users have the option of virtual privat...
What do you like most about Kiteworks?
The benefits that Kiteworks has provided to its customers in terms of data sovereignty.
What needs improvement with Kiteworks?
I'm not a network expert, however, there must be some room for improvement. Perhaps there could be a notification to users about their bandwidth or network packet loss. If users receive such notifi...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Accellion
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

British Sky Broadcasting
United States Securities and Exchange Commission, National Health Service, Husch Blackwell LLP, NYC Health + Hospitals, Viatris, MITRE Corporation, Chubb, Kraft Heinz, KPMG, Kohler, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Purdue Pharma, AVL
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer vs. Kiteworks and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.