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BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer vs Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct 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
Sterling Commerce Connect:D...
Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
10
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 Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is 8.3%, down from 8.6% 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.
Sumit Mundik - PeerSpot reviewer
Has good file transfer speed, but licensing cost is too high
The initial setup of the solution is not straightforward because it's not GUI-based. If you are installing the solution on a UNIX server, you should have a basic understanding of UNIX. You should know how to go from one directory to another, what the config files are, how to edit those files, and how to get the backup of those files. You need a little technical knowledge for it. The developers working on the solution are very costly for the organization. Also, the complexity of having this kind of setup is very difficult. This solution is only used by giant financial companies like BNY Mellon, Barclays, and JPMorgan Chase. They cannot replace the solution because they have several files transferred internally using it. It is very difficult and cost-consuming for them to change, migrate, or upgrade their system. That's the reason they are not able to do it very easily.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The scalability of this solution is very good. The current solution is used wide spread in my company, but I don't have any plans to expand."
"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."
"The file transfer, database, and integration features are the most valuable."
"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."
"The product works very well with the modules. If you have MFT, Managed File Transfer, or the old AFT, you can link that to processing jobs."
"I find the customer service to be excellent."
"This solution has a vast amount of features and with every new release, there are lots of new features introduced. The application has high availability—we have multiple customers and it's highly available. On an application level, if something goes down with the primary, then the application goes over to the secondary, so it's very, very easy to do disaster recovery. From an application integration point of view, it has a lot of APIs, rich APIs. Every month, they are releasing new APIs and new updates, like Java, but more than that. Now they are introducing a couple more APIs, which you can use to integrate your controlling environment with any applications you want."
"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 most valuable feature of Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is its flexibility with encryption."
"Connect Direct offers Check Point functionality to ensure data integrity during transfers."
"The most valuable feature is that it provides 100% reliability for file transmission. It ensures that files get delivered in a secure manner. When you use Connect:Direct, your file 100% gets delivered to the next delivery location. If the log shows that a file got delivered, it will have all the transmitted data without truncation or other data issues."
"The Security Plus feature of this solution is excellent, and allows you to send encrypted files very securely to remote destinations."
"Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is a solution that is on the market for a very long time. There is an integrator that has been developed and evolves every year. On the roadmap, there is always a new integration. For example, it's one of the solutions in the market that out of the box can handle EBICS protocol. The file processing is done very well. By default, there are a lot of configurations that can be customized."
"Connect Direct offers Check Point functionality to ensure data integrity during transfers."
"Security is the most valuable feature of this product."
"The product has been very stable."
 

Cons

"BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer has a scheduler and what they do is capture the steps based on the script, and then they put it into the Control-M job, or task. Any system that has the script behind it the solution can do it."
"This solution could be improved by making it possible to better control GUI when interfacing with other systems."
"I believe that the API should be upgraded with security control from the DM. There is Currently no security for the app API solution."
"Offering it as open source for free would be great, however, that's unlikely."
"I would love to see REST API integration and more plugins for Google Cloud Platform compared to AWS and Azure."
"We're only using the functionality that we need to use. However, we've had an opportunity to work with one application owner here who wanted to do some transfers in the cloud and things like that. I know that there were some challenges on that, but they finally got all that set up. There was a learning curve though."
"It scales well, except for the cost. I have to pay per agent per server, which could be prohibitive for some organizations."
"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 user interface could be more user-friendly."
"User interface is not user friendly."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"This solution cannot be deployed on a root_squash NFS, which limits superuser privileges."
"The resources required for this tool are costly and not easily available in the market."
"Sometimes we face issues and can't figure out the cause of failures."
"Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct could improve by adding some of the functionality that some other vendors have. For example, GoAnywhere has call agents, which are small clients that can be installed on the endpoints and can be handled by the central point on the server. If I want to do this with the IBM solution, I have to sell a lot of account addresses. The price could be unprofitable for the customer. There is some small functionality that could be implemented and could be easily done to improve this solution."
"They have File Agent, which is an additional utility and a component of Connect:Direct, for automated file transmission. In that utility, there is some issue with the file name. There is a limitation on the file name, and that is being fixed by IBM."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Its cost is high for small companies."
"Annual licensing fee."
"The price and licensing of Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is expensive."
"The solution's licensing cost is too high."
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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
45%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

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 needs improvement with Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct?
The package that IBM delivers does not come with many premade tools or templates. This means we have to create a lot of things by ourselves, which requires more work. We have a team of four to five...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

British Sky Broadcasting
HZMO, Bank of Communications
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer vs. Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.