Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

CA Process Automation vs Control-M comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

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

CA Process Automation
Ranking in Process Automation
37th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Control-M
Ranking in Process Automation
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
120
Ranking in other categories
Managed File Transfer (MFT) (4th), Workload Automation (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of CA Process Automation is 0.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Control-M is 4.5%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation
 

Featured Reviews

it_user464568 - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides the ability to import objects as new versions of existing objects and to make the prior version the current version.
CA offers minimal public information pertaining to the performance drain the usage of some objects and operators introduce to processing. As an example, swim lanes within a process provide an excellent means of organizing operators within a process, but they can introduce substantial performance issues. As another example, it’s better to perform verbose JavaScript execution within a Run JavaScript operator instead of within another operator’s pre- or post-execution script. As yet another example, it’s better to hard-code variables within the process dataset as opposed to creating the variables at run-time. The biggest issue for me is its lack of support for current JavaScript methods and functions, which makes scripts unnecessarily longer than they need to be. It seemed I could only rely on the methods and functions available in ECMA 1 (which was released in 1997), but that wasn’t a deal-breaker and the product is capable of extending its capabilities through the inclusion of other code libraries.
Pedro Fuentes - PeerSpot reviewer
Cost-effective, excellent support, and centralized access and control
They have a department that handles requests for enhancements. I talked to Control-M guys back in October or November when they had a gathering here in Atlanta. We talked about not being able to go back in history in Helix Control-M for more than two weeks. We submitted a request for enhancement. They told us that they are working on it, and they are thinking of expanding that to 30 days. We would like to see it expand to 90 days, but they are working on it. In Control-M, we were able to go back 180 days, but that was on-prem. The storage of that data was on our own servers. We know that storage is money, and we do not expect them to store that much of the data, but at least 30 to 60 days seem proper.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is easy to debug and troubleshoot."
"This tool is used in my organization for automating IT infrastructure related incidents or service requests."
"I find Control-M for SAP and Control-M for Informatica good. You can connect to the Linux or Windows servers, and you can run multiple jobs."
"The solution has the power to reduce resources, which is good for business. It is constantly updated to remain compatible with new technologies such as Amazon, Azure, and Google Cloud. It's very easy to take advantage of the compatibilities."
"The product has improved dramatically over the years; it offers a lot in terms of features and capabilities and integration with third-party tools. A wide range of models available with the product is critical in reducing manual and mundane work such as custom script writing. This saves significant amounts of time and, by association, money for the organization."
"Automation of the batch jobs is the most valuable feature."
"The product has enhanced the interface with a clear visual display of data and process batches, showing the completion status of workflows."
"It is very easy to use. The HA feature is also very good."
"Self Service, BIM features are most valuable. As no need to login to EM client and check the job status."
"It gives us the ability to have end-to-end workflows, no matter where they're running."
 

Cons

"OCR capability should be added as a feature."
"It needs auto-triggering of workflows based on machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI)."
"Make some of the features more open source that way developers can have more flexibility."
"Somehow the product group within CA left the product dry from some regular expression functionality."
"They really need to work on improving the web interface, as there are still a lot of bugs... In general, they need to do a lot of work on shoring up their testing and quality assurance. A lot of bugs seem to make it into the product."
"The Control-M API does not support SQL database-type jobs, where a job has been configured to use the SQL catalog to locate SSIS."
"One feature I would like to include is in the middle of the monitoring domain. In the monitoring domain, if I have to update a number of jobs, the only way to do it is by manually clicking on each job. I would like a feature that allows me to do a mass update in the jobs, which I feel is still lacking."
"They should have a proper integration method that clearly defines the workflow."
"The infrastructure could be improved."
"The high availability that comes from BMC with its supplied Postgres database is very limited. Even using your customer-supplied Postgres database is problematic. We have engaged with them regarding this, but it is difficult. My company doesn't want to do this and BMC doesn't want to do that. We just need to find some middle ground to get the proper high availability. We're also moving away, like the rest of the world, from the more expensive offerings, like Oracle. We are trying to use Postgres, which is free. The stability is good. It is just that the high availability configuration is not ideal. It could be better."
"For installing or upgrading the PeopleSoft and SAP plugins, currently there is no way to do it via Control-M Configuration Manager. So, we are installing or upgrading the plugins, like PeopleSoft and SAP, manually. If BMC could provide an option via Control-M Configuration Manager to upgrade these plugins, it probably would reduce a lot of manual work as well as ease our work. This is one improvement that I personally want to see, because it would help our way of working."
"The performance could be better. Control-M Enterprise Manager tends to slow the system down even on a server with a six-core processor and 32 gigabytes RAM. The console is Java-based, so maybe OpenJDK 16 or 17 would be a performance improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has provided ROI by auto resolving incidents or requests in the ITSM queue, improved MTTR and SLA adherence, and added value to the delivery of services and the customer experience."
"There are a lot of automation savings from any process which is repeatable."
"It is a little bit expensive."
"There are human costs in addition to the standard pricing and licensing of this solution."
"You must accept that BMC licensing can be very confusing. No one can easily understand how they calculate things, whether it is user-based, job-based, or server-based. The calculation is quite tough. How BMC calculates licensing is not easily available anywhere."
"It works on task-based licensing."
"You're going to spend a lot of money upfront, but the benefits you're going to get out of it are going to quickly pay for it."
"we are more looking for a better cost/license/performance model because BMC, while we could say it's the best, is also the most expensive. That is what we are probably most annoyed with. We are paying something like €1,000,000 over three years for having 4,000 jobs running. That's expensive."
"For the tooling that you get, the licensing is acceptable. It has competitive pricing, especially with all the value that you get out of it. There are additional costs with some of the additional modules, but they are all electives. Out of the box, you get the standard Control-M experience and the standard license. They're not forcing some of the modules on you. If you decide that you do need them, you can always purchase those separately."
"It is not bad. The company can afford it, and it pays for itself. We have those jobs running automatically."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Process Automation solutions are best for your needs.
847,625 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
How does Control-M compare with AutoSys Workload Automation?
Control-M acts as a single, centralized interface for monitoring and managing all batch processes, which is helpful because nothing gets left unattended since it is all visible in one place, and th...
What do you like most about Control-M?
First of all, the shift from manual to automation has been valuable. We have a tool that can automate.
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

CA IT Process Automation Manager
Control M
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Unum, HCL Technologies, Logicalis
CARFAX, Tampa General Hospital, Navistar, Amadeus, Raymond James, Railinc
Find out what your peers are saying about CA Process Automation vs. Control-M and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,625 professionals have used our research since 2012.