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Control-M vs Fortra's JAMS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 24, 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
7.4
Control-M enhances efficiency, reduces costs, and centralizes management, benefiting enterprises but may be complex for smaller businesses.
Sentiment score
8.9
Fortra's JAMS boosts efficiency and cost-effectiveness, automating tasks to save time and resources while enhancing job process visibility.
The main return on investment with Helix Control-M has been a reduction in downtime and minimization of manual interventions, which has improved our operational efficiency.
It has reduced the total cost of ownership by 30% to 40%.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Control-M technical support is praised for responsiveness and knowledge, though initial ticket handling and documentation need improvement.
Sentiment score
9.6
Fortra's JAMS support is responsive and expert, offering quick, helpful assistance, though occasional delays occur, ensuring effective issue resolution.
The technical support is very polite, helpful, and available 24/7.
Solutions are available on the web.
They do not always provide timely support.
Their response is prompt, exemplifying how support should be.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Control-M is scalable and efficient, handling large workloads with few issues, integrating well with various applications.
Sentiment score
5.9
Fortra's JAMS offers efficient scalability and handles large job volumes, though users seek better licensing flexibility and performance monitoring.
It can absorb more workload wherever needed.
As the workload on Control-M increases, its scalability is much higher.
I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Control-M is praised for its stability, reliability, and minimal downtime, despite occasional minor compatibility and infrastructure challenges.
Sentiment score
7.8
Fortra's JAMS is lauded for its reliability, stability, and excellent support, handling demanding workloads efficiently with minimal issues.
The downtime is higher compared to AWS.
The stability of the Helix Control-M solution is good.
We experience periods of major incidents annually due to capacity constraints, which result in job failures.
 

Room For Improvement

Control-M needs enhanced roles, better integration, flexible reporting, simplified licensing, seamless automation, and improved user interfaces.
Fortra's JAMS lacks intuitive UI, requires better documentation, clearer error messages, improved security, and enhanced integration and automation features.
They could provide more documentation and tutorials to make the initial setup easier to understand.
There should be an automation system for developers to set it up more easily and quickly.
The UI can be challenging for new users due to its learning curve.
Another area for improvement would be the addition of source control for jobs internally, as this feature would solve several problems for me.
 

Setup Cost

Control-M offers fair enterprise pricing but can be expensive, depending on jobs, infrastructure, and licensing model.
Fortra's JAMS offers cost-effective enterprise automation with a $10,000 initial cost and flexible, competitively priced licensing options.
Pricing is generally affordable, though some features cost a bit more.
It is a little bit expensive.
The pricing is moderate, not too low or too high compared to other solutions.
 

Valuable Features

Control-M excels in cross-platform workflow scheduling, user-friendly interface, automation, real-time monitoring, and proactive SLA management.
Fortra's JAMS provides comprehensive scheduling and automation features, enhancing efficiency with cross-platform support, intuitive interface, and robust auditing.
The user interface is comprehensive and lets me view all my jobs on one page, monitor everything, and access the job history.
Automation is more advanced, deployment is fast, and version control has been simplified.
It is integrated into our CI/CD pipeline.
This efficient feature has been invaluable, enabling us to streamline our workflow and enhance productivity.
 

Categories and Ranking

Control-M
Ranking in Workload Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
120
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (3rd), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (4th)
Fortra's JAMS
Ranking in Workload Automation
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of Control-M is 25.5%, down from 25.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's JAMS is 1.7%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Rob Grafrath - PeerSpot reviewer
We can scale up our organization's scheduling and automation without having to add staff to the department
The biggest area with room for improvement is the area that my organization benefits the most from using JAMS, and that is in custom execution methods. I happen to have a very good C# developer. Ever since we got JAMS, he has spent a lot of time talking to JAMS developers, researching the JAMS libraries, and creating custom execution methods. He's gotten very good at it. He is now able to create them and maintain them very easily, but that was hard-won knowledge. If I ever lose this developer, I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who could create JAMS custom execution methods as well as he can since there really isn't all that much help, such as documentation or information, available on how to create custom execution methods. I really think that they could benefit greatly by being much more transparent about C# development, maybe by making a JAMS cookbook or a developer portal where they could throw ideas at each other. One of my complaints with the marketing around JAMS is that it says things like, "It integrates with Teams". They talk about integrating with a lot of things, but marketing doesn't tell you that they are talking about JAMS running PowerShell jobs. Since PowerShell can automate things like SharePoint and Teams, that is how marketing gets away with saying it has so many integrations. JAMS doesn't have as many built-in integrations as they advertise. I think they should build more of them, and improve on the ones they have built.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Healthcare Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Control-M?
Pricing is generally affordable, though some features cost a bit more.
What do you like most about JAMS?
I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JAMS?
Fortra's JAMS pricing structure has deteriorated significantly since its acquisition by Fortra. Previously, both Help Systems and MVP offered more favorable pricing and licensing terms. However, Fo...
What needs improvement with JAMS?
The monitoring of the JAMS product and its performance is an area of concern for me. I also need better tools to adopt version seven. Another area for improvement would be the addition of source co...
 

Also Known As

Control M
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CARFAX, Tampa General Hospital, Navistar, Amadeus, Raymond James, Railinc
Teradata, Arconic, General Dynamics, Yum!, CVS Health, Comcast, Ghiradelli, & Boston’s Children’s Hospital
Find out what your peers are saying about Control-M vs. Fortra's JAMS and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.