Control-M vs Microsoft Configuration Manager comparison

The compared BMC and Microsoft solutions aren't in the same category. BMC is ranked #3 in PA , with an average rating of 8.7, and holds a 4.4% mindshare in the category. Microsoft is ranked #6 in SM , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 6.0% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of BMC users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Control-M

Read 120 Control-M reviews

3,737 Views
1,525 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Microsoft Configuration Man...

Read 81 Microsoft Configuration Manager reviews

2,285 Views
1,821 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Control-M

Microsoft Configuration Man...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Control-M and Microsoft Configuration Manager based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda, Pega, BMC and others in Process Automation.

To learn more, read our detailed Process Automation Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Process Automation

March 2025

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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

Control-M

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

120

Ranking in other categories

Process Automation (3rd), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (4th), Workload Automation (1st)

Microsoft Configuration Man...

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (6th), Configuration Management (3rd), Patch Management (1st)

Mindshare comparison

Control-M and Microsoft Configuration Manager aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Control-M is designed for Process Automation and holds a mindshare of 4.4%, up 3.9% compared to last year.
Microsoft Configuration Manager, on the other hand, focuses on Server Monitoring, holds 6.0% mindshare, down 8.6% since last year.

Process Automation

Server Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Pedro Fuentes

System Engineer at Community Loans of America, Inc.

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.

Read full review

MikeNelson2

IT Infrastructure Coordinator at NSW Government

Deployment recovery works well but requires configuration improvements

While I do not use the product frequently, many issues were due to configuration rather than the product itself. I cannot give an exact recommendation as it is not my area of responsibility. The team that uses it finds it adequate. It is presently good enough for us not to investigate other options. Overall, I rate the product a six out of ten.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use Control-M for maintenance on our Oracle and SQL Server databases. It automates maintenance on packages, including standard procedures on the databases themselves, snapshots, checking integrity, verifying the RDBMS of the databases, etc. It ensures they aren't clogged and that they are running smoothly and that there aren't any jobs stuck, eating up the performance of the server or any of the CPU cores."

"Promotions between environments, as well as local, mass update, versioning, and self-service."

"Most of our tasks also deal with databases, and Control-M's purpose-built module for the databases comes in very handy when handling database components."

"The reporting is top-notch. I haven't found any other applications on the market that can replicate what Control-M offers. The alerting is very good, and I think their service monitoring is the best in the industry."

"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."

"Before Control-M, we didn't have a centralized view and could not view what happened in the past to determine what will happen in the future. The Gantt view that we have in Control-M is like a project view. It is nice because we sometimes have some application maintenance that we need to do. So, in a single console, we can hold the jobs for the next hour or two. We can release that job when it is finished. This is a really nice feature that we didn't have before. It is something really simple, but we didn't previously have a console where we could say, "For the next two hours, what are the jobs that we will run? And, hold these jobs not to run." This is really important."

"We can set up automated email notifications to the programmers or the whole team for a particular job. It helps save time because we're not consistently looking at the job to see if it has ended or failed."

"The File Transfer component is quite valuable. The integration with products such as Informatica and SAP are very valuable to us as well. Rather than having to build our own interface into those products, we can use the ones that come out of the box. The integration with databases is valuable as well. We use database jobs quite a bit."

More Control-M pros

"It saves a lot of money when you can install things automatically and they are installed the exact same way on every computer."

"It is a good choice for deployment that performs very well."

"We're a Microsoft-centric organization, so we are happy with the integration between products."

"It gives us the ability to set up schedules, according to what our security requirements are, to automate the patching of our servers and desktops."

"Patching is very effective and reporting is very good."

"Microsoft Configuration Manager gives different tools in one solution."

"It uses detailed descriptions of the workstations, and that is good for me."

"I like the data collection."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pros

Cons

"The UI can be challenging for new users due to its learning curve. Additionally, there are some errors during automation. More detailed logs would be helpful."

"They should have a proper integration method that clearly defines the workflow."

"Reporting in Control-M could use improvement."

"Integration with some applications and platforms is complex and requires development. We have done some integration with the application integrator, but it was more like a manual solution. This is an area that can be improved."

"Some of the features are not available. We were about to deploy the REST API, but we had some challenges. We had to use a third-party application. So, it should be improved in terms of integrating REST API jobs. That was something that was lacking. The customer was not that happy in terms of getting the desired output. So, we had to use a third-party application called Hangfire. We would like to have more videos on REST API integration, and we would like to have easy integration with the Control-M application through the REST API."

"It is a very strong product, but the reporting could be better."

"I would like to see them adopt more cloud. Most companies don't have a single cloud, meaning we have data sources that come from different cloud providers. That may have been solved already, but supporting Azure would be an improvement because companies tend not to have only AWS and GCP."

"The stability of Control-M has Not been great. A big thing we've been trying to work on with BMC is observability. Modern applications should be observable and resilient, but we're finding that sometimes Control-M is not very resilient and many times Control-M is not very observable."

More Control-M cons

"I want the system to provide some dependency relations. I would also like to see the relationship between different machines."

"The time the solution takes for updating systems could be quicker. For example, the system information status is not updating as it should. Additionally, the database synchronization querying is slow and could be improved."

"Its client interface should be more accessible, and the notifications should be more customizable from the console. It should be more user friendly and have some kind of customized notifications so that we can use it on the client side. These are the reasons why we restricted its use only for the server environment and didn't use it on the client side."

"There's no way to say, "I want this maintenance window to be on the second Tuesday of the month." It's strict. This window is this and that's it. You can't fluctuate."

"The availability of technical support could improve."

"We'd like the solution to make it easier to manage remote users."

"Marketing: Our management doesn't understand that there is a piece of software which helps them automate and manage the entire network, as far as operating systems on computers."

"Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager can improve by allowing us to schedule the scripts, we don't have a script scheduling option and have to do it manually."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of the hardware is high. Because you need to license each job, it is costly."

"Its pricing and licensing could be a little bit better. Based on my experience and discussions with other existing customers, everybody feels that the regular Managed File Transfer piece, not the enterprise one, is a little overpriced, especially for folks who already have licensed Advanced File Transfer. We understand that Advanced File Transfer is going away and is going to be the end of life, and there is some additional functionality built into MFT, but the additional functionality does not really correlate with the huge price increase over what we're paying for AFT already. This has actually driven a lot of people to look for alternative solutions."

"Pricing varies depending on which components and modules you are using."

"It is a little bit expensive."

"In our environment, pricing depends on the total number of maximum jobs that can run, which is fine. Therefore, if the number of jobs increases, then the licensing fees will increase."

"The product price is reasonable. I rate the pricing an eight."

"We have a five-year contract with task-based licensing."

"We have account based licensing. There are two or three types of licensing. One of them is based on the number of jobs, so we a license close to 4,000 jobs per day. The cost is based on the different modules, which we buy from them. If we a buy a hardware module, which we are presently using and integrating, that is an additional cost, but I'm not sure of the amount. Each module comes with a different cost."

More Control-M pricing and cost advice

"Pricing is negotiable with Microsoft, depending upon which of their packages you choose."

"Pricing and licensing are a downside of SCCM. It's expensive. I'd have to confirm this, but I think they changed the licensing to core-based instead of socket-based. It's not cheap, because you have to buy the software, you have to buy SQL. Another thing we learned from talking to Microsoft is that they provide you a license for SQL if you run it on the same box as the primary server. If you run it outside that box, you have to buy SQL. Microsoft does recommend you running it on the same box because of performance. But then, in order to run SQL, SCCM, and everything on the same box, you better have some resources. It's an expensive solution. There's no doubt about it."

"We have a support license from Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager and the overall price of the solution is reasonable."

"I would rate the cost as eight out of ten."

"For enterprises, there is an annual license required to use this solution. The price of the solution could be cheaper. However, this is mostly because of the exchange rate from the dollar to the Nigerian currency."

"The solution operates on a licensing model that can be expensive."

"When you compare this solution with other tools in the market you might actually find a lot of variation in the pricing and that's why people opt for the other tools rather than Microsoft tools."

"There is an annual license needed to use the solution."

More Microsoft Configuration Manager pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

28%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Control-M?

It is a little bit expensive.

See all answers

How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that the set up will take depends on the kind of technical architecture that your org...

See all answers

How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?

ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. What I like most about ManageEngine is that I can log on to every PC very easily a...

See all answers

What do you like most about SCCM?

One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages efficiently and deploy them to specific groups within our network. This streamlined ...

See all answers

Comparisons

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Control-M

Compared 16% of the time

Automic Automation vs Control-M

Compared 9% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs Control-M

Compared 8% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Control-M

Compared 6% of the time

Stonebranch vs Control-M

Compared 5% of the time

More Control-M Competitors

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 14% of the time

ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 13% of the time

Tanium vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 8% of the time

BigFix vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 6% of the time

AWS Systems Manager vs Microsoft Configuration Manager

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Configuration Manager Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Control-M

March 2025

Download Control-M product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Configuration Manager

March 2025

Download Microsoft Configuration Manager product report

Also Known As

Control M

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM )

Overview

Control-M is used for enterprise workload automation, orchestrating finance, retail, healthcare, and supply chain processes. It handles batch job scheduling, managed file transfers, cloud integrations, and compliance auditing across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments.

Organizations leverage Control-M to efficiently monitor and manage business-critical processes like payroll, HR, SAP, Informatica, and database tasks. It enhances visibility, security, and error resolution. Automating and optimizing workflows in data centers, AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, Control-M supports diverse technological environments. The platform's robust capabilities make it suitable for effective centralized management of applications and data pipelines, ensuring enhanced collaboration and scalability.

What are Control-M's most important features?

Integration capabilities: Seamlessly integrates with various systems
Automation API: Facilitates automation through APIs
Managed File Transfer: Simplifies secure file transfers
GUI console: Intuitive graphical user interface
Role-based administration: Provides access control
Single-pane view: Centralized monitoring dashboard
Scheduling options: Flexible job scheduling
Workflow orchestration: Coordinates complex workflows
Reporting: Generates insightful reports
Monitoring: Tracks and manages tasks
Forecasting: Predicts future workloads
Self-service portal: Empowers users with self-service tools
Plugins: Extends functionality through additional plugins

What are the benefits or ROI of using Control-M?

Enhanced visibility: Centralized view of all processes
Ease of use: User-friendly interface
Error reduction: Minimizes manual errors
Improved collaboration: Facilitates teamwork
Scalability: Supports growth and scale
Support: Comprehensive customer support

Control-M is implemented in industries like finance to handle payroll and HR tasks, in retail for inventory management and supply chain processes, and in healthcare for compliance auditing and patient data processing. Organizations benefit from streamlined workflows and automated processes across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, ensuring efficient and secure operations.

BMC

Microsoft Configuration Manager helps IT manage PCs and servers, keeping software up-to-date, setting configuration and security policies, and monitoring system status while giving employees access to corporate applications on the devices that they choose. When Configuration Manager is integrated with Microsoft Intune, you can manage corporate-connected PCs and Macs along with cloud-based mobile devices running Windows, iOS, and Android, all from a single management console.

New features of Configuration Manager, such as the support of Windows 10 in-place upgrade, co-management with Microsoft Intune, Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise Servicing Dashboard, integration with Windows Update for Business, and more make deploying and managing Windows easier than ever before.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

CARFAX, Tampa General Hospital, Navistar, Amadeus, Raymond James, Railinc

Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad

Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda, Pega, BMC and others in Process Automation. Updated: March 2025.

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