Control-M vs Temporal comparison

BMC and Temporal Technologies are both solutions in the Process Automation category. BMC is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.7, while Temporal Technologies is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.6. Additionally, 98% of BMC users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Temporal Technologies users who would recommend it.

Control-M

Read 120 Control-M reviews

3,737 Views
1,525 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Temporal

Read 17 Temporal reviews

1,417 Views
1,100 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Control-M

Temporal

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Control-M and Temporal compete in the workflow automation and scheduling category. Control-M seems to have an upper hand with its robust integration capabilities and comprehensive control modules, particularly suited for complex AS400 processes.

Features: Control-M offers robust integration capabilities, comprehensive control modules, and automation of complex AS400 processes, which are crucial for banking. Its cross-platform support and enhanced scheduling features make it a preferred choice for handling intricate workflows. Temporal stands out with its developer-centric features, customizable scheduling, and the ability to handle distributed transactions efficiently. These capabilities are particularly valuable in environments requiring high adaptability and precision.

Room for Improvement: Control-M users have pointed out the need for enhanced output analysis and more flexible reporting options. These are common user-requested improvements that could enhance its usability. Temporal users have highlighted areas needing better workflow state visualization, improved integration capabilities, and more comprehensive documentation to ease onboarding and enhance understanding.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Control-M supports diverse deployment models, including on-premises and hybrid cloud setups. However, user satisfaction with its technical support has been mixed. Temporal, primarily cloud-oriented, receives praise for strong technical support, although some users have reported challenges in the deployment process.

Pricing and ROI: Control-M is perceived as expensive due to its complex licensing model based on jobs or endpoints, yet many companies report high ROI from automation efficiencies. Temporal's open-source nature offers cost-effectiveness, particularly for on-premises use, with no costs unless premium cloud features are utilized, making it an appealing choice for businesses managing budgets carefully.

To learn more, read our detailed Control-M vs. Temporal Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Control-M vs. Temporal

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

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)

Temporal

Ranking in Process Automation

7th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

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.

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AbhishekDash

Senior Software Engineer at A.P. Moller - Maersk

Orchestrates infrastructure tasks like deployment, deletion, and management

Temporal focus on developers rather than business users. In contrast to older workflow orchestration engines like Camunda, which are more business-oriented and strongly emphasize UI and workflow authoring, Temporal is geared toward developers. It provides extensive capabilities for building complex workflows. A standout feature of Temporal is its handling of long-running workflows, a significant advantage over many other solutions. Temporal excels in managing distributed transactions and application state durability, especially in microservice environments where transactions might fail due to network issues. Temporal simplifies these challenges by managing retries, fail-safes, and circuit breakers. As a result, developers don't need to implement these features manually; Temporal handles them implicitly, though it also allows for tuning based on specific needs.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its compatibility with the new technologies and platforms, like the Google Cloud or Amazon, is the most valuable. Its console allows us to view the duration and execution of a process. It is also very easy to use and easy to implement."

"It helps us meet our service-level agreements. It is integrated into our CI/CD pipeline. It enhances our operational productivity."

"Workload Archiving is a very good feature for us. It helps with our customer requirements in terms of reporting and auditing... Previously, when we didn't have any archive server, we managed the data in Control-M with man-made scripts, and we would pull the data for the last 365 days, or three or four months back. Since we installed the archiving, we have been able to pull the data, anytime and anywhere, with just one click."

"The initial setup is largely straightforward."

"As soon as you have an issue, a ticket is created and the tech support is quite responsive."

"We can tie together all the workloads across the estate and make the whole process reactive to events."

"If a job fails, that development team is notified right away, which improves reliability. Previously, it was on the operators to notify the developers that their job failed, erred, or aborted. Now, it's all automated."

"Control-M can cross all platforms and offers integration for container and cloud solutions."

More Control-M pros

"The solution's most valuable feature is its ability to fix things quickly."

"What I like best about Temporal is its durable execution, which means you don't need to write many boilerplate code for critical pieces, especially for retries. It also has great observability and a nice dashboard to see issues without digging into logs. The interface for viewing activities is excellent, with good tracing that shows how long activities took and what ran, making it almost perfect for debugging."

"We like the fact that the whole process is durable, which is very useful to us."

"It is very useful for long-running workflows."

"The solution's most valuable feature is its ability to retry from an interrupted state."

"Temporal provides visibility into workflow progress and analytics and supports scheduled tasks with customizable settings, making it very convenient."

"The initial setup is easy."

"The solution's most valuable features include its ability to simplify the management of complex workflows, improve system resilience and fault tolerance, and reduce the need for extensive boilerplate code."

More Temporal pros

Cons

"The biggest improvement they could have is better QA testing before releases come out the door."

"The downtime is higher compared to AWS."

"We did encounter a few scalability issues. Sometimes, there are too many jobs in our environment on different servers, but that’s not the tool issue, we can simply increase the FS size. However, that requires bank cost; hence the scalability issue."

"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."

"I would like to see more audit report templates added, and perhaps more customizability in terms of reporting."

"It has a slight issue with daylight savings time while advancing the clock in the Spring."

"They can improve their interface."

"With the current version update, I'm not sure why we needed a separate database upgrade. Why not put it all in one package? Previously, you could do it either via a manual upgrade or an in-place upgrade but it wasn't separate."

More Control-M cons

"One issue is that we don't have enough resources in the community to get answers when we face problems. We once had a cross-cluster persistence issue, which we solved using different keys. I think Temporal is good right now, but I'm part of the community and will let you know if I think of any improvements."

"I don't like the limitations on data flow, particularly the difficulty of passing large amounts of data between different activities."

"Sometimes it scales kind of badly, but it depends on the process of our products."

"Developers often mention the desire for a more intuitive visualization of workflow states."

"Configuring workflows can be improved —the solution could offer more options, but it's not a must-have."

"We previously faced issues with the solution's patch system."

"Temporal lacks many resources, like YouTube videos, which users can use to learn or refer to if they get stuck with the solution."

"Temporal doesn't have built-in data storage to store the state of the ongoing execution."

More Temporal cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Control-M isn't cheap, but this is an enterprise model."

"Pricing is generally affordable, though some features cost a bit more."

"We are paying way more for Control-M than we've paid for any of our other scheduling tools."

"This is now from my previous years as support for banks and big companies. If it's not enterprise scale, I find that it's too expensive for smaller companies. You really have to be quite big and need to have a dedicated support staff to run it, then you'll be fine. What we've seen at smaller companies, it's too expensive because they want to automate everything. Now, stuff that can literally run once a day for the rest of their lives is costing them $3 a job a day. It becomes too expensive, eventually. They are not seeing the return on investment because it's not business critical. Nobody is going to die or they're going to lose money if that job didn't run exactly at 11 minutes past 4:00. It's definitely for bigger enterprise companies, especially banks or healthcare providers. We have had an instance where Control-M was unavailable due to external factors for 20 minutes and there was a loss of almost a million euros because the solution involved logistics."

"The solution is not cheap, it comes with quite a hefty price tag. Control-M is the market leader, but we still want the price to be as friendly as possible."

"Its pricing is a little bit high. They could provide an enterprise-level license for an unlimited number of jobs. Currently, it is based on the number of jobs, and if you exceed the number of jobs, there are charges. For example, if your license is for 3,000 jobs per day, but you run 3,050 jobs, you will have to pay for the extra 50 jobs. They charge $120 per job. So, it is too costly."

"One of the restrictions that we had was with some of the licensing, and not having any insight on the financials part of the product. I don't know what the licensing on the product is, but we don't have an unlimited enterprise license. So, there might be a limitation on either the cost of the licensing or the number of seats."

"It works on task-based licensing."

More Control-M pricing and cost advice

"It is worth the price."

"Temporal is a free, open-source tool."

"Temporal is open-source and free to use, which is great. We didn't have to pay for any premium features."

"The tool is open source under the MIT license, so there are no hidden fees. You can freely use everything on their GitHub and Docker images."

"The savings weren't as big as we initially expected, but they were pretty great from a developer's perspective."

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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

28%

Computer Software Company

19%

Retailer

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

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Temporal?

Temporal OSS is expensive in infrastructure, but it brings back the reliability that companies need.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Temporal?

The actual user interface is still in its early stages. It’s very basic. Users don’t really have a complex permission model yet. Users don’t really have ways to automate things like, for example, p...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Temporal?

We [my company] use it to run a large workload. We have a set of security scans we want to perform, and we distribute them over a full day, that’s over 24 hours. We use it to orchestrate all the st...

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

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Compared 51% of the time

Flowable vs Temporal

Compared 16% of the time

Orkes vs Temporal

Compared 13% of the time

Pega Platform vs Temporal

Compared 5% of the time

ServiceNow Orchestration vs Temporal

Compared 3% of the time

More Temporal Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Control-M

March 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Temporal

March 2025

Download Temporal product report

Also Known As

Control M

No data available

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

Temporal automates and manages workflows efficiently, offering resilience in distributed systems with features like retry and fault tolerance. Its capabilities in handling complex workflows and integrating with programming languages make it a valuable tool for managing diverse business logic.

Temporal excels in workflow orchestration, automating tasks across multiple platforms, and ensuring durability in asynchronous operations. It supports long-running workflows and simplifies handling distributed transactions, reducing boilerplate code. Temporal is noted for its durable execution and built-in retry policies, enhancing resilience. Despite its complexity and steep learning curve, it is valued for its integration with popular programming languages and relatively easy setup process, though it requires improvements in user-friendly features, documentation, community support, and security.

What are Temporal's key features?

Automation and Efficient Management: Automatically handles workflows without manual intervention.
Resilience and Fault Tolerance: Features built-in retry policies for increased reliability.
Integration: Supports various programming languages, easing development.
Distributed Transactions: Simplifies complex transaction handling with reduced boilerplate code.
Durable Execution: Ensures long-running workflows are reliably managed.

What benefits or ROI should users evaluate?

Scalability and Reliability: Enhances IT environments through robust workflow management.
Ease of Integration: Supports seamless multi-platform automation.
Improved Operational Efficiency: Reduces need for extensive coding, streamlining processes.
Durability and Fault Tolerance: Provides reliable asynchronous operations.

Temporal is implemented in sectors requiring robust workflow orchestration, such as managing data pipelines, API integration, and scheduling tasks. Organizations in a Kubernetes environment leverage it for its scalability and infrastructure management capabilities, securing integrations and enhancing reliability across IT operations.

Temporal Technologies

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Control-M vs. Temporal

March 2025

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