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

"It is very easy to use. The HA feature is also very good."

"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."

"The feature we use most in Control-M is related to the file transfer module. It is quite advanced compared to the other tools like Automate, etc. The new version which has come of same MFT has a lot of advanced features which makes it very easy to work with. There is less need for written programs and more GUI-based stuff."

"It gives us the ability to have end-to-end workflows, no matter where they're running."

"It integrates seamlessly with other tools within our ecosystem."

"The monitoring tool is very good. It's very easy for expert and entry-level users to use on short notice."

"I would definitely recommend Control-M to every institute because it is extremely helpful to manage every task without any manual error."

"We are using Control-M for day-to-day operations only. It is helpful for us in our day-to-day operations. It is a key in our financial sector. We are automating via Control-M in our treasury operations, including any evening updates. Control-M makes things easier and faster by helping our treasury operations go without any interruptions."

More Control-M pros

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

"When some jobs take a lot of time and fail midway, the solution’s retry feature automatically causes them to retry."

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

"Temporal allows retryability for different workflows whenever they fail. It helps ensure idempotence and that things get done."

"The most valuable thing about Temporal is that we can create multiple and child workflows. We can segregate work as we want, which is good for work organization. It's also easy to maintain. We're trying to generate and fill PDF forms with custom data, including digital signatures. We call AWS and do all activities through Temporal, like calling and saving data in buckets. We do this because we have a lot of load, with multiple users requesting data. We have two types of users: admin and customer. The admin creates forms, and employees or customers fill them out. When admin gets a form, it's stored in Temporal."

"It's easy to get started and user-friendly."

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

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

More Temporal pros

Cons

"They can improve their interface."

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

"The company has been working with BMC on the MFT. There are still some things about MFT which don't work the way that we want with our needs. So, we would like to see that improved."

"I would like to see automatic license management. And probably more importantly, some kind of machine learning to help identify the optimum automation path."

"The infrastructure could be improved."

"The report form and display function are weak; they are not very powerful."

"They can give more predefined plug-ins so that we don't have to create them."

"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."

More Control-M cons

"While the tool can be a bit daunting initially, especially if you're not used to async programming models, it's generally a pleasure. There's always room for improvement, though. I've noticed some limitations with the .NET SDK regarding dynamic workflows, but this might have been improved in recent versions. Overall, I think Temporal could be more open about implementing features in a more—.NET-friendly way, especially in how you add workers and clients."

"Temporal could be improved by making it more user-friendly for beginners and non-technical staff, ensuring easier integration and usability across different use cases."

"One area where I think Temporal could improve is its dashboard, particularly in event tracking. Currently, the dashboard doesn't show a time-based view of events, meaning it doesn't display when an event started or went through the retry process. If this feature could be added in a future release, it would significantly enhance monitoring capabilities. Other than that, Temporal's overall performance is quite impressive, and we're confident we can migrate to the Temporal workflow."

"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."

"One area for the product improvement is the learning curve."

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

"Temporal images aren’t FIPS compliant, and we have to be FIPS compliant."

"Temporal's debugging is a bit complex."

More Temporal cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"It is a little bit expensive."

"Cost-wise, it is good."

"It is not bad. The company can afford it, and it pays for itself. We have those jobs running automatically."

"This is an area where it is a little difficult to work with BMC. They want to do licenses by job, which is what we have. For example, the simplest is to license by job, but they can also license by nodes. While the licensing is simple to use, it might not be the correct licensing model for the customer. It is okay because we want to license by job, which is something measurable. At the end of the day, licensing by job is the most important."

"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."

"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."

More Control-M pricing and cost advice

"It is worth the price."

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

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

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

"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."

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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

More Control-M Competitors

Camunda vs Temporal

Compared 50% 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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