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Ab Initio Co>Operating System vs Control-M comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Ab Initio Co>Operating System
Ranking in Workload Automation
29th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (47th)
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)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of Ab Initio Co>Operating System is 0.7%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Control-M is 23.1%, down from 26.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

AM
Enables creation of sophisticated applications with powerful parallelism and quick, effective support
The most valuable features of Ab Initio Co>Operating System are its performance and the ability to implement parallelism. There are three kinds of parallelism in Ab Initio Co>Operating System, which allow us to create very sophisticated solutions for almost any kind of application. This parallelism is one of the strongest features. Additionally, its scalability offers a unique way to escalate applications that differs from other technologies. In terms of data processing, the emphasis is on understanding the data. Data profiling is fundamental, and Ab Initio Co>Operating System integrates tools to perform this within the GDE, as well as specialized products for this purpose. Data profiling graphs can be implemented when necessary to understand the data sources.
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

"Ab Initio reaches the highest performance and is very flexible in processing huge amounts of data."
"Co>Operating System's most valuable feature is its ability to process bulk data effectively."
"Ab Initio Co>Operating System support is the best I have encountered."
"The workflow is much easier compared to the ACS services we were using."
"Self Service, BIM features are most valuable. As no need to login to EM client and check the job status."
"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."
"My organization has been able to script scheduled jobs in Control-M to potentially replace legacy products that are at end of life or end of service. The previous backup applications that were being used for specific files, folders, or applications were no longer being supported, therefore being able to use Control-M to replace that has been very valuable."
"The scheduling feature and scheduling tool are the most valuable features. I like the scheduling services that we have in Control-M, which are very beneficial to our organization because they are automating things. There is also less manual work. We can schedule a task without any manual interruptions."
"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 multiple scheduling options allow you to do anything you want, whenever you want, and however you want. You can easily be in control when things happen."
"We are now able to deliver data to our data warehouses and dashboards promptly."
 

Cons

"An awesome improvement would be big data solutions, for example, implementing some kind of business intelligence or neural networks for artificial intelligence."
"Co>Operating System would be improved with more integrations for less well-known technologies."
"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."
"With earlier versions, the support was not accurate or delivered in a timely manner. What would happen is that I would be in production mode and I would have an issue and would want to get someone on a call to see what was happening. But they would always say, “Hey, provide the log first and then we'll review and we'll get back to you." I feel that when a customer asks about a production issue, they should jump onto the call to see what is going on, and then collect the logs."
"An issue we have run into in our lower environments is that Control-M can log you out frequently."
"The downtime is higher compared to AWS."
"Consider adding a mobile application for remote management."
"It is a very strong product, but the reporting could be better."
"Its initial setup is a bit complex. They could provide more documentation and tutorials to make the initial setup easier to understand. Enhancing the documentation could simplify the setup process."
"Their technicians should be more involved when we're applying new technology to Control-M, such as cloud. We're working with cloud right now, with AWS, and getting the attention of a technician, sometimes, can take some time. It would be nice if they had somebody assigned to it. Dedicated support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Co>Operating System's pricing is on the expensive end since it tends to be used by big enterprises."
"The price is right because of the licensing schema, which is based on nodes and processes. You purchase what you use, no more and no less, and you can grow with time."
"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."
"The product price is reasonable. I rate the pricing an eight."
"Licensing costs are around $3000 a year."
"The annual licensing within BMC Control-M is on a per task basis. Three- and five-year contracts are also offered. The customer usually buys a bundle of tasks, e.g., 5,000 tasks, then my team configures Control-M for their usage."
"Initially, our licensing model was based on the number of jobs per day. That caused some issues because we were restricted to a number. So at our renewal time we said, 'We want to convert from number of jobs to number of endpoints.' That cost us extra money but it gave us additional capabilities, without worrying about the number of jobs."
"Its cost is a little bit higher than other solutions such as AutoSys or DAC. For the demo, there were some plans, such as start plan, scale plan, etc. Pricing was based on the plan."
"The pricing of Control-M is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
38%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
University
5%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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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.
 

Also Known As

Co>Operating System
Control M
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

A multinational transportation company
CARFAX, Tampa General Hospital, Navistar, Amadeus, Raymond James, Railinc
Find out what your peers are saying about Ab Initio Co>Operating System vs. Control-M and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.