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AWS Step Functions 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
9.5
AWS Step Functions reduce development time and costs, enhance scalability and reliability, streamline workflows, and improve ROI.
Sentiment score
7.4
Control-M enhances efficiency and reduces costs by automating operations, increasing productivity, and supporting large enterprise centralization.
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.
You can run a million batch jobs or tasks at night when all of your highly skilled people are at home sleeping.
It has reduced the total cost of ownership by 30% to 40%.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
AWS Step Functions support is generally effective, especially for enterprise users, though experiences can vary for smaller organizations.
Sentiment score
7.4
Control-M's support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, though complex cases need better communication and troubleshooting efficiency.
I use enterprise support, which is excellent, providing responses within fifteen minutes.
The speed of reply and the content of their responses usually solve the problems that arise.
The technical support is very polite, helpful, and available 24/7.
If something fails at 3 AM in the morning, you need to fix it and get it back up and working really quickly.
The immediate acknowledgment and solutions provided by BMC's support team make it stand out compared to other tools.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
AWS Step Functions is scalable and adaptable, efficiently handling high demand and diverse business needs for various users.
Sentiment score
7.7
Control-M is praised for scalability and robust functionality, though cost may be a concern for some enterprises.
They can handle multiple simultaneous requests effectively.
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
8.5
AWS Step Functions offers strong stability and reliability, ensuring uptime with contingency plans and integration of third-party services.
Sentiment score
7.7
Control-M is highly reliable with minimal glitches, praised for prompt support, regular updates, and high user satisfaction.
If one zone fails, others handle the demand, ensuring high availability.
The downtime is higher compared to AWS.
The testing and development phases need to be more rigorous before releasing patches.
The stability of the Helix Control-M solution is good.
 

Room For Improvement

AWS Step Functions needs better data handling, integration, pricing clarity, and dynamic coding to improve performance and usability.
Control-M needs upgrades in analysis, reporting, interface, cost, monitoring, scalability, and integration for better usability and competitiveness.
There is room for improvement in terms of integration with other products.
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.
What they've done about scheduling, other people are still trying to figure out.
 

Setup Cost

AWS Step Functions pricing is complex and variable, with mixed reviews on cost-effectiveness and integration benefits.
Control-M is costly but valued by enterprises for robust features, especially in banking and healthcare, with complex licensing.
Pricing for Step Functions is very cheap.
The cost is average, provided it is configured correctly.
The licensing cost is very high, and they often consider switching to IBM Workload Scheduler or other options.
Pricing is generally affordable, though some features cost a bit more.
The best cell phone will always be more expensive.
 

Valuable Features

AWS Step Functions simplify pipeline creation with integration, visualization, automation, and advanced workflows, enhancing application development and execution.
Control-M enhances enterprise operations with automation, seamless integration, cross-platform support, and advanced features for reliable, scalable workload management.
AWS Step Functions offers advanced workflows that save time and enhance efficiency by reducing delays and ensuring consistent orchestration among various services.
Step Functions provide seamless integration with AWS services, which enhances the speed of application development.
It was particularly valuable for its integration capabilities, allowing for execution of scripts and data migration.
Automation is more advanced, deployment is fast, and version control has been simplified.
The user interface is comprehensive and lets me view all my jobs on one page, monitor everything, and access the job history.
Control-M provides workflow orchestration, including scheduling, deploying, managing, and monitoring workflows.
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS Step Functions
Ranking in Workload Automation
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (12th)
Control-M
Ranking in Workload Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
122
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (2nd), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of AWS Step Functions is 1.6%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Control-M is 21.8%, down from 26.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alberto Marangon - PeerSpot reviewer
Automate complex workflows with seamless AWS integration
Step Functions provide seamless integration with AWS services, which enhances the speed of application development. The JSON app launched recently allows us to define data execution more easily. The Standard Workflows feature includes error replay capabilities, which are crucial for efficient error management. The Amazon State Language (ASL) in JSON format facilitates workflow automation and accelerates the deployment of Step Functions.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon Step Functions?
The integration capability is easy, whereas building state machines is tricky.
What is your primary use case for Amazon Step Functions?
The primary use case was the execution of scripts and data migration related to data lakes. We were using Python and other AWS Step Functions ( /products/aws-step-functions-reviews ).
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon Step Functions?
I would recommend AWS Step Functions to others. Overall, I rate AWS Step Functions an eight out of ten.
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?
It depends. It's packaged in such a way that you can buy the base model without all of the fancy stuff. You can try and keep your price similar to competitors. I guess it's natural throughout the w...
 

Also Known As

Amazon Step Functions, Step Functions
Control M
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Alpha Apps, The Guardian, SGK, Bigfinite
CARFAX, Tampa General Hospital, Navistar, Amadeus, Raymond James, Railinc
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Step Functions vs. Control-M and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.