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BMC AMI DevX vs CA Datacom comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 15, 2026

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

BMC AMI DevX
Ranking in Database Development and Management
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
Software Configuration Management (1st), Debugging (3rd), Mainframe Application Development (1st), Test Data Management (2nd), Mainframe Testing Tools (1st), Data Masking (3rd), AI Software Development (23rd)
CA Datacom
Ranking in Database Development and Management
27th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.6
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Database Development and Management category, the mindshare of BMC AMI DevX is 1.7%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CA Datacom is 1.2%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Development and Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
BMC AMI DevX1.7%
CA Datacom1.2%
Other97.1%
Database Development and Management
 

Featured Reviews

Mitanshu Shrimali - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Modern workflows have accelerated mainframe delivery and simplify understanding legacy code
BMC AMI DevX can be improved primarily by streamlining initial configuration and installation, simplifying advanced documentation, and enhancing UI/UX feature discoverability. While the platform successfully bridges modern IDEs such as VS Code with z/OS, user feedback highlights the need for simplifying setup and onboarding configuration. The initial installation and login process can be simplified. Although it feels complex initially, once completed, there is nothing to do with installation repeatedly since it is a one-time process. However, it is still somewhat complex. Basic tutorials are available that address teams implementing the configuration of multi-vendor tools and integration, but documentation gaps exist that frequently force heavy reliance on vendor support. Additionally, certain components across the workspace and diagnostic tools retain a legacy feel or hide powerful features behind deep menus, so UI/UX features can be simplified. Integrating with non-BMC enterprise testing or new CI/CD orchestrators can require custom engineering rather than native plug-and-play connectors. Optimizing large-scale performance is also important, as heavy resource consumption during deep runtime analysis for large-scale code mapping can impact performance over slower network connections for extremely dense application modules.
it_user489183 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Admin at a logistics company with 10,001+ employees
Scalability and the online maintainability of definitions are definite advantages for us
We've had it for so long, so it's status quo. But we've added all sorts of functionality to our applications and there are no issues with databases. Anything developers request, we're able to accomplish. Also, we deal a lot with government regulation - and not to talk about what the company does - but anything that they require of us, because we transmit data back and forth with them, we're able to do that with no problems. And there have been a lot of changes over the past five years that our government dictated regarding what we actually end up doing. So, we're able to be extremely flexible with that.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I think BMC AMI DevX has provided overall benefits and a positive impact because I've seen a lot of developers, not just the new developers, but even the old developers who have used the green screen their entire life, also developing with BMC AMI DevX and migrating into the newer screen."
"Otherwise, it works fabulously, and I think everyone should adopt it."
"The visual ability to see potential downstream impacts to changes being made assists our developers in understanding the impact associated with their change."
"BMC AMI DevX Code Pipeline is a solid product that any company can benefit from if they want to have tight control and a standard way of deploying applications into production in a secure manner."
"The most valuable feature of Topaz is Xpediter. It's more flexible than Xpediter through MVS."
"Compuware Xpediter is one of the best debugging tools for mainframe software development."
"BMC AMI DevX tools have enabled me to save approximately 30 to 40% of the time due to its AI capabilities and seamless integration with my CI/CD pipelines."
"ISPW is an excellent product; it does everything the developers need it to do, we were able to build it and customize it very simply as we became more familiar with how the system works during installation, and it doesn't need a lot of care and feeding once it's up and running."
"Scalability is definitely one thing. The size of the database can grow without any issues. We've got one database table that's got over a billion rows in it; quite a bit of data, and it handles access like a champ."
"The technical support staff with whom I have dealt are truly top notch; they understand whatever issue or question we might have and are able to supply quick and valid answers much of the time, or they fully engage in developing solutions when that is required."
"The initial setup is fairly straightforward for a mainframe product."
"They are very responsive; they are always ready to meet any questions that we have or any needs that we have, and we get very personal one-on-one support when we need it with just top-notch service."
"It is a solid product."
"Nowadays, CA is doing a lot of improving as far as online maintainability of definitions, which is a huge improvement over the past. I'm able to do a lot of changes without any outage."
"This product is very stable, compared to a lot of other DBMSs that run in our shop."
"It has cut down on our support, especially after hours, and it is a solid product that just works most of the time."
 

Cons

"Initial setup can be tricky in some cases."
"I'm always looking for improvement in things like the documentation, to make things a little bit easier and simpler to understand, a place where people can go to troubleshoot issues."
"One thing I would really like to see some improvement on is the promotion diagnostic messages. It invokes utilities "under the covers" to copy components, and it does not echo back any of the error messages from those utilities."
"The ISPW plugin could be improved to add some functionality which is already in ISPF panels and not in the plugin."
"I choose eight out of ten because of two frustrating parts: one is the navigation complexity sometimes, and the other is the configuration that gets erased over reboots or cleaning of the saved directory configs."
"Better discussions to identify inventory prior to the start of any migration would be helpful for potential clients that have applications with code that is not modified often."
"The customer support of BMC AMI DevX is good, although we occasionally experience delayed responses. Overall, we find it satisfactory. I would rate the customer support around a three on a scale of ten."
"I would recommend some additional functionalities for debugging production failures, as while BMC AMI DevX already offers features like Ab-end AID for automatic detection and analysis of failures, a more comprehensible approach would be much appreciated."
"I had trouble with an upgrade once but, when I have trouble with the upgrade there's always someone there to support me and get me through it really quickly."
"Something that we would like to see is for them to develop integration with open distribution systems."
"The only minor issue that we have had with Datacom is in the installation guide: Some of the sizings for the databases have not really worked out for us, so we had to go in and resize them."
"There are a lot of features that come out with each upgrade, but our application that runs on it has been around for a long time; they sort of decommissioned this application."
"There are still some things - and I know they are working on some of them - but for the "no-outage maintainability" of things, they are making improvements as we speak, but there is definitely still room for more of that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I like the seat-based licensing much more than MSU-based licensing, and that the cost has been competitive."
"In general, Compuware tools are very competitive."
"The only thing I would mention related to the licensing and/or the pricing, is that they have some visualization features in there that are licensed by concurrent users. We're starting to trip up on that. We're looking to probably increase the number of concurrent licenses that we have. But those types of licensing strategies, where they license by concurrent users or the number of seats is confusing for some people. They don't understand why it works sometimes and doesn't work other times."
"The price point is great."
"In terms of pricing, there isn't an extra charge for the parts of it we use. It comes with the licenses we purchased for other products, so no complaints there. The licensing is built in with the other products that you purchase from Compuware."
"It has saved our developers time and effort when working on documentation, which is now more readable and fluent."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Construction Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
9%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise30
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BMC Compuware Topaz Enterprise Data?
I do not have direct information about the setup cost and pricing and licensing. From the implementation perspective, I think the initial configuration can require some effort to align the product ...
What needs improvement with BMC AMI DevX?
I would suggest making the initial installation and configuration simpler, especially for new users. The login and startup experience could also be improved by reducing repeated login prompts and t...
What is your primary use case for BMC AMI DevX?
BMC AMI DevX is used primarily for mainframe application development and troubleshooting, particularly for COBOL and JCL. I use it to edit and navigate code, browse datasets, and submit jobs, and a...
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Also Known As

File-AID, Data for Db2, Code Debug, Data Studio, Workbench for Eclipse, Code Pipeline
DATACOM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NRB, Iberdrola, Consorzio Servizi Bancari 
Blue Hill Data Services Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC AMI DevX vs. CA Datacom and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.