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BMC AMI DevX vs CA Harvest Software Change Manager 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 Software Configuration Management
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
Debugging (3rd), Database Development and Management (9th), Mainframe Application Development (1st), Test Data Management (2nd), Mainframe Testing Tools (1st), Data Masking (3rd), AI Software Development (23rd)
CA Harvest Software Change ...
Ranking in Software Configuration Management
10th
Average Rating
7.2
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Software Configuration Management category, the mindshare of BMC AMI DevX is 8.1%, down from 19.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CA Harvest Software Change Manager is 3.3%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
BMC AMI DevX8.1%
CA Harvest Software Change Manager3.3%
Other88.6%
Software Configuration 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_user572910 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Configuration Analyst at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Has helped us track the application flow across each of our environments, promotion from dev to our higher environments, to production.
One feature that we are looking for is traceability, and also merging. That is a little cumbersome right now. We have provided our feedback to their representatives so they can provide us a good merging capability next time. One thing that I would like to improve is making the tool a little more user friendly. It takes a little bit of time to adjust to the tool because it's a little different than other version control tools out there in the market. But, it has its own benefits and own security, but that user experience, if they're going to improve it, that would be really great.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"From a developer perspective, the main visible benefit I have seen is that it reduced the time needed to debug by 20 to 30 percent for troubleshooting tasks where DevX is applicable."
"With the use of ISPW, we were able to reduce our deployment time for specific applications by utilizing the auto-deploy features."
"The visual ability to see potential downstream impacts to changes being made assists our developers in understanding the impact associated with their change."
"We can develop in parallel today on ISPF, but it's giving us the advantage of the newer interface into the mainframe programming languages that younger programmers can use and are familiar with, rather than using the ISPF green screen."
"BMC AMI DevX tools have positively affected my developers' productivity and efficiency compared to prior solutions, with an estimated increase of almost thirty-three percent in overall productivity."
"The debugging is really the most important feature, enabling us to be able to step through."
"I like the ability that it has to format copy books in a presentable manner. So, you will be able to see the starting offset in length of each field within the layout."
"From a user perspective, the GUIs make it easier for people to see and interact with files on the mainframe."
"CA Mainframe Software Manager (CA Harvest SCM) provides a great way for us to store our source control."
"I have not encountered any stability issues."
"The most valuable feature I would say is we can integrate that with our change management process and use that to control what goes into production and what doesn't."
"The ability to give our teams functionality from a control perspective, allowing them to decide how they want to implement the tool, is valuable."
"Using this solution, we were able to implement a full process for all of our lifecycles."
"The auditing capability is one aspect that I would really recommend other colleagues to look into, because all the other version control tools out in the market provide speed, but the auditing capability is missing; the change management interaction; etc."
 

Cons

"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."
"Technical support has gotten better over the years, though there's always room for improvement."
"Initial setup can be tricky in some cases."
"The only thing that bothers me about BMC AMI DevX Code Pipeline is the screen movement."
"The area for improvement is related to the testing tools that are available for unit testing or acceptance testing. I know they have some out there that we are not licensed for at this time, but it seems like some of the Eclipse tools that are used for other programming languages, they're all just built-in and they're a little more intuitive to the developers. Making those testing tools as intuitive as possible, and as integrated as possible into the workbench, would be really beneficial."
"There are some features that are not well documented, so documentation could use a little help, on things like setting up deployment and which structures in the database correspond to which tables."
"I'm waiting to see what 19.2 for Topaz looks like, but I have a problem with the JES Explorer right now. It limits you to a certain prefix for job names and there are some groups that have multiple prefixes that they'd like to see all at once in their job names, because of how they work in a group. And they can't see that in the JES Explorer."
"Topaz Workbench often doesn't play well with other plugins in the environment."
"Technical support for this solution is very good, although they can still use improvement in some regards."
"When you're trying to do collaboration or when you're trying to cater to multiple users and developers who submit code changes, it gets challenging with Harvest."
"Security features can be improved."
"The features don’t always work as advertised."
"It needs to be simpler. This is the most difficult SCM tool I’ve ever used."
"One feature that we are looking for is traceability, and also merging. That is a little cumbersome right now."
"Password complexity is not enforced by the tool."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 general, Compuware tools are very competitive."
"It has saved our developers time and effort when working on documentation, which is now more readable and fluent."
"I like the seat-based licensing much more than MSU-based licensing, and that the cost has been competitive."
"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."
"Once you purchase your licenses, there is maintenance support that is renewed every year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise30
No data available
 

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
CA Harvest SCM, CA Software Change Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NRB, Iberdrola, Consorzio Servizi Bancari 
State of New Hampshire, Blue Hill
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC AMI DevX vs. CA Harvest Software Change Manager and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.