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BMC AMI DevX vs Gen comparison

 

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 Mainframe Application Development
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Software Configuration Management (1st), Debugging (6th), Database Development and Management (16th), Test Data Management (5th), Mainframe Testing Tools (1st), Data Masking (4th), AI Software Development (217th)
Gen
Ranking in Mainframe Application Development
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Mainframe Application Development category, the mindshare of BMC AMI DevX is 29.2%, down from 43.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Gen is 11.5%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mainframe Application Development Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
BMC AMI DevX29.2%
Gen11.5%
Other59.3%
Mainframe Application Development
 

Featured Reviews

FI
Devops Engineer / Ispw Admin at a insurance company with 201-500 employees
Tight deployment controls have secured production and simplified complex release rollbacks
The best feature of BMC AMI DevX Code Pipeline that impresses me is the fallback functionality. The fallback functionality impresses me because when developers deploy large releases involving multiple components, such as COBOL programs, underlying copy books, and CICS modules, backing out changes would typically become a nightmare. With ISPW, developers can back out the entire release or entire package. If they deployed 100 components and want to back out everything, they can do so with one function and back out all components without worrying about backing out each individual component. They can back out the entire deployment set, which handles everything and brings them back to the previous versions. Developers can also selectively back out a subset of the deployed components. They also have the ability to revert to not just the most previous version but can go back several versions if they choose to do so. This gives them a lot of flexibility.
IR
Consultant
Full packets enable software implementation on the mainframe and client sides
I rate it eight out of 10. It's just very powerful tool, very powerful product to use. Nowadays, there are a couple of mainframe companies, using mainframe products, so to be honest, I'm not recommending it. Of course, if you have mainframe and you have do something in the mainframe that’s different.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Once we got the configurations and deployment rolled out, it was very stable. I haven't had any major issues with Eclipse or the Topaz Workbench plugins."
"I like that Compuware File-AID can actually map out control sections within load modules, or, as they're now known, program objects."
"We have seen an improvement in the rate and level of quality at which we deploy changes."
"Test data management capabilities are good."
"My guess is this would have taken twice as long, or we would have had many more issues without using Xpediter."
"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."
"For bank applications, DB2 is the best on the market."
"With the use of ISPW, we were able to reduce our deployment time for specific applications by utilizing the auto-deploy features."
"CA Gen has provided us web development capability."
"If you’re writing a simple barebones COBOL program, it may take 20-30 hours, but with a solution like this it can be done in around four hours."
"It has lived long beyond what people thought was its life expectancy as a product, largely because it is such a quality tool that people can't replace."
"You can easily manage the code, and you can easily find other changes, other group changes, other models, other components."
"Coding on CA Gen is easy."
"If you want to be the first in market and you have a short time to generate, or to develop your application, and if you're looking for a platform that supports multiple frameworks, multiple platforms such as mainframe, Java, and .Net, or the others, you need a modelling tool, rather than a language or technology."
"Advantage Gen greatly enhanced productivity as well as development of solutions in mainframes, Client, and server applications."
"The so-called full packets, so you can develop software and systems using these packets, and implement software on the mainframe side and the client side."
 

Cons

"The only thing that bothers me about BMC AMI DevX Code Pipeline is the screen movement."
"Technical support has gotten better over the years, though there's always room for improvement."
"The solution could be improved by being better integrated with the open world. In the next release, I would like to have the ability to work in an open environment whilst remaining integrated with the legacy environment."
"The ISPW plugin could be improved to add some functionality which is already in ISPF panels and not in the plugin."
"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."
"It often doesn't play well with other plugins in the environment."
"It's not as intuitive as it should be. In terms of navigation, there is a large training curve for using it. For a millennial it might be better, if they're used to Eclipse. But coming from a non-Eclipse environment and using Eclipse, though I have experience with Eclipse, it might be cumbersome."
"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."
"Nowadays, there are a couple of mainframe companies, using mainframe products, so to be honest, I'm not recommending it."
"If I look into the native COBOL language it can be more efficient, and CA Gen adds what seems to be some unnecessary lines of code; it’s not an apples to apples comparison."
"I cannot use DB2 specifications, DB2 comments, easily."
"Personally, I think the tool has taken a turn for the worse."
"The product needs to be well marketed, then adopted. I am not seeing many customers using the product."
"The world is changing, the technologies are changing - COOL:Gen needs to change as well."
"The product needs to be well marketed, then adopted. I am not seeing many customers using the product."
"The weak side is, I cannot use the DB2 specifications, DB2 comments, easily."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has saved our developers time and effort when working on documentation, which is now more readable and fluent."
"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."
"In general, Compuware tools are very competitive."
"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."
"The price point is great."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
33%
Insurance Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise16
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with BMC Compuware Topaz Enterprise Data?
It's a very complicated tool. Sometimes the customer wants better, faster transaction times. They want the solution to move as fast as possible. We're trying to scale and grow our application with ...
What is your primary use case for BMC Compuware Topaz Enterprise Data?
We do development for our customers and we use Topaz to do backend systems for some Latin American banks. It's for enterprise data. It runs on AWS. I'm working on performance testing to do batch pe...
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Helvetia, The IMT Group, Hapag-Lloyd, Royal Bank of Canada, Chunghwa Telecom
Global bank
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC AMI DevX vs. Gen and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.