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BMC AMI Ops vs IBM Workload Automation comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 14, 2025

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

JAMS
Sponsored
Ranking in Workload Automation
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
BMC AMI Ops
Ranking in Workload Automation
28th
Average Rating
9.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Mainframe Management (4th)
IBM Workload Automation
Ranking in Workload Automation
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of JAMS is 2.8%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BMC AMI Ops is 1.4%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Workload Automation is 4.7%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
JAMS2.8%
IBM Workload Automation4.7%
BMC AMI Ops1.4%
Other91.1%
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2770605 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Engineer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Has streamlined complex job scheduling across scripting languages while reducing manual effort
JAMS could be improved with a web client that is accessible and as fast as a normal website, eliminating the need to RDP to the servers to access the JAMS client. A functionality running on the JAMS server to continuously check the JAMS agents would ensure they are working properly. If an agent is not responding, a feature to restart the service from the job server machine would be beneficial. The upgrade process, particularly when switching from V6 to V7, could be clearer in terms of documentation, ideally with screenshots showing exactly what needs to be done on each screen.
The service level and automated capacity manager functions allow us to control priorities, support SLA's and manage our 4HRA and reduce MLC for some software bills.
There currently is a WUI that allows an operator a single pane of glass to see how TM is performing to meet service policies within a JESMAS environment. This is a new feature and multiple individuals have expressed desire to not only see real time monitoring, but the ability to historically go back at least several hours or possibly an entire day to review history.
reviewer2701716 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Dynamic workload balancing facilitates efficient job scheduling and ensures continuity with a master-slave setup
One valuable feature of IBM Workload Automation is the ability to combine different applications and platforms to organize jobs together, creating dependencies. It's akin to an orchestra. Another feature is dynamic workload balancing, which I find enhances efficiency by automating job setup to run daily. Moreover, having a backup setup allows for immediate recovery if the master setup fails.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"JAMS is easier to use and cheaper than our previous solution. The installation is more straightforward, and JAMS has a graphical user interface, so it's more accessible."
"I like how you can add new execution methods on the fly. It isn't overly complex to add Python script support to an execution method in the JAMS system. The scheduling is excellent. You can schedule a maintenance window and take that resource unit out of everything. It halts all of the jobs."
"The planning capabilities are most valuable."
"The user-friendly and adaptable scheduler allows us to manage various scheduling scenarios."
"The built-in triggers are great."
"I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events."
"The alerting in it is really targeted... you can set specific alerting so that if jobs in a given folder fail, certain people are alerted. You can also set security at the folder level, so that only people in those areas can go set them. That means that the alerting and security can be set at a very granular level."
"I didn't know about JAMS because I don't have a person with any challenges with the purchase administration. The feature or the user interface is user-friendly because of the readable icons or very descriptive icons. Though I'm a beginning user of JAMS, I had no issues using it."
"Enabled me to solve production problems faster or even avoid them preemptively with warnings."
"The integration of IMS commands is very useful, because you do not have to switch to another tool to problem solve solutions."
"It offers features like MDM and a Windows workstation, although there are some technical dependencies. It is more user-friendly and also includes failover and failback capabilities. While both systems offer high availability, Control-M's high availability is superior to AWS's."
"The project we worked on involved the running of nearly 24,000 job instances in a single day, so I would say that the solution is stable."
"The technical support is great, the product is easy-to-use, and it is stable."
"IBM Workload Automation provides good performance and monitoring."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The whole product is valuable because it is a tool for batch automation."
"The support from Cisco is very good. I was with them as a company for 40 years"
"I recommend IBM Workload Automation as it's a well-established and stable product."
 

Cons

"The error messages from JAMS often need clarification, hindering our ability to resolve issues swiftly."
"All my machines at work are Macs. JAMS client is a Windows-based thing. It is all built on .NET, which makes perfect sense. However, that means in order for me to access it, I need to connect to a VPN, then log onto one of our Azure VMs in order to access the JAMS client. This is fine, but if for some reason I am unable to do so, it would be nice to be able to have a web-based JAMS client that has all the exact same functionality in it. There are probably a whole bunch of disadvantages that you would get with that as well, but that is definitely something that would make life easier in a few cases."
"It is important to receive notifications if a charged job fails and SQL is halted. JAMS does not provide halted notifications by default, which is a critical feature that needs to be added."
"Improvements could be made in the service desk's knowledge and communication skills among engineers to better address customer needs and ensure issues are fully resolved."
"As an admin, I would like to have a web-based GUI instead of a client application that we have to install on our PCs."
"The tabs in the JAMS file transfer could be clearer. It would help us demonstrate to our client that JAMS not only automates jobs but also does fast transfers, and it's an alternative that supports and filters different kinds of platforms. Filtering file transfers will be highly beneficial to them."
"The documentation is not super... It's not as quick and slick as I'd like it to be."
"If around 5,000 or more jobs run at a time, JAMS slows down, and we have to wait around five to 10 minutes or restart JAMS scheduler services."
"An expansion for distributed systems would be great, but probably not workable."
"More visualisation and support for mobile devices would be good."
"The solution should offer more free technical sessions to customers so that they can gain more experience or learn more about how to use it."
"IBM Workload Automation could be improved by reducing its cost. The maintenance charges have increased significantly, and a lower cost would be beneficial."
"It should support other schedulers that aren't IBM products."
"IBM needs to move away from its native terminology and adopt a more cloud-centric approach."
"It would be helpful to have a mobile app that could be used to follow the job schedule."
"The schedule refreshes daily and that's a challenge for us."
"It is missing some features and can improve in areas where the competition is somewhat better like linking job dependencies."
"There should be more custom documentation, specifically around Java APIs. There should also be more training. In terms of features, we are currently using only 50% of its features. We don't use all features that are available, but there is always room for improvement in all of the tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing is pretty cheap because we have a state solution. So, we pay only $1,000 a year."
"JAMS is close to the lower end of the pricing models for enterprise scheduling solutions. They are much cheaper than Control-M, as well as some other products that I've used. I also don't know of another solution where you can actually get true, unlimited licensing, where you can have as many instances and as many agents as you want."
"Fortra's JAMS pricing structure has deteriorated significantly since its acquisition by Fortra."
"It's certainly a lot cheaper than Tivoli and Control-M. In comparison to them, you get a lot more bang for your buck. You get pretty much the whole functionality and more, in some cases, when compared to Control-M, but at a fraction of the price."
"It's expensive, to be honest, but it does the job."
"In the end, you'll find that it's really worth the price. There is some sticker shock, but it's worth every dime."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"JAMS is relatively inexpensive, with additional costs only incurred for tags, other services, and optional support renewals."
"If you already use other products from BMC, you might be able to get a package deal from BMC's sales department."
"The solution's pricing is affordable."
"It is about one-third of the cost of a controller."
"Pricing depends on the number of agents that you install."
"The solution is a little bit expensive."
"The contract is with the customer with whom we are working, so IBM is not directly involved in this."
"To my knowledge, IWA is the only WLA product that will provide "parallel tracking" capability to assist in upgrading from one platform to IWA."
"We transitioned from a server license to per job license, and that saved us a lot money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Retailer
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise18
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about JAMS?
I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JAMS?
They recently switched to subscription-based pricing, which increased. The price is fair considering the functionalit...
What needs improvement with JAMS?
As far as we are using JAMS version 6, it looks good and there is nothing major to add about it. Everything is functi...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
I have worked from 1973 with all kind of systems in large enterprises across the world. And have experience with all ...
What needs improvement with IBM Workload Automation?
IBM Workload Automation could be improved by reducing its cost. The maintenance charges have increased significantly,...
What is your primary use case for IBM Workload Automation?
We use IBM Workload Automation ( /products/ibm-workload-automation-reviews ) as a scheduler. We install agents on the...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Workload Automation?
I recommend IBM Workload Automation as it's a well-established and stable product. However, the cost is a concern. Th...
 

Also Known As

No data available
BMC MainView, BMC Automated Mainframe Intelligence, Ops Monitoring, Ops Automation for Batch ThruPut
IBM Tivoli Workload Scheduler, IBM TWS
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Teradata, Arconic, General Dynamics, Yum!, CVS Health, Comcast, Ghiradelli, & Boston’s Children’s Hospital
Costco, Dell, Apple, Citi, AT&T, FedEx, Johnson&Johnson, Comcast, Caterpillar, Vodafone, Sysco, Google, Oracle, Microsoft, Walt Disney
Standard Life Group, Banca Popolare di Milano, A*STAR, ArcelorMittal Gent
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC AMI Ops vs. IBM Workload Automation and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.