BMC Helix Continuous Optimization vs IBM Turbonomic comparison

BMC Helix and IBM are both solutions in the IT Operations Analytics category. BMC Helix is ranked #27, while IBM is ranked #5 with an average rating of 9.0. BMC Helix holds a 1.2% mindshare in IOA, compared to IBM’s 1.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of BMC Helix users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of IBM users who would recommend it.

BMC Helix Continuous Optimi...

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100% willing to recommend

IBM Turbonomic

Read 205 IBM Turbonomic reviews

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189 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

BMC Helix Continuous Optimi...

IBM Turbonomic

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 7, 2025

BMC Helix Continuous Optimization and IBM Turbonomic are competing in the resource optimization and application performance category. IBM Turbonomic has the advantage with its superior feature set, offering higher value over BMC Helix's pricing and support.

Features: BMC Helix Continuous Optimization offers comprehensive capacity management, predictive analytics, and detailed reporting capabilities. In contrast, IBM Turbonomic provides proactive workload management, application performance assurance, and automatic scaling, excelling with its automation capabilities for efficient optimization.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: BMC Helix Continuous Optimization supports flexible deployment and emphasizes strong customer service for seamless integration and support. IBM Turbonomic ensures a streamlined deployment with expert service, key difference being its quicker deployment process, though BMC offers robust support.

Pricing and ROI: BMC Helix Continuous Optimization features competitive pricing with a clear ROI due to cost-effective resource management. IBM Turbonomic, despite higher initial costs, offers significant ROI through automation and performance enhancements, distinguishing itself with advanced capabilities justifying the investment.

To learn more, read our detailed BMC Helix Continuous Optimization vs. IBM Turbonomic Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

BMC Helix Continuous Optimization vs. IBM Turbonomic

January 2026

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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 Helix Continuous Optimi...

Ranking in IT Operations Analytics

27th

Ranking in Cloud Cost Management

35th

Average Rating

10.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Infrastructure Capacity Planning (1st)

IBM Turbonomic

Ranking in IT Operations Analytics

5th

Ranking in Cloud Cost Management

1st

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

205

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Migration (6th), Cloud Management (5th), Virtualization Management Tools (4th), IT Financial Management (1st), Cloud Analytics (1st), AIOps (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the IT Operations Analytics category, the mindshare of BMC Helix Continuous Optimization is 1.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Turbonomic is 1.9%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Operations Analytics Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Turbonomic	1.9%
BMC Helix Continuous Optimization	1.2%
Other	96.9%

IT Operations Analytics

Featured Reviews

Appperf677

Application Performance Mnagement Specialist at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Enables us to right-size systems to free up resources, and identify performance problems down to the process level

Since I already have a sneak peek into the next releases, I'm very happy about what's going to be included. I would like to see continued support for the legacy parts of the tool, the old, seasoned parts that are very valuable to me. That is a message I continue to give to BMC: All the new stuff's great, but don't take away this really important stuff. That's my biggest fear, that I might lose some of my old functionality that is still extremely valuable. I want to make sure we don't lose any functionality, and that they just still keep delivering on what they're doing. I don't have anything more to ask than what they're offering.

Read full review

Dan Ambrose

Infrastructure Engineer 4 at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

Helps visibility, bridges the data gap, and frees up time

We use IBM Turbonomic in a hybrid cloud environment. Although it supports multi-cloud capabilities, we currently operate in a single-cloud setting. Turbonomic offers visibility into our environment's performance, spanning across applications, underlying infrastructure, and protection resources. The visibility and analytics help to bridge the data gap between disparate IT teams such as applications and infrastructure. This is important for awareness collaboration, cost saving, and helping to design and improve our application. Enhanced visibility and data analytics have contributed to a significant reduction in our mean time to resolve. Tools like Turbonomic provide crucial visualization and insights, empowering us to make data-driven decisions instead of relying on assumptions as we did before. This newfound transparency translates to a massive improvement, going from complete darkness to having a clear 100 percent view of the situation. Although our applications are not optimized for the cloud we have seen some improvement in response time. IBM Turbonomic empowers us to achieve more with fewer people thanks to automation. Previously, customers frequently contacted us requesting resource increases to resolve issues. Now, we have a tool that allows us to objectively assess their needs, leading to a deeper understanding of our applications. This solution also generates significant cost savings in the cloud and optimizes hardware utilization within our data centers. Its AI algorithm intelligently allocates servers on hosts, maximizing efficiency without compromising performance. By fine-tuning resource allocation without causing performance bottlenecks, Turbonomic extends the lifespan of existing hardware, postponing the need for new purchases. This effectively stretches our capital expenditure budget. We started to see the benefits of IBM Turbonomic within the first 60 days. IBM is a fantastic partner. Their tech support has been outstanding, and the product itself is excellent - a very solid offering. By automating resource management with Turbonomic, our engineers are freed up to focus on more strategic initiatives like innovation and ongoing organizational projects. Previously, manually adding resources was a time-consuming process that interrupted workflows. Now, automation handles scaling efficiently, saving us thousands of man-hours and significant costs. It has illuminated the need for SetOps. It has highlighted areas of overspending, and the actions we've taken have demonstrated significant cost savings. IBM Turbonomic has positively impacted our overall application performance. IBM Turbonomic has helped reduce both CAPEX and OPEX. It has also significantly reduced cloud build times.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most interesting feature is certainly the simulation of the load using different servers or different KPI parameters of the business."

"We ingest a ton of business data. We are an insurance company and we have business data, like how many quotes are done an hour, and how many policies are sold per hour. The correlation engine in the new TrueSight Capacity Optimization components are wonderful. We can do correlation analysis over months of data, and then we run models to tell our business: 'If you do 1,000 more quotes an hour, we're going to have to upgrade, and we're going to need this much more hardware.'"

"Workload characterization is super important because it lets us figure things out. Many people know, for example, that with Microsoft Word, Word.exe is the executable. Everybody knows their executable, but they don't always know what it does. It also launches other things. This tool has the ability and insight to track those things, and to know: "Oh, you wanted this executable, but this one started this, so you must want this, too." And it tells you what it had to add, what it was using or was spawning."

"The tool provides the ability to look at the consumption utilization over a period of time and determine if we need to change that resource allocation based on the actual workload consumption, as opposed to how IT has configured it. Therefore, we have come to realize that a lot of our workloads are overprovisioned, and we are spending more money in the public cloud than we need to."

"It became obvious to us that there was a lot more being offered in the product that we could leverage to ensure our VMware environment was running efficiently."

"I have the ability to automate things similar to the Orchestrator stuff. I do have the ability to have it do some balancing, and if it sees some different performance metrics that I've set not being met, it'll actually move some of my virtual machines from, let's say, one host to another. It is sort of an automation tool that helps me. Basically, I specify the metric, and if I get a certain host or something being over-utilized, it'll automatically move the virtual machines around for me. It basically has to snap into my vCenter and then it can make adjustments and move my virtual machines around. It also has some very nice reporting tools built around virtual machines. It tells you how much storage, memory, or CPU is being used monthly, and then it gives you a very nice way to be able to send out billing structure to your end users who use servers within your environment."

"It has automated a lot of things. We have saved 30 to 35 percent in human resource time and cost, which is pretty substantial. We don't have a big workforce here, so we have to use all the automation we can get."

"The ability to monitor and automate both the right-sizing of VMs as well as to automate the vMotion of VMs across ESXi hosts."

"We have seen a 30% performance improvement overall."

"The solution has a good optimization feature."

"We have a system where our developers automate machine builds, and that is constantly running out of resources. Turbonomic helps us with that, so I don't have to keep buying hardware. The developers always say, "They don't have enough. They don't have enough. They don't have enough," when they just configured it improperly. Therefore, Turbonomic helps us identify configuration issues on their side so it doesn't cost me money on the other end to buy resources that I don't really need."

More IBM Turbonomic pros

Cons

"Some of the data management is painful. Some of the new features haven't been implemented in quite the way I would like to get to levels of detail. For example, Visualizer parser doesn't take everything it should out of the Visualizer files. We've had to put in a work-around, but the work-around is not as accurate as what's in the file."

"The memory management of Java application servers should be implemented to be able to size GC and footprint."

"In Azure, it's not what you're using. You purchase the whole 8 TB disk and you pay for it. It doesn't matter how much you're using. So something that I've asked for from Turbonomic is recommendations based on disk utilization. In the example of the 8 TB disk where only 200 GBs are being used, based on the history, there should be a recommendation like, "You can safely use a 500 GB disk." That would create a lot of savings."

"It can be more agnostic in terms of the solutions that it provides. It can include some other cost-saving methods for the public cloud and SaaS applications as well."

"Additional interfaces would be helpful."

"Turbonomic doesn't do storage placement how I would prefer. We use multiple shared storage volumes on VMware, so I don't have one big disk. I have lots of disks that I can place VMs on, and that consumes IOPS from the disk subsystem. We were getting recommendations to provision a new volume."

"The issue for us with the automation is we are considering starting to do the hot adds, but there are some problems with Windows Server 2019 and hot adds. It is a little buggy. So, if we turn that on with a cluster that has a lot of Windows 2019 Servers, then we would see a blue screen along with a lot of applications as well. Depending on what you are adding, cores or memory, it doesn't necessarily even take advantage of that at that moment. A reboot may be required, and we can't do that until later. So, that decreases the benefit of the real-time. For us, there is a lot of risk with real-time."

"Remove the need for special in-house knowledge and development."

"There are a few things that we did notice. It does kind of seem to run away from itself a little bit. It does seem to have a mind of its own sometimes. It goes out there and just kind of goes crazy. There needs to be something that kind of throttles things back a little bit. I have personally seen where we've been working on things, then pulled servers out of the VMware cluster and found that Turbonomic was still trying to ship resources to and from that node. So, there has to be some kind of throttling or ability for it to not be so buggy in that area. Because we've pulled nodes out of a cluster into maintenance mode, then brought it back up, and it tried to put workloads on that outside of a cluster. There may be something that is available for this, but it seems very kludgy to me."

"We're still evaluating the solution, so I don't know enough about what I don't know. They've done a lot over the years. I used Turbonomics six or seven years ago before IBM bought them. They've matured a lot since then."

More IBM Turbonomic cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Right now, the licensing structure is by server. Everybody is licensed somewhat differently, depending on how big they are, how many licenses they have."

"The pricing and licensing are fair. We purchase based on benchmark pricing, which we have been able to get. There are no surprise charges nor hidden fees."

"I don't know the current prices, but I like how the licensing is based on the number of instances instead of sockets, clusters, or cores. We have some VMs that are so heavy I can only fit four on one server. It's not cost-effective if we have to pay more for those. When I move around a VM SQL box with 30 cores and a half-terabyte of RAM, I'm not paying for an entire socket and cores where people assume you have at least 10 or 20 VMs on that socket for that pricing."

"We felt the pricing was very fair for the product. It is in no way prohibitive for larger deployments, unlike other similar product on the market."

"The pricing is in line with the other solutions that we have. It's not a bargain software, nor is it overly expensive."

"The product is fairly priced right now. Given its capabilities, it is excellently priced. We think that the product will become self-funding because we will be able to maximize our resources, which will help us from a capacity perspective. That should save us money in the long run."

"It's worth the time and money investment if you can afford it."

"I'm not involved in any of the billing, but my understanding is that is fairly expensive."

"It is an endpoint type license, which is fine. It is not overly expensive."

More IBM Turbonomic pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

25%

Energy/Utilities Company

13%

Healthcare Company

Transportation Company

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	41
Midsize Enterprise	57
Large Enterprise	147

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Turbonomic?

It offers different scenarios. It provides more capabilities than many other tools available. Typically, its price is set as a percentage of the consumption of some of our customers' services. The ...

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What needs improvement with Turbonomic?

The implementation could be enhanced.

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What is your primary use case for Turbonomic?

We use IBM Turbonomic to automate our cloud operations, including monitoring, consolidating dashboards, and reporting. This helps us get a consolidated view of all customer spending into a single d...

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Comparisons

OpenText Cloud Optimizer vs BMC Helix Continuous Optimization

Compared 18% of the time

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Compared 18% of the time

ITRS Capacity Planner vs BMC Helix Continuous Optimization

Compared 17% of the time

DX Performance Management vs BMC Helix Continuous Optimization

Compared 16% of the time

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VMware Aria Operations vs IBM Turbonomic

Compared 8% of the time

Densify vs IBM Turbonomic

Compared 6% of the time

Spot by Flexera vs IBM Turbonomic

Compared 5% of the time

Azure Cost Management vs IBM Turbonomic

Compared 4% of the time

Cloudability vs IBM Turbonomic

Compared 4% of the time

More IBM Turbonomic Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

BMC Helix Continuous Optimization vs. OpenText Cloud Optimizer

December 2025

BMC Helix Continuous Optimization report

Download BMC Helix Continuous Optimization product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Turbonomic

January 2026

Download IBM Turbonomic product report

Also Known As

BMC Capacity Optimization, TrueSight Capacity Optimization, BMC Helix Optimize, BMC Helix Continuous Optimization

Turbonomic, VMTurbo Operations Manager

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

BMC Helix

IBM

Overview

BMC Helix Continuous Optimization is a comprehensive performance and capacity management solution designed to help enterprises optimize IT resources, enhancing operational efficiency while managing costs effectively.

It provides predictive analytics and modeling capabilities, allowing businesses to meet evolving demands seamlessly. By proactively identifying resource constraints and predicting future trends, BMC Helix Continuous Optimization assists organizations in aligning IT resources with business objectives. This strategic approach ensures optimized performance, resource allocation, and cost management with enhanced insights.

What are the key features of BMC Helix Continuous Optimization?

Predictive Analytics: Utilizes advanced algorithms to forecast future resource requirements.
Capacity Planning: Facilitates strategic planning to manage capacity effectively.
Anomaly Detection: Identifies unusual patterns that could impact performance.
Customizable Dashboards: Provides insights with tailored views for better decision-making.

What benefits can be expected from BMC Helix Continuous Optimization?

Cost Reduction: Optimizes resource usage to lower operational costs.
Increased Efficiency: Enhances productivity by aligning resources with demand.
Improved Forecasting: Accurate predictions help with strategic planning.
Risk Mitigation: Early detection of performance issues reduces downtime.

BMC Helix Continuous Optimization is leveraged by industries like financial services, healthcare, and telecommunications to ensure resource efficiency. These sectors benefit from predictive modeling and capacity planning capabilities, enabling them to adapt to fast-changing conditions while maintaining optimal performance.

BMC Helix

IBM Turbonomic offers automation, planning, and right-sizing recommendations to streamline resource management, improve efficiencies, and optimize costs across virtualized environments and cloud platforms.

IBM Turbonomic is valued for its capability to optimize resource allocation and monitor virtual environments efficiently. It facilitates automated decision-making in VM sizing, load balancing, and cost optimization for both on-premises and cloud deployments. Users can leverage insights for workload placement, ensure peak performance assurance, and effectively right-size across VMware and Azure. The ongoing transition to HTML5 aims to improve visual and navigational ease, while expanded reporting features are anticipated. Opportunities for improved training, documentation, and integrations enhance platform usability and functionality.

What Are the Key Features?

Automation: Streamlines resource allocation and VM management.
Planning Tools: Supports capacity management and growth projections.
Right-Sizing: Optimizes VM configurations for efficient resource use.
Customizable Dashboards: Provides quick insights into environment health.
Reporting Capabilities: Offers valuable data for informed decision-making.
Cloud Integration: Ensures cost-effective resource utilization.

What Benefits Should Be Looked For?

Performance Enhancement: Improves application performance efficiency.
Cost Reduction: Minimizes operational expenses through optimizations.
Infrastructure Efficiency: Maximizes use of IT infrastructure resources.

In finance, IBM Turbonomic aids in maintaining platform efficiency during market fluctuations. Healthcare organizations leverage its capability for resource optimization during high-demand periods to enhance patient care support. Retailers use it for planning in peak seasons, ensuring resources align with fluctuating demand to maintain performance continuity.

IBM

Sample Customers

Dilliard's

IBM, J.B. Hunt, BBC, The Capita Group, SulAmérica, Rabobank, PROS, ThinkON, O.C. Tanner Co.

Buyer's Guide

BMC Helix Continuous Optimization vs. IBM Turbonomic

January 2026

Free Report: BMC Helix Continuous Optimization vs. IBM Turbonomic

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